Big brands get a hard time for there social impact credentials, and so they should! And none come much bigger than Coca-cola. However, when a brand actually starts to learn from it’s mistakes and create real brand value through sustainable innovation, their efforts should also be championed.

The Coca-Cola Company, DEKA R&D, IBM, IDB Group, McCann Health, NRG Energy, Inc, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and UPS®, have announced they will work together to bring EKOCENTER– a kiosk designed to improve the well-being of communities – to 20 countries by the end of 2015.

Coca-Cola’s announcement brings to action its 2012 commitment with DEKA R&D to provide safe drinking water to communities through the Slingshot water purification system, ensuring communities are more sustainable.  This means they will place between 1,500 and 2,000 units in the form of EKOCENTERs, “downtowns in a box,” or Slingshot water purification systems to deliver further services beyond clean water, in Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America by the end of 2015.

Each EKOCENTER will offer a locally tailored mix of products, services and resources that may include safe drinking water, sustainable energy, wireless communications, refrigerated vaccination storage, health education, and other functionality to jump-start entrepreneurship opportunities and community development. Through this commitment, they aim to deliver 500 million liters of safe drinking water, while promoting greater local development in communities that need it most.

Women and entrepreneurs from local communities will be recruited to operate each EKOCENTER, creating new opportunities for employment in the communities where we install and operate EKOCENTER. Entrepreneurs selected to operate the EKOCENTERs will be given business skills training designed to economically empower 5 million women entrepreneurs across Coca-Cola’s value chain by 2020.