PepsiCo has announced new goals for phasing out equipment with hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), signing both the Ceres Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy Climate Declaration and the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group Trillion Tonne Communique, and reporting progress on its energy efficiency initiatives.
Through these commitments, the company aims to address climate change by working across its business and with global leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit in September 2014.
“Combating climate change is absolutely critical to the future of our company, customers, consumers—and our world,” said chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.
“I believe all of us need to take action now. PepsiCo has already taken actions in our operations and throughout our supply chain to ‘future-proof’ our company—all of which deliver real cost savings, mitigate risk, protect our license to operate, and create resilience in our supply chain.”
HFC-Free Equipment Goal
PepsiCo announced a goal that by 2020 all of its future point-of-sale equipment (coolers, vending machines and fountain dispensers) purchased in the US, will be HFC-free.
HFCs are a popular chemical coolant and are considered a potent greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to climate change.
This goal is part of a recently launched partnership with the Obama Administration and other US companies, which aims to reduce global consumption of HFCs by the equivalent of 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide—or 1.5% of the world’s 2010 GHG emissions—through 2025.
To meet its goal, PepsiCo will begin purchasing new HFC-free equipment starting in 2015.
The company has already begun to phase out HFCs in its equipment outside of the country by buying more than 290,000 HFC-free pieces of equipment since 2009 and by using a 100% HFC-free insulation/foam for all new equipment.
It has also minimized the impact of existing equipment by innovating its coolers and vending machines to improve their energy efficiency by 60% compared with a 2004 baseline. These combined efforts have reduced total GHG emissions by 18% since 2007.
Progress on Energy Efficiency, Sustainability Goals PepsiCo reported a nearly 14% improvement in global energy efficiency in 2013 when compared with its 2006 baseline.
This change represents progress towards its goal of reducing energy intensity by 20% per unit of production by 2015 and is driven by resource conservation initiatives and conversion to renewable forms of energy.
In 2013, energy efficiency efforts delivered estimated cost savings of US$75 million.
