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Woke Company Report

Coca-Cola – Woke Company Report

C87/100 higher is better
Originally published October 24, 2026
Coca-Cola's headquarters tower in Atlanta, seen from the northeast beside the Guggenheim Building.
Photo: Coca-Cola headquarters tower and Georgia Tech's Guggenheim Building, Atlanta. DXR, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped, via Wikimedia Commons.

Full report

Points deducted by category

  1. DEI hiring, pay & suppliers: 9/15 points deducted
    • 10-K (fiscal 2025, filed Feb 20, 2026): "We aspire to develop a global workforce with diverse perspectives, experiences and backgrounds that reflect the broad range of consumers and markets we serve around the world." The 2026 proxy repeats this aspiration. (source)
    • Coca-Cola's Canada website still has a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion page (live, Oct 24, 2026) stating: "It's our ambition by 2030 to have women hold 50% of senior leadership roles at the company, to have race and ethnicity representation reflect national census data at all levels in the U.S." (source) Coca-Cola's U.S. website still shows a 2023 "Diversity, Equity & Inclusion" card, but its link to the corporate DEI page now returns an error (checked Oct 24, 2026) (source).
    • For 2023, 10% of the formula for executive annual bonuses was based on "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Components." These included progress in "representation of women in leadership globally and people of color in leadership in the U.S." (source)
    • Board recommended AGAINST a 2025 shareholder proposal asking the pay committee to "consider eliminating discriminatory DEI goals from compensation inducements." The board said it had "substantially implemented the proposal," and for 2025 incentive awards the pay committee "decided to use the existing financial measures." (source)
    • Reversal: The 2024 bonus kept the 10% weighting, renamed "Inclusion Components." For 2025, the pay committee "decided to use the existing financial measures" for bonuses and long-term awards, which removed the inclusion goals from executive pay. (source)
  2. Internal policies & benefits: 0/10 points deducted
  3. Free speech, debanking, deplatforming & anti-military/anti-American conduct: 0/15 points deducted
  4. Political giving (PAC, treasury, leadership): 0/10 points deducted
  5. Advocacy, lobbying & public statements: 0/15 points deducted
  6. Marketing, products & content: 4/10 points deducted
    • A Pride collection (T-shirts, a hoodie and a bottle) is sold on the official Coca-Cola Store (read Oct 24, 2026). (source)
  7. Charitable & activist funding: 2.5/10 points deducted
    • "Where We Stand on Social Justice" (company site, June 2020; now offline, archived copy): then-CEO James Quincey announced "$2.5 million in grants from The Coca-Cola Foundation" to the Equal Justice Initiative, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund "in support of the 'Policing Reform Campaign,'" and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. The company said it would match employee donations to these groups. (source)
  8. ESG, activist investing & industry/regional boycotts: 1/10 points deducted
    • The 2024–2026 executive stock awards still in force tie 10% of the payout to two environmental measures: recycled-plastic (rPET) use and water replenishment (2026 proxy). (source)
    • Reversal: Stock awards granted from 2025 on use only financial measures. (source)
  9. China & foreign-adversary ties: 1/5 points deducted
    • Coca-Cola's own federal lobbying reports for 2020 list the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (H.R. 6210 / S. 3471) and describe the issue as "Establishment of a consistent enforcement mechanism to ensure imports are not produced by forced labor." The New York Times reported (Nov 29, 2020) that Coca-Cola was among the companies lobbying to weaken the bill. Coca-Cola told the paper it "strictly prohibits any type of forced labor in our supply chain" (disputed). (source, source)
  10. Election & voting-law activism: 3/10 points deducted
    • CNBC interview, Mar 31, 2021: then-CEO James Quincey said of Georgia's Election Integrity Act of 2021 (SB 202), "This legislation is unacceptable. It is a step backwards," and "This legislation is wrong and needs to be remedied." (source)
  11. Border & immigration enforcement: 1.5/10 points deducted
    • Jan 30, 2017 company statement from then-CEO Muhtar Kent on that week's travel executive order, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times: "We do not support this travel ban or any policy that is contrary to our core values and beliefs." (source)
  12. Faith, family & children: 0/10 points deducted
  13. Climate & anti-fossil-fuel advocacy: 0.5/10 points deducted
    • 10-K (fiscal 2025) refers to "our emission reduction goals." (source)
  14. Second Amendment & lawful-firearms commerce: 0/10 points deducted
  15. Government-coordinated content moderation: 0/10 points deducted
  16. Abortion advocacy, benefits & funding: 0/10 points deducted
  17. American Workers & H-1B Displacement: 0/10 points deducted

Final verdict: Grade C

Grades run A (best) to F (worst) on a 0–100 scale, where a higher score is better: every company starts at 100 and loses points for each finding. Every finding links to its source. See how we rate for the scale and the category caps.