Stakeholders and materialities

The Coca-Cola HBC Group’s Integrated Annual Report, published annually, complies with the principles of the International Integrated Reporting Council and is prepared in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative and ESRS standards. In the local report, which serves no regulatory purpose and is an overview of information for local stakeholders, we have this year again followed the renewed structure of last year’s report based on EY Denkstatt's Gap analysis.

2024 THROUGH THE EYES OF STAKEHOLDERS AND FINANCIAL MATERIALITY

Coca-Cola HBC has performed rigorous materiality assessments for many years. We assess our impacts on people and the environment as part of our daily activities, engaging with relevant stakeholders and experts, and considering emerging sustainability trends. This approach allows us to actively identify and manage our evolving impacts, risks and opportunities (IROs) as the business develops. We conduct our formal materiality analysis annually. For 2024, we undertook a double materiality analysis (DMA) as per the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) requirements, and this is our first year of reporting on this basis. Having assessed both impact materiality and financial materiality, we created our materiality table disclosing each material topic from either perspective (impact or financial) or both perspectives. The most important topics for our stakeholders were sustainable packaging and carbon footprint.

Stakeholder Forum – hearing from our stakeholders on what matters most

Stakeholder engagement is essential to grow our business and fulfil our purpose. Engaging and collaborating with various stakeholders facilitates better business decisions and alignment with commitments. Our key internal and external stakeholders include investors, employees, customers, consumers, suppliers, governments and regulators, The Coca-Cola Company and local communities. We also engage with other businesses through trade associations and universities.

Every year, we hold a Stakeholder Forum, to discuss our material topics with a group of experts. In 2024, our theme was ‘Harnessing the Circular Economy for Packaging – driving change through innovation and collaboration’, a topic of significant importance both to us and to many of our key stakeholders. During the event, we welcomed 160 participants, including customers, suppliers, NGO partners, academics, policymakers, investors and other interested parties, from more than 30 countries.

Discussions covered four key topics:

• Empowering consumers to adopt circular packaging solutions.
• The future of recycling and the role of innovation and technology.
• Reusable packaging systems and how to successfully scale these models.
• Creating value through strategic partnerships.

The Forum’s central message was the importance of aligning business growth with sustainability to ensure long-term resilience and success. Our stakeholders shared valuable insights and recommendations, including:

• Sustainability has evolved beyond an environmental imperative; it is now a social asset that shapes consumer identity and brand engagement.
• Progress depends on collaboration – partnering with our suppliers and stakeholders will accelerate innovation in sustainable packaging, from new materials to advanced recycling technologies.
• Sustainable choices must be made more attractive, accessible, and convenient for everyone.
• Achieving sustainability goals requires building networks, sharing ideas and collaborating on common solutions.
• Profit and purpose can, and must, co-exist effectively.

These insights have been reviewed by the Social Responsibility Committee and we will work to implement the Forum’s recommendations. We will also engage with our stakeholders, sharing the actions we are taking, throughout the year.

LEARNING FROM OUR STAKEHOLDERS

Besides the annual stakeholder forum, which we organize at group level, we actively seek out our stakeholders’ opinions and insights by:

• interviewing key internal decision makers and external partners.
• conducting 26 in-depth interviews for our impact materiality with global stakeholders representing the main stakeholder groups: investors, shareholders, customers, industry associations, NGOs, local communities, suppliers and international institutions such as the UN Global Compact and the International Organisation of Employers.
• engaging with external stakeholders on an ongoing basis.
• surveying the local external stakeholders during the materiality surveys for the local business unit sustainability reports.
• considering the material issues list of TCCC and other bottlers as well as other food and beverage companies.
• regular Employee Engagement surveys for our own employees.
• reviewing the feedback received via our ‘SpeakUp!’ line, consumer link, social media, company’s contacts/emails and customers’ surveys;
• joint sustainability events with peer companies and customers at local business unit level.
• interviews for specific topics done by external auditors during the ISO audits, workplace accountability and suppliers audits.
• listening to feedback from our Group Risk and Compliance committee and all risk registers of our markets.

Hearing from our stakeholders on what matters most is essential for us. Every year, we bring together (in virtual format) a group of diverse stakeholders to formally review our sustainability performance and to understand their expectations for the future.

Read more about the group approach to linking our actions to the SDGs or the results of a study on the impact of our business on natural capital here.