Swire Beverages: Implementing CSR in China

Swire Beverage, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in China, recently created a corporate social responsibility (CSR) organization to oversee environmental, community, health and safety initiatives at the companies' nine bottling plants in China. The case considers organizational design decisions in setting up the committee to oversee the diverse CSR initiatives that occurred in the dispersed plant locations, and the ongoing work to better connect CSR activities to Swire Beverage's brand and business strategy. Furthermore, the Swire Beverage CSR team needed to balance the interests of important stakeholders such as the Coca-Cola company, and corporate parent John Swire and Sons. Finally, the case also illustrates some of the key challenges of implementing CSR programs in China, particularly the difficulty of finding suitable NGO partners.