Environmental Sustainability

At PepsiCo, we are committed to minimizing the impact our business has on the environment with methods that are socially responsible, scientifically based and economically sound. After more than a decade of action, we continue to apply solutions to challenges like energy efficiency, water conservation and responsible packaging innovation that are pioneered in one part of our business and then taken to scale throughout our global network.

We continuously improve our environmental programs and explore inventive solutions to the world's challenges. We operate in a way that minimizes our environmental footprint with the goal of reaching a net-neutral impact. We've focused our environmental sustainability efforts on water, energy, packaging and solid waste - areas where we can make the biggest impact.

View the PepsiCo Environmental Policy

In 2007, PepsiCo agreed on rigorous, corporation-wide global metrics to help us better track and understand our environmental footprint. Our goal is to reduce water consumption by 20 percent, reduce electricity consumption 20 percent, and reduce fuels consumption by 25 percent per unit of production by 2015 as compared to our 2006 consumption.

We continue to make positive impact and have achieved significant results. In 2007, our beverage businesses reduced water consumption by 9 percent, electricity consumption by 9 percent and fuels consumption by 7 percent. Our food businesses reduced water consumption by 6 percent, electricity consumption by 3 percent and fuels consumption by 3 percent.

We have renowned environmental scientists and technical experts who are knowledgeable of leading edge scientific research and discoveries so we can leverage our operational capabilities to help make a difference.

We have in place a global eco-efficiency strategy for resource conservation (RECON) within our operations that helps us optimize our water, energy and electricity use through improved methods and technologies. We extend this strategy to our bottlers and co-packers through workshops around the world.

We have formed a series of partnerships with key external stakeholders to provide us with additional insights, expertise and knowledge on multiple aspects of sustainability. We will continue to actively lead and engage in key private-public partnerships to spur action and solutions to address the urgency of the world's environmental issues.

Water is essential for all foods: growing, washing, processing and cooking. It is the essential ingredient in our beverages. How much water we use is important and we are committed to minimizing our water footprint through greater efficiency across our operations. We know that where we source our water is just as critical with stressed sources causing damage to local communities and eco-systems, which is why we work with our suppliers to reduce their water footprint and help avoid water conflict with local communities. We are also actively engaged in improving access to clean water around the world through alliances with non-profit groups.

Our Efforts Include:

• Conserving water in our operations
• Reducing water use in agriculture
• Assist organizations working to bring safe water to developing countries

While using water responsibly throughout our business is a top priority, we also believe in our ability to address the broader problem of water scarcity. In India, for example, where agriculture accounts for over 80 percent of total fresh water consumption, PepsiCo is working with farmers to reduce water intensity in paddy cultivation by around 30 percent through direct seeding of paddy, a technique that avoids the traditional flood irrigation method currently practiced by paddy growers across the country. Paddy is India's largest grain crop, and consumes the bulk of fresh water used in Indian agriculture. In 2007, PepsiCo piloted this program on 100 acres, and this was scaled up to cover 1,000 acres in 2008. If only 6,000 acres of paddy cultivation were shifted to direct seeding this would offset all the water used in PepsiCo India's beverage plants.

Climate change may adversely affect the raw materials and other supplies we use, including water and agricultural products. We are working to reduce our use of energy and transform our business model, including identifying opportunities to replace our existing use of oil, gas and fossil fuels in manufacturing with renewable energy sources.

Our Efforts Include:

• Reducing consumption in our operations
• Expand our use of renewable energy in our operations

We distribute our products in a variety of packages, each carefully designed to deliver convenience and appeal to our consumers while protecting the integrity of our products. Through ongoing engagement with our packaging suppliers, we are working towards using the most environmentally suitable packaging available in the country of operation.

We follow five principles of sustainable packaging design:

• Reduce: using less material in our packaging, to conserve natural resources
• Reuse: increasing use of reusable packaging and increasing the amount of recycled material in our packaging
• Recycle: designing packaging for recycling and developing biodegradable and compostable packaging solutions
• Remove: eliminating environmentally sensitive materials and processes from our packaging
• Renew: increasing use of renewable material resources

View our Packaging Sustainability Policy

PepsiCo understands the critical role agriculture plays in all aspects of our business. Our products depend on a safe, high-quality, and affordable supply of agricultural raw materials to meet the demands of our business as well as the expectations of our consumers, customers and other stakeholders. Our aim is to ensure PepsiCo has continued access to the key agricultural raw materials necessary to supply growing consumer needs, while respecting the environment and communities involved in producing those raw materials

Learn more about the policies that inform our agriculture practices in our Global Sustainable Agriculture Policy.

Download the Sustainable Agriculture Policy (PDF, 40.4KB)