AB, Coke, Pepsi, Bacardi Advance Beverage Industry GHG Reporting Protocol

Members of the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) have completed a set of protocols that incorporate both enterprise inventory and product carbon footprinting approaches for the whole industry.

Development of the Beverage Industry Sector Guidance for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting (Sector Guidance), Version 2.0, involved input from members such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch, Bacardi, Nestle Waters, Ocean Spray, Diageo and others.

“The BIER Sector Guidance document places our industry in the forefront of corporations that are seeking to act in a socially responsible manner,” says David Walker, Director of Environmental Sustainability, PepsiCo, in a press release. “By using this document to communicate consistently and transparently to our consumers, governments, investors, and other stakeholders, we are setting the standard for uniform enterprise and product-level carbon emission reporting.”

In an EL guest column last May, Walker hinted at the benefits of product-level carbon accounting.

“Product level footprinting sparks a potent combination of sustainability gains, financial returns and innovation,” Walker wrote. “Efforts to establish the carbon footprint of a basket of products representative of a company’s business can help tailor sustainability strategies more effectively while generating awareness among peers, employees and consumers about the significance of carbon reduction efforts.”

In developing the program, BIER used The Greenhouse Gas Protocol and Publicly Available Specification 2050 as foundations for the beverage industry enterprise inventory accounting and product carbon footprinting, respectively.

Download the guidance here (registration required).