PepsiCo recently refined its climate, packaging, agriculture and water goals to continue to build a 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 progress on regenerative agriculture and water stewardship and positive strides on sustainable packaging and climate change, while accounting for external realities and business growth.

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“As circumstances evolve, PepsiCo continually adapts how we source ingredients; make, move and sell our products; and inspire people through our brands,” says Ramon Laguarta, PepsiCo chair and chief executive officer. “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 its resilience and honing its focus to where it believes it can have the most positive impact. The company is evolving its sustainability targets 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 deliver more diverse ingredients and lower saturated fat, sugar and sodium content, remain unchanged. The company is on track to deliver these goals while continuing to evolve its 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 global enablers, such as recycling and reuse infrastructure, electric grid modernization, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, vehicle availability and varying government approaches. These goals reflect transparency about challenges while reinforcing a commitment to 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,” says 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.”

The updated goals include:

• Agriculture: Healthier soil has the potential to drive better yields for farmers and grow better ingredients in the long-term. Regenerative agriculture can be a tool to promote healthier soil, as well as to reduce agricultural emissions, enhance biodiversity and watershed health, and help raise the standard of living for farmers and farming communities. PepsiCo has increased its regenerative agriculture goal, aiming to drive the adoption of regenerative, restorative or protective practices across 10 million acres by 2030. This is an expansion of its 7-million-acre regenerative agriculture goal in scale and depth, as the goal includes objectives for nature. As of 2024, PepsiCo has delivered approximately 3.5 million acres against the new goal.
• Climate: As detailed in PepsiCo’s Climate Transition Plan, the company has updated its Scope 1, 2 and 3 targets and aligned them to a 34.7°F trajectory by 2050, reflecting SBTi sectoral guidance on Forests, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) and Energy and Industry (E&I) emissions, and it now aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. PepsiCo’s revised climate goals, validated by SBTi, were shaped by its own learnings and the latest science. PepsiCo’s previous Scope 3 target was to be below 35.6°F by 2030, and its net-zero ambition was aligned to 2040.
• Packaging: PepsiCo is updating its packaging goals to focus on markets where it believes its efforts can make the most positive impact and better account for external factors outside of its control. By prioritizing efforts in packaging markets, continuing to reduce its use of virgin plastic and improve the design of its packaging, PepsiCo plans to focus on investments that aim to improve the packaging life cycle. The company is also sun-setting its reuse target while continuing various efforts on reuse as part of its goal around designing packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable. The refined packaging goals will continue to require investment, innovation and cross-sector collaboration to drive systemic change and support the business. At the same time, challenges remain. For example, India passed laws allowing rPET for beverage packaging in 2023, with food packaging added this year, while China does not allow rPET inclusion in food-grade packaging.
• Water: After meeting the goal of a 25% improvement in operational water-use efficiency in high-risk watersheds and exceeding the goal of 15% improvement in agricultural water-use efficiency two years early, PepsiCo has refreshed its water goals based on progress and learnings. The company is also refining its focus on high-risk areas and maintaining its goal to become net water positive by 2030.

PepsiCo will continue to offer a view of pep+ performance and provide reporting on progress in its 2024 ESG Summary, which will be available later this year.