Environmental record
PepsiCo Palm Oil Commitments published in May 2014 were welcomed by media as a positive step towards ensuring that the company's palm oil purchases will not contribute to deforestation and human rights abuses in the palm oil industry. NGOs warned that the commitments did not go far enough, and in light of the deforestation crisis in Southeast Asia, have called on the company to close the gaps in its policies immediately.
PepsiCo has contributed US$1,716,300 to oppose the passage of California Proposition 37, which would mandate the disclosure of genetically modified crops used in the production of California food products. PepsiCo believes "that genetically-modified products can play a role in generating positive economic, social and environmental contributions to societies around the world; particularly in times of food shortages."
PepsiCo's usage of water was the subject of controversy in India in the early and mid-2000s, in part because of the company's alleged impact on water usage in a country where water shortages are a perennial issue. In this setting, PepsiCo was perceived by India-based environmental organizations as a company that diverted water to manufacture a discretionary product, making it a target for critics at the time.
As a result, in 2003 PepsiCo launched a country-wide program to achieve a "positive water balance" in India by 2009. In 2007, PepsiCo's then-CEO Indra Nooyi made a trip to India to address water usage practices in the country, prompting prior critic Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), to note that PepsiCo "seem(s) to be doing something serious about water now." According to the company's 2009 corporate citizenship report, as well as media reports at the time, the company (in 2009) replenished nearly six billion liters of water within India, exceeding the aggregate water intake of approximately five billion liters by PepsiCo's India manufacturing facilities.
Water usage concerns have arisen at times in other countries where PepsiCo operates. In the United States, water shortages in certain regions resulted in increased scrutiny on the company's production facilities, which were cited in media reports as being among the largest water users in cities facing drought—such as Atlanta, Georgia. In response, the company formed partnerships with non-profit organizations such as the Earth Institute and Water.org, and in 2009 began cleaning new Gatorade bottles with purified air instead of rinsing with water, among other water conservation practices. In the United Kingdom, also in response to regional drought conditions, PepsiCo snacks brand Walkers' reduced water usage at its largest potato chip facility by 45 percent between 2001 and 2008. In doing so, the factory used machinery that captured water naturally contained in potatoes, and used it to offset the need for outside water.
As a result of water reduction practices and efficiency improvements, PepsiCo in 2009 saved more than 12 billion liters of water worldwide, compared to its 2006 water usage. Environmental advocacy organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council and individual critics such as Rocky Anderson (mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah) voiced concerns in 2009, noting that the company could conserve additional water by refraining from the production of discretionary products such as Aquafina. The company maintained its positioning of bottled water as "healthy and convenient", while also beginning to partially offset environmental impacts of such products through alternate means, including packaging weight reduction.
PepsiCo's India operations were met with substantial resistance in 2003 and again in 2006, when an environmental organization in New Delhi made the claim that, based on its research, it believed that the levels of pesticides in PepsiCo (along with those from rival The Coca-Cola Company), exceeded a set of proposed safety standards on soft drink ingredients that had been developed by the Bureau of Indian Standards. PepsiCo denied the allegations, and India's health ministry has also dismissed the allegations—both questioning the accuracy of the data compiled by the CSE, as it was tested by its own internal laboratories without being verified by outside peer review. The ensuing dispute prompted a short-lived ban on the sale of PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company soft drinks within India's southwestern state of Kerala in 2006; however this ban was reversed by the Kerala High Court one month later.
In November 2010, the Supreme Court of India invalidated a criminal complaint filed against PepsiCo India by the Kerala government, on the basis that the beverages did meet local standards at the time of the allegations. The court ruling stated that the "percentage of pesticides" found in the tested beverages was "within the tolerance limits subsequently prescribed in respect of such product" because at the time of testing "there was no provision governing pesticide adulteration in cold drinks." In 2010, PepsiCo was among the 12 multinational companies that displayed "the most impressive corporate social responsibility credentials in emerging markets", as determined by the U.S. Department of State. PepsiCo's India unit received recognition on the basis of its water conservation and safety practices and corresponding results.
Environmental advocates have raised concern over the environmental impacts surrounding the disposal of PepsiCo's bottled beverage products in particular, as bottle recycling rates for the company's products in 2009 averaged 34 percent within the U.S. In 2019, BreakFreeFromPlastic named PepsiCo a top 10 global plastic polluter for the second year in a row. A study published in Science Advances in 2024 found that PepsiCo was responsible for 5% of global branded plastic pollution (by count), which was the second-highest share of branded plastic pollution globally, with The Coca Cola Company being the highest producer.
One strategy enacted to reach this goal has been the placement of interactive recycling kiosks called "Dream Machines" in supermarkets, convenience stores, and gas stations, with the intent of increasing access to recycling receptacles. The use of resin to manufacture its plastic bottles has resulted in reduced packaging weight, which in turn reduces the volume of fossil fuels required to transport certain PepsiCo products. The weight of Aquafina bottles was reduced nearly 40 percent, to 15 grams, with a packaging redesign in 2009. Also in that year, PepsiCo brand Naked Juice began production and distribution of the first 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic bottle.
On March 15, 2011, PepsiCo unveiled the world's first plant-based PET bottle. The bottle is made from plant-based materials, such as switch grass, corn husks, and pine bark, and is 100% recyclable. PepsiCo plans to reuse more by-products of its manufacturing processes such as orange peels and oat hulls in the bottles. PepsiCo has identified methods to create a molecular structure that is the same as normal petroleum-based PET—which will make the new bottle technology, dubbed "Green Bottle", similar to Coke's "PlantBottle" idea from 2009, which feel the same as normal PET. PepsiCo have said to pilot production in 2012, and upon successful completion of the pilot, intends moving to full-scale commercialization, however in 2021 there are still no records of such bottles being produced.
In a bid to reduce packaging consumption, in recent years the PepsiCoPartners launched as a service offering carbonated drinks dispensers within the US. The dispensers are currently being trialed in large corporate offices and universities.
In 2020 PepsiCo teamed up with French biochemistry startup Carbios in order to promote and establish a new recycling method for used plastic bottles. This method uses enzymes to dissolve plastic very thoroughly and the final leftovers can be used to produce textiles.
PepsiCo, along with other manufacturers in its industry, has drawn criticism from environmental advocacy groups for the production and distribution of plastic product packaging, which consumed an additional 1.5 billion US gallons (5,700,000 m3) of petrochemicals in 2008. These critics have also expressed apprehension over the production volume of plastic packaging, which results in the emission of carbon dioxide. Beginning largely in 2006, PepsiCo began development of more efficient means of producing and distributing its products using less energy, while also placing a focus on emissions reduction. In a comparison of 2009 energy usage with recorded usage in 2006, the company's per-unit use of energy was reduced by 16 percent in its beverage plants and 7 percent in snack plants.
In 2009, Tropicana (owned by PepsiCo) was the first brand in the U.S. to determine the carbon footprint of its orange juice product, as certified by the Carbon Trust, an outside auditor of carbon emissions. Also in 2009, PepsiCo began the test deployment of so-called "green vending machines", which reduce energy usage by 15 percent in comparison to average models in use. It developed these machines in coordination with Greenpeace, which described the initiative as "transforming the industry in a way that is going to be more climate-friendly to a great degree."
PepsiCo has announced a global company goal of transitioning its electricity sources to 100% renewable energy, although they did not specify a specific year of which this goal would hypothetically occur at. PepsiCo has additionally also publicly announced its goal of decreasing its main operation's greenhouse gas emissions by 75% as compared to the 2015 baseline, by 2030. Pepsico has succeeded in achieving 23% of its absolute emissions target reduction as of 2022.
In 2025, PepsiCo and four other major food manufacturers were named in a report by the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch for failing to set a methane emissions reduction target from livestock and fertilizer use in its supply chain and overstating progress by relying on greenhouse gas removal rather than source reduction.
