MSU wins $400,000 from Coca-Cola Company to create packaging innovation, sustainability center

Published: Jan. 23, 2009 
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Improving the global sustainability of product packaging took a meaningful step forward with a new collaboration proposed by The Coca-Cola Company and Michigan State University. Coca-Cola awarded $400,000 to MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to help establish a new Center for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability.

The planned center, to be housed in the MSU School of Packaging, will serve as a think tank for packaging innovation and sustainability and a research and education hub to measure and reduce packaging’s environmental impact. The Coca-Cola grant represents the initiating gift in a campaign to establish the global center.

"The Coca-Cola Company is honored to collaborate with Michigan State University in its quest to bring corporate, academic and packaging professionals together to foster new ideas in sustainable packaging,” said Ingrid Saunders Jones, senior vice president of global community connections for The Coca-Cola Company.

“Our company has set ambitious environmental goals to not only deliver quality products, but to also have minimal impact on the environment. Research and work generated through this collaboration with MSU will assist us in reaching our goals,” she said.

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