Why start a campaign at your university?
Key arguments for denying Coke our business
Why start a campaign at your university?
As students, we have a great deal of power to pressure Coca-Cola to stop its abuses. This is true for many reasons. As anyone who has seen Coke's TV commercials and advertisements or read their latest company report, Coca-Cola views young people, and particularly students, as its highest priority demographic target. To the company, young people are potential “customers for life.”
Thus, this campaign is of great concern to Coca Cola as evident by their increased contact with NUSSL and their attempts to manouvre around the problems by trying to buy goodwill, through the establishment of a $10 million Social fund, which does not help Sinaltrainal, and the Coca Cola Water Sustainability Scholarship at Oxford University. While research is needed, it is a question of whether its benefits to society counter the adverse effect of allowing Coca-Cola off the hook and to continue with unsustainable water practices in India.
The potential of our campaign is enormous with many far reaching implications. In the short term, aside from the possible non-renewal of the contracts, Coca Cola's unaccountable practices will be in the spotlight, giving a degree of protection to SINALTRAINAL as well as putting intense pressure on the company to respond appropriately to the demands of the communities in India and Colombia . In the long term the campaign will serve as an example of what can be achieved by students, empowering them to take action.
Many students have been inspired by the bravery of SINALTRAINAL and the resistance of the Indian communities and this has given many of us involved in UKSAC the energy with which to campaign. We hope that in turn the campaign within our universities will inspire people to say 'no more' to the abuses caused by Coca Cola and other unethical companies.