As one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, PepsiCo has a correspondingly massive carbon footprint—it generated 57 million metric tons in 2019. But by 2040, 10 years ahead of what’s necessary to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, it plans to reach net-zero emissions.
“As a company, as an industry, the need for urgent, transparent action is so, so critical for us,” says Jim Andrew, chief sustainability officer at PepsiCo. The corporation previously aimed for net zero by 2050 but decided to accelerate action as it saw the impacts of climate change, from hurricanes to wildfires, continue to grow. The company worked with the Science Based Targets Initiative to set a goal that’s in line with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the most ambitious target in the Paris Agreement.
As it works to shrink its direct emissions, PepsiCo will shift to using renewable energy; this has already happened in its U.S. operations, and by the end of 2021, it will have happened in a total of 15 of the 200 countries where it works. It’s moving to new zero-emissions and near-zero emissions technology at plants such as a Frito-Lay facility in California, which will use equipment like electric forklifts charged with on-site solar power. It’s working to reduce plastic packaging and testing new refill models that eliminate single-use bottles. A new internal carbon price will be used to choose transportation vendors and for employee travel.
To get there, he says, PepsiCo and its partners will have to move as quickly as possible. “We’ve all got to move now, and we’ve got to do it together,” he says. “We’re past the point where it’s ‘do a little bit less harm.’ It’s really about how businesses—at least, this is our view—can really take a leadership role to restore and to regenerate things.”