The Green Pepsi Generation

“CSR for Dummies” is an Earth911.com series highlighting the different pledges and commitments made by companies in regards to product stewardship and recycling. Companies and services featured do not pay for placement and are not endorsed by Earth911.com.

PepsiCo is an international conglomerate that employs approximately 185,000 people worldwide, and its products are sold in approximately 200 countries. With this clout, PepsiCo has the means and incentive to drive environmentally conscious changes in its industry.

Pepsi released its CSR report, “Performance with Purpose,” at the end of last year. Since it’s almost time for the next one, the company recently released an update to tell investors (and consumers) how it is doing on the goals set in the last report. Keep in mind that PepsiCo’s CSR is written within a “reporting framework” called GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), which larger companies follow so their reports can be measured  “apples to apples.”

Like many companies today, PepsiCo is trying to make the world better a better place, while at the same time helping its bottom line. This dual mission includes meeting consumer needs for convenient foods and beverages, but also reducing the company’s impact on the environment through water, energy and packaging initiatives. It also supports its employees through a diverse and inclusive culture that recruits and retains world-class talent.

Pepsi has made significant progress toward its long-term environmental sustainability goals, which include making the following reductions by 2015, as compared to 2006 levels:

• Water consumption by 20 percent
• Electricity consumption by 20 percent
• Fuel consumption by 25 percent per unit of production

In order to attain these goals PepsiCo has launched a number of initiatives:

Recycling

Among these environmentally conscious programs, the company practices a wide variety of recycling strategies:

• PepsiCo’s beverage cans are made from 40 to 50 percent recycled aluminum.
• At Frito-Lay, cartons used to transport bags of chips to retail stores are reused several times before recycling, reducing the demand for paperboard in the U.S. by 250,000 tons annually.
• Its paperboard recycling  saves more than 4.5 million trees from being harvested and diverts about 500 million pounds of cardboard from landfills annually.

Water

Across the world, PepsiCo has saved nearly 1.5 billion gallons of water in 2007 compared to 2006. To do this, the company uses a combination of new technology, information sharing and employee initiatives that reduce water consumption and increase reuse.

In the U.S., the company is using a proprietary air-rinse technology to clean newly manufactured Gatorade and Propel bottles with air instead of water, saving almost 150 million gallons of water per year.

Comprehensive “water mapping” was instituted at manufacturing facilities at the Walkers crisps business in the United Kingdom, reducing the amount of water used per kilogram of crisp by 42 percent between 2001 and 2007. Additionally, its India beverage business conserved over 500 million gallons of water in the last two years.

Electricity

PepsiCo also purchased renewable energy certificates (RECs) to equal 100 percent of purchased electricity used by all of its U.S. facilities. The three-year purchase of more than 1 billion kilowatt-hours annually became the largest purchase to-date.

Additionally, at the Tropicana facility in Bradenton, Fla., the orange juice storage system was converted from an ultra low-temperature freezer system to cool refrigeration that preserves the juice’s freshness without freezing it. Ironically, this change improved the taste of the juice, while it saved the equivalent electricity needed to power over 7,000 houses.

At the Quaker facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the development of an innovative milling process saves almost three million kilowatt hours of electricity per year – the same amount used by 250 typical American homes.

Fuel

The Frito-Lay manufacturing facility in Modesto, Calif., inaugurated a solar concentrator field made up of large curved mirrors that move with the position of the sun, focusing the heat into tubes of glass filled with water. The water is converted into steam, which helps heat the cooking oil used to make SunChips.

In addition, there are two U.S. PepsiCo manufacturing facilities that use landfill gas, thereby reducing their consumption of fossil source fuels. At several facilities in India, PepsiCo uses local biomass material to run plants more efficiently with less impact on the environment. Similarly, Frito-Lay is installing a new biomass boiler in its Topeka, Kan., facility that will use wood waste for fuel. In Mexico, the Sabritas business conserved enough fuel in one year to serve 3,400 homes.