Energy and Resources Institute

At the University of Michigan, where the Coca-Cola company has been placed on probation until December 31, 2006, the company has itself chosen a group in India, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to "develop a transparent and impartial independent third party assessment of water resource management practices at Coca-Cola company facilities in India."

Indian communities have rejected the choice of TERI to conduct the assessment because of the close relationship between the two organizations. Coca-Cola is an active funder of TERI's activities, and TERI has also named Coca-Cola as the most responsible companies in India in a survey. The two organizations have collaborated extensively in the past, and TERI has also organized Earth Day with the "support of Coca-Cola."

"Swarthmore College must insist that the investigation into the issues in India is indeed third party and independent for it to withstand scrutiny. The choice of TERI by Coca-Cola in the past to investigate its activities makes a mockery of generally understood principles of fairness, and the Swarthmore College must insist on a separate entity," said Amit Srivastava.^[1]

The Swarthmore College press release can be found at http://www.swarthmore.edu/x8347.xml

The objections to the choice of TERI by Coca-Cola to develop the investigation is at http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2006/1052.html

Directors

Dr Alok Adholeya, Director, Biotechnology and Management of Bioresources Division Ms Preety Bhandari, Director, Policy Analysis Division Ms Akanksha Chaurey, Associate Director, Programme of Distributed and Decentralized Generation Ms Sangeeta Gupta, Director, Information Technology and Services Division Mr Shahid Hasan, Associate Director, Regulatory Studies and Governance Division Mr M M Joshi, Director, Administrative Services Dr Banwari Lal, Director, Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division Dr Sameer Maithel, Director, Energy Environment Technology Division Mr Amit Kumar, Associate Director, Energy Environment Technology Division Dr Kapil Kumar Narula, Associate Director, Policy Analysis Division Dr Maria Ligia Noronha, Director, Resources and Global Security Division Dr T S Panwar, Associate Director, Policy Analysis Division Mr Ibrahim H Rehman, Director, Action Programmes Division Dr S K Sarkar, Director, Regulatory Studies and Governance Division Mr Rajiv Seth, Registrar, TERI University Mr Girish Sethi, Associate Director, Energy Environment Technology Division Mr R P Singh, Associate Director, Administrative Services Ms Annapurna Vancheswaran, Associate Director, Sustainable Development Outreach Division

Website

http://www.teriin.org/

References

1. ^ http://www.indiaresource.org/news/2006/2063.html