PepsiCo announced refined climate, packaging, agriculture, and water goals to continue to build a stronger, more resilient business that aims to drive scalable positive impact. The updated goals build on nearly four years of progress and learnings since the launch of the PepsiCo Positive (pep+) business strategy, which embeds sustainability into the company's core to deliver long-term success.
Since launching pep+ in September 2021, PepsiCo has made significant progress on regenerative agriculture and water stewardship and positive strides on sustainable packaging and climate change, while accounting for external realities and business growth.
"As circumstances evolve, PepsiCo continually adapts how we source ingredients; make, move, and sell our products; and inspire people through our brands," said PepsiCo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ramon Laguarta. "This journey is underpinned by pep+, which is an investment in building a stronger and more resilient business – today and in the future – and guides our actions to help create a more resilient, more sustainable food system. Our goals must evolve with us to keep our ambition and to deliver on our long-term vision."
In refining its sustainability goals, PepsiCo is strengthening the resilience of its business and honing its focus to where it believes it can have the most positive impact. The company is remaining ambitious with its sustainability targets (and in the case of regenerative agriculture, setting an even more ambitious target), evolving with the latest science, and being pragmatic about where efforts have been limited by external factors and systemic barriers, such as lagging infrastructure and the growth of the business.
PepsiCo's Positive Choices goals, which aim to lower saturated fat, sugar, and sodium content and deliver more diverse ingredients, remain unchanged. The company is on track to deliver these goals, while continuing to evolve the product portfolio to meet consumer and commercial demands.
The revised goals on climate, packaging, agriculture and water also reflect PepsiCo's understanding of where it can accelerate impact—striving for greater return on its investments—and where progress will take more time, based on the realities of key global enablers such as recycling and reuse infrastructure, electric grid modernization, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and cost-competitive vehicle availability, and varying and changing government approaches. These refined goals reflect transparency about challenges, while reinforcing a commitment to rigorous progress-tracking to pursue the company's long-term sustainability vision.
"We know it's important that we continue to be transparent about our progress – both our successes and the challenges – and the dynamic realities that our company and the broader industry face today," said Jim Andrew, PepsiCo Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer. "Our sustainability journey will not always be linear, but we are focused on doing the work that can both strengthen our business resilience and support a positive impact for the planet. All while remaining agile in our approach, applying learnings across our operations, and sharing them with others to help create a more sustainable food system. We will continue to embed sustainability into our company in ways that aim to enhance the strength, adaptability, and future growth of our business."
