PepsiCo AMESA highlights water stewardship milestones, aims to be net positive by 2030

Marking World Water Week, observed from August 23 to September 1, PepsiCo Africa, Middle East and South Asia (AMESA) highlighted its key water stewardship milestones, as it continues to progress towards the vision of becoming net positive by 2030.

Guided by pep+, PepsiCo’s strategic end-to-end transformation for driving long-term sustainability, PepsiCo AMESA has followed a multi-pronged approach to watershed management through water-use efficiency on farms and in manufacturing facilities, water replenishment, watershed health improvement and safe water access for communities.

Water stewardship leads the list of priorities in PepsiCo’s Positive Value Chain agenda. Here are some of the company’s highlights in that area:

• It has avoided the use of approximately 5 billion litres of water in 2021 compared to 2020 by changing the way farmers irrigate crops, focusing on at-risk locations and improving water-use efficiency.
• Since 2021, PepsiCo AMESA estimates that it has improved water efficiency by a historic 50 per cent in company-owned high-water risk sites across the region (excluding Pioneer Foods facilities in Sub-Saharan Africa).
• The company further estimates that in 2021, it has replenished 2.5 billion litres of water through community partnership projects in 6 high-risk watershed areas through science-based interventions.
• PepsiCo Foundation in AMESA has invested more than $8m in safe water access programmes, impacting about 27 million people’s daily lives since 2018.

“Collaboration with local stakeholders plays a key role in understanding the water circuit and implementing meaningful climate action in the most effective direction. We continue working hard to use water even more efficiently, replenish it in high-risk areas and bring safe water access to people in need. For the latter half of 2022, we look forward to more partnerships and targeted initiatives and look forward to exploring the potential for even more partnerships at COP27,” said Eugene Willemsen, CEO – AMESA, PepsiCo.

Read: Interview: PepsiCo’s Eugene Willemsen says building a culture of sustainability together is critical