PepsiCo has saved more than more than 12 billion liters of water through efficiency improvements, compared to a 2006 baseline, bringing the beverage company closer to meeting its goal to improve water use efficiency by 20 percent per unit of production by 2015, according to the company's 2009 Corporate Citizenship Report.
This year's report is focused on the company's 47 commitments that will guide the company through the decade, covering nutrition, environmental sustainability, and workplace practices.
Here are several environmental sustainability highlights..
PepsiCo replenished nearly six billion liters of water across India, which exceeds the total intake of approximately five billion liters of water by PepsiCo's India manufacturing facilities, and committed more than $13 million since 2007 to provide safe access to water in China, India, Brazil and Africa through the PepsiCo Foundation.
PepsiCo's goal: to provide access to safe water to three million people in developing countries by the end of 2015.
PepsiCo also reduced its per unit use of energy at its beverage plants by 16 percent and by seven percent at snack plants in 2009 compared to a 2006 baseline. The company set goals to improve its electricity use efficiency by 20 percent per unit of production by 2015, and to cut its fuel use intensity by 25 percent per unit of production by 2015.
PepsiCo also commits to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity for U.S. operations by 25 percent through its partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Climate Leaders program.
Here's one example of how PepsiCo is cutting its energy use and carbon footprint. The company's Gatorade manufacturing facility in Guadalajara, Mexico, implemented a heat recovery project that uses heat from thermally processed beverages to preheat the cool product coming into the pasteurizer. This helps save 73,000 liters of fuel, 105,000 kWh of electricity and 2 million liters of water, preventing the emissions of more than 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.
In the area of packaging, PepsicCo introduced the first fully compostable SunChips bag, which is made with renewable plant-based materials.
PepsiCo incorporates at least 10 percent recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) in its primary soft drink containers in the U.S., and plans to expand the use of rPET across key international markets. As an example, Naked Juice, which is a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is using post-consumer recycled PET for its clear 32-ounce plastic bottles.
PepsiCo set goals to reduce packaging weight by 350 million pounds, avoiding the creation of one billion pounds of landfill waste by 2012, and to create partnerships that promote the increase of U.S. beverage container recycling rates to 50 percent by 2018. One of those partnerships is with Waste Management.
In 2009, 14 Frito-Lay manufacturing facilities disposed less than one percent of solid waste to landfill. The company says the remaining 18 facilities will achieve nearly "zero landfill" by the end of 2011.
In addition, almost all waste generated at the more than 30 Frito-Lay plants is reused or recycled. As an example, the 20 million pounds of potato peelings and corn hulls are sent to livestock farms for use as feed.
Over the past five years, Frito-Lay has eliminated 150 square miles of packaging by reducing materials by 10 percent. The company consumes 150,000 tons less paperboard each year by reusing its shipping cartons up to six times.
