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International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank member, will provide a €64 million ($70 million) loan to Morocco-based Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company (ECCBC) to reduce its water and energy consumption across its operations in 13 countries in north and west Africa.
As part of the financial package, IFC will provide €52 million loan from its own account, €8.5 million from the Canada IFC Blended Climate Finance Programme and €3.5 million from the Alafaq Aljadida Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Private Sector Development programme.
The funds will be used for climate investments and enable the company to progress on its climate agenda, IFC said in a statement.
ECCBC's strategy, developed with IFC's support over the last two years, involves upgrading or replacing production lines to be more efficient, establishing a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) collection and recycling programme in Algeria, replacing coolers in its distribution network for energy savings, installing solar panels at bottling plants, and piloting solar-powered retail coolers in Ghana and Morocco.
In addition, IFC will provide advisory services to help the soft drink producer to implement sustainability measures.
ECCBC operates seven bottling plants and 44 production lines in Africa.
(Writing by P Deol; Editing by Anoop Menon)
