Coca-Cola HBC - Austria bottling plant

A Coca-Cola HBC bottling plant in Austria

The Coca-Cola Company and its bottling partners around the world have closed a $138m (£105.6m) venture capital fund focusing on sustainability investments.

Managed by VC firm Greycroft, the fund will focus on investments in packaging, heating and cooling, facility decarbonisation, distribution and supply chain, with the aim of reducing the drinks giant’s carbon footprint.

The Coke parent company and its eight global bottling partners, including Uxbridge-headquartered Coca-Cola Europacific Partners and London-listed Coca-Cola HBC, each invested $15m (£11.5m) into the Greycroft Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund.

The eight bottlers make up almost half of Coke’s volumes across the world.

“This fund offers an opportunity to pioneer innovative solutions and help scale them quickly within the Coca-Cola system and across the industry,” said Coke CFO John Murphy.

“We expect to benefit from getting access to emerging technology and science for sustainability and carbon reduction.”

Dana Settle, Greycroft co-founder and managing partner, added: “The market for sustainable supply chain and manufacturing technology has continued to grow as consumer brands rise to meet the demands of environmentally conscious customers.

“Greycroft has an ‘invest anywhere’ approach that we believe allows us to identify promising startups with climate tech solutions ready to scale.”