“Coke’s zero tolerance for land grabs proves difficult to fulfil,” 25 Mar 2015

…Coca-Cola…has made a good start in axing land grabs from its supply chain, but it must work harder in proving that its bottlers and sugar suppliers do not violate land rights, development experts told the company. Coke declared two years ago that land grabbing is unacceptable, and…pledged to help protect land rights of local communities, including evaluating its top 16 cane sugar-sourcing countries by 2020. In the first of those reports released earlier this month, Coke said it found no evidence of land rights abuses by five sugar mills it buys from in Guatemala...However,…[a] land expert…said the report was too superficial, relying on the word of sugar mill operators without digging deeply into their land acquisition methods…Coke…acknowledged that more work lies ahead for the company to live up to its 2013 pledge…But the company is determined to “do its best and get its arms around it”…