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Investors with 88.9 million shares of The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) stock,
worth more than $4 billion, voted to support a shareholder resolution
on recycling at the company's annual meeting today.
Supporters
of the recycling resolution secured enough support to bring the proposal
back again next year, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
rules governing shareholder proposals.
"We
did better than expected," said Lance King, speaking on behalf of environmental
groups and individual investors supporting the recycling proposal. "When
you combine the yes votes and those who abstained, roughly 10 percent
of the votes went against the Coca-Cola management's recommendation
opposing the recycling resolution. That's an excellent result for a
first vote on any shareholder resolution."
Conrad
MacKerron, representing the Education Foundation of America and Walden
Asset Management, co-sponsors of the shareholder resolution, made the
presentation in support of the shareholder proposal.
The
non-binding proposal calls for Coca-Cola to achieve two specific recycling
goals by January 1, 2005: Make plastic bottles with 25 percent recycled
plastic and take steps to achieve an 80 percent recycling rate for Coca-Cola
bottles and cans.
"Recycling
rates for beverages sold by Coca-Cola and its competitors dropped dramatically
in recent years, as plastic bottles and other throwaway beverage containers
proliferate," said Pat Franklin, a Coca-Cola shareholder and executive
director of the Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit Container Recycling Institute.
Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Douglas Daft said that Coca-Cola
plans to use 10 percent recycled plastic in its bottles by 2005 and
the company is working with a newly formed alliance called BEAR - Businesses
and Environmentalists Allied for Recycling.
Institutional investors co-sponsoring the shareholder
recycling resolution called on Coca-Cola to stop opposing bottle bills
or come up with another method to achieve the 80 percent recycling rate,
which is the current average in states with refundable deposits.
In Wednesday afternoon trading, Coca-Cola stock was
up 84 cents to $46.54 a share.
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