PepsiCo, Inc. today published its first Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Summary since the launch of PepsiCo Positive (pep+), a strategic end-to-end business transformation with sustainability and human capital at the center of how the company will create growth and value. The 2021 ESG Summary – an evolution from PepsiCo’s prior Sustainability Reports – highlights how the company is leveraging its brands, people and scale to chart a new course to drive positive action for the planet and people. It also highlights progress made on industry-leading commitments. 

pep+ is embedded in every part of PepsiCo’s business and the 2021 ESG Summary details initial progress and real-world examples across three pillars – Positive Agriculture, Positive Value Chain and Positive Choices. Highlights include:

Positive Agriculture 

• Helped to spread the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices across more than 345,000 acres – progress toward its goal of seven million acres, the approximate equivalent of PepsiCo’s agricultural footprint, by 2030.
• Supported the livelihoods of female farmers and rural communities via initiatives such as the $20 million USAID partnership to develop women-led enterprises and the $2 million Next Generation Agriculture Fund with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), to demonstrate the impact of gender-smart solutions along our agricultural supply chains in Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala. These programs mark initial action towards a new pep+ goal to improve the livelihoods of more than 250,000 people in PepsiCo’s agricultural supply chain and communities, including by economically empowering women.

Positive Value Chain

• Reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25 percent from a 2015 baseline, with more than 70 percent of global electricity needs in direct operations now met by renewable sources. In 2021, Scope 3 emissions – which account for 93 percent of the company’s emissions – increased by 5 percent from a 2015 baseline, due largely to unprecedented business growth.  
• Improved operational water-use efficiency by 18 percent in high water-risk areas from a 2015 baseline, against a target of 25 percent by 2025 and replenished 34 percent of water used in operations to local watersheds in 2021– more than 6.1 billion liters of water. In addition, PepsiCo continued to advance safe water access globally to more than 68 million people since 2006, putting the company more than halfway to its 2030 goal of 100 million people. 
• In the U.S., increased Black managerial representation to 8.3 percent and Hispanic managerial representation to 9.5 percent of our 10 percent by 2025 goals for each and achieved 43 percent of women in managerial roles against our goal of 50 percent by 2025 globally.

Positive Choices

• Four years ahead of schedule in 2021, PepsiCo attained its saturated fat reduction goal of 75% of its convenient foods portfolio not exceeding 1.1 grams of saturated fat per 100 Calories. In addition, 53% of PepsiCo’s beverage portfolio volume now has less than 100 Calories from added sugars per 12oz. serving and 66% of its convenient foods portfolio volume does not exceed 1.3 milligrams of sodium per Calorie.

See related article: PepsiCo expands efforts to address global food insecurity

“PepsiCo’s commitment and action to create a more sustainable and resilient food system is unwavering and we are proud of the progress that we have made in 2021 toward our new and updated pep+ goals,” said Jim Andrew, Chief Sustainability Officer, PepsiCo. “Our aim is to decouple so our business can grow sustainably, while decreasing environmental impacts. There is still much more work to be done and we cannot do it alone, so we – in partnership with our value chain partners, communities, NGOs and government leaders – will continue investing in action, innovation and partnerships that enable us all to realize a more sustainable future.”

The digital 2021 ESG Summary was designed to link seamlessly with PepsiCo’s ESG Topics A-Z, an evergreen deep-dive on PepsiCo’s approach and progress for roughly 50 sustainability-related topics. In addition to ongoing transparency in reporting, PepsiCo will continue to publish its ESG Summary annually.

This year’s Summary and all associated downloadable assets are available here. 

For more information, please contact [email protected]

Source: PepsiCo