Corporate environmentalism has a squishy, public relations feel. When sustainable practices shaped a Gatorade plant, there was actual meat on the bones.
The greening of corporate America was just budding when planning got underway for Pepsico’s Gatorade project in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia. The corporation formed a sustainability task force in 2004. In August of that year, the decision to build a mid-Atlantic site was made.
Fast forward two years. Pepsico’s sustainability initiative had evolved to Performance with Purpose, an objective that is securing Wall Street kudos. Business Ethics magazine included Pepsico among the 100 best corporate citizens. Fortune ranked the company 10th on its list of the most-admired companies (2nd among food & beverage firms). On the operations front, production began at the $140 million, 950,000-sq.-ft. facility in Wytheville, VA.
“A business that does better by doing better” is how Indra Nooyi, Pepsico chairman and CEO, defines sustainability. Environmental and social benefits join financial objectives to shape a company that is viewed positively by citizens for the products it makes and as a place to work.
“Whether it’s a production facility or a front office, sustainability addresses the triple bottom line of social benefits, economic benefits and environmental benefits,” explains Rich Schutzenhofer, vice president of engineering, technology development and resource conservation at the Chicago headquarters of Pepsico’s Quaker/Tropicana/Gatorade (Q/T/C) group. At Blue Ridge, straightforward ROI calculations, soft savings and the human payoff from a better work environment shaped design decisions. “It’s common sense to do obvious things like being energy efficient,” Schutzenhofer adds. “That drives economic benefits. And we know consumers want to buy products from environmental leaders, and the best people want to work for environmental leaders.”