Action on society: Our communities
Being a force for good in our communities
We’re determined to make a positive difference in society by promoting economic development in our local communities.
Many of our communities face significant social challenges, including high levels of youth unemployment and social exclusion. We want to act as a force for good by supporting local community partnerships and by helping disadvantaged young people gain the employability, skills and confidence they need to succeed. We also help address these issues across our territories by offering our people the opportunity to dedicate up to two paid working days a year to volunteer in local community programmes.
Our actions in our communities helps to support UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 and UN Sustainable Development Goal 11.
Over the last two years, CCEP volunteers have worked alongside youth workers, supporting our programme and giving more than 150 young people the chance to explore their potential and understand the journey into employment.
Patrick Shaw-Brown
Director of National Programmes UK Youth – GB
Our 2025 commitments
- Employee volunteering
- Community support
We’ll expand the contribution we make to society by increasing our employee volunteering and supporting local community partnerships.
Our employees play an important role in supporting our local community partnerships and volunteering their time to take part in a wide range of activities connected to our sustainability commitments, such as litter pick-ups, charity sports events or youth mentoring schemes.
In 2019, we introduced a new volunteering policy enabling all employees to use two paid working days every year volunteering for a charity or cause of their choice.
We’ll support initiatives which help young people gain the employability, skills and confidence they need to succeed.
We believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to fulfil their potential – whether it’s by gaining meaningful employment, learning a new skill or starting a business.
We focus our investments on local community partnerships, with a particular focus on initiatives which help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds gain the employability, skills and confidence they need to succeed.
Our progress in 2019
Our stories
In GB, we continue our work to deliver ‘Reach Up’, a programme CCEP developed in partnership with the charity UK Youth. The programme engages 16-24 year olds who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) or at risk of becoming NEET, providing life-skills workshops, employability training and real-life work experience. Twelve ‘Reach Up’ cohorts have taken place so far, supported by a donation of £250,000 to enable the expansion of the scheme.
In 2019, we supported Berlin Foodbank’s “Donate Your Deposit” project with a donation of €30,000 for the Berliner Tafel supporting 125,000 individuals in need. In addition, we support the German foodbanks through corporate volunteering – including over 4,950 hours of volunteer time in 2019.
In 2019, we extended our partnership with the Red Cross in Norway with a new three year agreement focused on providing job training for young people. We also held our third barista training workshop in partnership with the Oslo Red Cross. It provides vulnerable young people an insight into the world of coffee and the skills required to become a barista.
With 8 years of experience in supporting and training vulnerable young people in Spain through our GIRA Youth initiative, 2019 saw us go a step further through our inaugural ‘Driving the Change’ programme. In helping young people from rural backgrounds gain employability and entrepreneurship skills and take part in training sessions on the Sustainable Development Goals, we want to empower them to be agents of change. The programme had 229 participants from 9 different educational centres across Spain. We aim to include over 400 people in the next round of ‘Driving the Change’ from across the country.