{"id":612701,"date":"2026-04-17T10:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/612701\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T10:20:16","slug":"coca-cola-indicates-it-could-walk-away-from-containers-for-change-scheme-in-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/612701\/","title":{"rendered":"Coca-Cola indicates it could walk away from Containers for Change scheme in Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Coca-Cola has indicated it could walk away from the Containers for Change scheme in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/queensland\" title=\"Queensland\" target=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Queensland<\/a>, after the government proposed an overhaul.<\/p>\n<p>The government introduced legislation to strengthen the governance of the scheme last month after a parliamentary inquiry heard allegations of conflicts of interest, unfair contracts, misleading conduct, and bullying.<\/p>\n<p>In a submission to the government, the multi-national beverage company \ufeffargued the legislation goes &#8220;well beyond reasonable oversight&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/deed92d2-7701-48d7-ac49-6675b6f98054.jpeg\"   alt=\"\"\/>Coca-Cola could walk away from the Containers for Change 10c refund program in Queensland, if new legislation is passed to give the government more oversight. (Getty)<\/p>\n<p>It said\ufeff the amendments will &#8220;increase governance risk and reduce industry confidence&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Further, it will create real, practical challenges for CCEP&#8217;s (Coca-Cola Europacific Partners) continued participation in COEX&#8217;s governance and may necessitate a reassessment of our involvement.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>COEX is the non-profit responsible for administering the scheme, of which CCEP is a founding member.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry had found that COEX had invested &#8220;comparatively little&#8221; of its own funds into community or environmental initiatives and did not have a &#8220;transparent plan&#8221; to do so.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While the scheme has generated more than $2.5 billion in revenue since inception, less than 40 per cent has been returned to Queenslanders through refunds, and less than 2 per cent has gone directly to charities.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It argued COEX does not have a \ufeff&#8221;transparent plan for reinvestment in environmental or charitable programs&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry also made referrals to the state&#8217;s Crime and Corruption Commission.<\/p>\n<p>Environment minister Andrew Powell said anyone could share their views as part of the committee process.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have introduced legislation to strengthen the scheme&#8217;s governance after a scathing report exposed its serious failures under the former Labor government,&#8221; Powell said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A parliamentary committee is looking at proposed changes to strengthen the container refund scheme, and anyone can share their views as part of this process.\ufeff&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coca-Cola has indicated it could walk away from the Containers for Change scheme in Queensland, after the government&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-612701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}