PepsiCo has set a goal that by 2020 all of its future point-of-sale equipment (coolers, vending machines and fountain dispensers) purchased in the US will be hydroflourocarbon-free.
The company has also signed both the Ceres BICEP Climate Declaration and the Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders Group Trillion Tonne Communique.
HFCs, a popular chemical coolant, are a potent greenhouse gas. This goal is part of a partnership with the Obama Administration and other US companies launched earlier this week. The partnership aims to reduce global consumption of HFCs by the equivalent of 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide — or 1.5 percent of the world’s 2010 GHG emissions — through 2025.
To meet its goal, PepsiCo will begin purchasing new HFC-free equipment starting in 2015. PepsiCo has already begun to phase out HFCs in its equipment outside of the US by buying more than 290,000 HFC-free pieces of equipment since 2009 and by using a 100 percent HFC-free insulation/foam for all new equipment. It has also minimized the impact of existing equipment by innovating its coolers and vending machines to improve their energy efficiency by 60 percent compared with a 2004 baseline.
These combined efforts have reduced total GHG emissions by 18 percent since 2007.
Along with this goal, PepsiCo yesterday became the largest US-based food and beverage industry signatory of the Climate Declaration of the Ceres coalition, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP).
