Bode's letter states that "Coca-Cola’s new refrigeration policy could be perhaps one of the most important legacies of Sydney's Green Olympic Games" and "I commend your taking a decisive leadership role on this issue."

Greenpeace Olympics campaigner Blair Palese said, "Greenpeace has been campaigning in its offices around the world to change Coca-Cola’s polluting HFCs." "If Coca-Cola can make this change, so too can the other Olympic sponsors such as McDonald’s."

On Wednesday, Coca-Cola announced that it would phase out the use of the potent greenhouse gas hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) (1) in refrigeration by the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. It will expand its research into refrigeration alternatives and insist that suppliers announce specific time schedules to use only HFC-free refrigeration in all new cold drink equipment by 2004.

In May, Greenpeace launched a worldwide campaign to expose Coca-Cola’s use of polluting HFCs. The organisation called on the company, as a sponsor to what is likely to be the world’s first Green Olympics in Sydney (2), to phase out HFCs and move to safer, more environmental alternatives (3). Greenpeace demanded the company commit to 100 percent environmentally friendly Greenfreeze technology at the Sydney Olympics, phase out HFCs and specify all new equipment to be Greenfreeze technolgy.

Greenpeace hopes to continue working with the company to overcome any hurdles in delivering its new policy and to work with other companies, both Olympic sponsors such as MacDonald's, and others, to follow Coca-Cola’s lead and phase out the use of HFCs.