Corona USA Hopes to Turn the Tide on Pollution

Corona USA recently unveiled its “Protect Our Beaches” initiative, a multi-year commitment to remove one million pounds of plastic from beaches and its business by the brand’s 100th birthday in 2025.

To aid in the effort, Corona partnered with Oceanic Global, a nonprofit leader in ocean conservation - to spearhead 20 cleanup events throughout the country this year as well as consult with the brand to help minimize single-use plastic across its business.

“Corona’s Protect Our Beaches program is a multi-year, brand-led initiative to help turn the tide on plastic pollution,” says Ann Legan, vice president of brand marketing for Corona. “As an always-on mission, Protect Our Beaches brings the purpose that is deeply embedded within Corona’s DNA to the forefront. This program is more than a ‘beach clean-up’; it is a series of actions that can unite communities across the country. Not only is Corona pledging to reduce its plastic usage, the brand is also spearheading high-impact cleanups to drive local action and bring the care to some of the nation’s most polluted beaches.”

To accomplish its goal of removing one million pounds of plastic by 2025, Corona is spearheading high-impact cleanups in some of our nation’s most polluted areas, hosting smaller community clean-ups to drive local action, and offering Clean Up Kits, helping to inspire and enable consumers to take action as well.

Corona will host 20 consumer cleanup events across the country to bring communities together and enable people to be part of the solution. Adhering to local safety guidelines, the cleanups began this month and will run through September.

“Corona has long been synonymous with the beach because of what beaches represent -- special places beside the ocean and our waterways that have the power to relax and refresh our perspectives,” says Legan. “This has been the heartbeat of the brand for nearly 100 years, and Corona truly believes that there is no such thing as a ‘better tomorrow’ without our beaches. That’s why Corona is on a mission to protect the place that’s closest to its own heart -- and the heart of many consumers -- committing to preserving these special destinations for generations to come.”

Corona and Oceanic Global are offering the toolkit to inspire consumer cleanup efforts that includes all the essentials needed to clean up a local waterway or beach. The toolkit comes in a cardboard box with gloves, a reusable mesh bag, and plantable seed card with a QR code that unlocks access to Corona’s Beach Clean Up Guide and will direct people to find a local clean up event in their area. The seed card, when planted, grows into a lime tree, a classic companion to Corona beer. They are being sold on CoronaUSA.com for $10.

“The state of our oceans is dire. We are currently dumping up to the equivalent of two garbage truckloads of plastic in the oceans every minute, pushing the ocean’s ecosystems past their limits,” Lea d’Auriol, founder of Oceanic Global said in a statement. “We all must take immediate action to ensure the health of our oceans and beaches, for today and for the future. We are proud to support an iconic brand like Corona in taking action and inspiring others to do the same.”

Legan says Oceanic Global is the perfect partner for this initiative.

“It’s a true symbiotic relationship because they can help the Corona brand approach a complex challenge strategically, and we can help them continue to tackle the challenge with additional scale,” she says. “With a matched passion to safeguard our most treasured beaches, partnering with this respected and credible organization seemed like a no-brainer.”

To kick off the initiative, Corona hosted a high-impact cleanup in the environmentally endangered lands of the South Dade Wetlands within the Biscayne Bay near Miami. The cleanup yielded more than 30,000 pounds of plastic waste.

“The program has intrinsically changed the way Corona views its packaging and promotional products, and has inspired the brand to leverage its presence at retail in a meaningful way,” says Legan. “This year, rather than simply celebrate the beach visually on our LTO Corona summer packaging, we will include a QR code that people can scan for a chance to win an eco-friendly beach getaway, or a collection of beach-friendly gear. The sweepstakes will run until August 15, 2021.”