Pepsi Beats Safe Water Access Goal, Doubles Commitment

PepsiCo has achieved its goal — almost three years early — of partnering to provide access to safe water to 3 million people in developing countries and has doubled its original commitment.

The company has now pledged to provide access to safe water to an additional 3 million people by the end of 2015 through continued partnerships with water organizations such as the Columbia University Earth Institute. The Earth Institute and the PepsiCo Foundation have worked together on water-related projects since the Foundation’s $6 million grant in 2008 helped found the Columbia Water Center.

Through the PepsiCo Foundation, the company has identified projects and partners to provide access to safe water through initiatives that include water conservation, distribution, purification and hygiene for underserved communities in China, India, Mali, Brazil, Colombia and other Latin American countries.

The steps Pepsi has taken to improve public access to clean water and to conserve water across the company’s business operations include:

• Forming partnerships with organizations around the world to spur community development and address environmental issues. In addition to the Columbia Water Center, Pepsi also works on water-related programs with the China Women’s Development Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Safe Water Network and Water.org.
• Installing village water and irrigation systems, establishing water health centers, constructing rainwater harvesting cisterns, improving sanitation programs and recharging aquifers.
• Improving global water use efficiency its operations by more than 20 percent per unit of production, from a 2006 baseline, achieving its water goal a full four years ahead of schedule.
• Conserving nearly 16 billion liters of water in the company’s operations in 2011, from a 2006 baseline, through the application of water-saving equipment and technologies, creative recycling and re-use, and by deploying a water management system throughout its manufacturing facilities.
• Reducing the company’s water and energy-related costs by more than $45 million in 2011, compared to 2006.
• Innovating a variety of agricultural practices and technologies around the world that are designed to reduce water use in farming through new irrigation techniques, and tools that help farmers deliver fertilizer and water to their crops at the most efficient time.

Last September, the Coca-Cola Company partnered with Deka Research & Development Corporation to deliver millions of liters of clean drinking water to schools, health clinics and community centers in rural regions of Africa and Latin America in 2013.