Story at a glance
- PepsiCo announces new climate goals that center on reducing net emissions across its brands.
- If it succeeds, it will beat the goals of the París Agreement by 10 years.
Leading food and beverage company PepsiCo announced fresh climate goals on Jan. 14, aiming to gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions until it reaches a net-zero output by 2040.
The first benchmark pledged by the company will be to reduce its emissions across all supply chains by more than 40 percent in 2030.
PepsiCo’s pledge will work to get net-zero greenhouse gas emissions roughly a decade earlier than the timeline featured in the Paris Agreement.
This plan extends to PepsiCo’s subsidiaries, including Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker and Tropicana. With these and other brands under its corporate umbrella, PepsiCo saw about $67 billion in net revenue in 2019.
“The severe impacts from climate change are worsening, and we must accelerate the urgent systemic changes needed to address it,” said PepsiCo Chairperson and CEO Ramon Laguarta. “Climate action is core to our business as a global food and beverage leader and propels our PepsiCo Positive journey to deliver positive outcomes for the planet and people.”
Breaking its plan down by the company’s scopes — or the source of the emissions across operations — Pepsi set decrease targets that will ideally reduce more than 26 million metric tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Scope 1 and 2, the emissions directly and indirectly produced by company-owned operations and activity, will reportedly see a decrease by 75 percent by 2030.
Scope 3 emissions, which are all other greenhouse emissions indirectly related to the company through all other operational activity, will be reduced by an additional 40 percent over the next decade.
PepsiCo adds that it will look to make other climate-sensitive changes through its supply chain operations, such as package recycling and sustainable agriculture practices.
“Our climate ambition is at the very heart of accelerating our global sustainability progress, and we are using our scale and reach to build a more sustainable and regenerative global food system,” Jim Andrew, the Chief Sustainability Officer states. “It’s long overdue that companies move beyond just minimizing their environmental impact, they must actively work to improve and regenerate the planet.”
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