PepsiCo UK's environment report plots 'path to zero'

Path to zero, PepsiCo UK and Ireland's second environmental sustainability report, sets out how Pepsico UK and Ireland will radically reduce our impact on the environment.

The commitments made in the report cover climate change, agriculture, water use, our products and the way Pepsico work with others.

The details as described on Pepsico UK and Ireland's website:

Fossil fuel free

Our target is to be fossil fuel free by 2023. To achieve this stretching target, we will make investments to ensure that all energy used in PepsiCo UK manufacturing and distribution will be from renewable sources within 15 years and increase the total share of our electricity from renewable sources to 14% in 3 years. One fifth of our electricity is now sourced from renewable sources, and we have a road map to ensure all future energy comes from renewable sources. We have also pledged to replace our entire delivery fleet with the latest low-emissions vehicles and to reduce our energy use by a further 20% per kg of production.

Richard Evans, President of PepsiCo UK and Ireland said:

"I'm pleased that amidst the economic challenges presented by the last year, we have delivered good progress against many of our commitments. However, our journey on the "path to zero"does not end here. We have set ourselves purposefully stretching targets to unplug from the water grid, become fossil fuel free, reduce packaging and landfill waste and increase our use of renewables. For me, the business case is clear;building sustainability into our corporate DNA cuts costs, drives innovation, reduces risk and motivates employees. My challenge over the next few years will be to truly embed sustainability into every aspect of our business."

Passionate about growing

We have set an ambitious target of a 50% reduction in agricultural carbon emissions of key growers by 2015 and a 50% reduction in water impact of key growers who operate in water stressed areas by 2015. We will drive this forward with our i-crop precision farming technology – a revolutionary web-based crop management tool developed in conjunction with Cambridge University and current being trialled by a number of PepsiCo potato farmers and our Cool Farm Tool – a computer programme for measuring carbon emissions on the farm.

For further information on our journey to increase sustainability in agriculture, see our Sustainable Farming Report 2010.

Caring about water

Our long term ambition is to unplug PepsiCo UK operations from the water grid achieving zero water intake at our largest manufacturing sites within 10 years. We have successfully trialled the technology to extract the water from our potatoes to reuse in the factory, and now hope to take to scale this up, and we have reduced water use at British manufacturing sites by 13% per kg of production. We have also pledged to extend water risk screening to our farmers and invest in research to understand what a PepsiCo UK net positive water impact would like at a local level and how to achieve it.

Walter Todd, Vice President of Operations at PepsiCo UK and Ireland said:

Products with Purpose

By 2018, we want our product packaging to be renewable, recyclable or compostable. We will do this through achieving zero landfill waste across our supply chain within 10 years and ensuring all Quaker and Walkers packaging is renewable, recyclable or biodegradable in the same time period. To date, nine of our manufacturing and distribution sites have achieved zero landfill waste with total landfill waste reduced by 71%. We are trialling new packaging types, including the FSC paper-based packaging on our Red Sky crisps, which will be rolled out to Quaker and other Walkers products in the next 3 years.

Collaborative leadership

Our pledges to transform our business will involve ingenuity, investment, and new areas of business capability. But they will also require us to be a catalyst for change – working with suppliers to reduce their impact, supporting public policies that set a framework to strip carbon out of the whole economy, and successfully engaging consumers on sustainability. We have made a commitment to use our influence to encourage wider action on environmental sustainability, for example by supporting public policies that drive the transition to a low-carbon economy, including a floor in the price of carbon.

Commenting on the PepsiCo UK Environmental Sustainability report, Matthew Spencer, Director of Green Alliance, said: