Sustainability Snack: PepsiCo UK Charts its Path to Zero

Two years after launching its Path to Zero carbon emissions programme, retail goods giant PepsiCo UK has reported it is making steady progress in its goal to be fossil free by 2023 and making sure all the energy used within its manufacturing and distribution comes from renewable sources within 15 years, Marketing Week reports.

Over the last two years, the company has reduced total energy consumption by 7.3 percent, landfill waste by 88 percent and total water consumption by 14.6 percent,” Business & Leadership reports. “And, although our business has grown by over 15 percent in that time, our carbon footprint has fallen by 3.7 percent.” said Richard Evans, president of PepsiCo UK and Ireland.

To fulfil its plan to make all packaging renewable, recyclable or bio-degradable by 2018 PepsiCo UK will introduce FSC paper-based packaging to its Quaker and Walkers brands within three years. The company also intends to unplug itself from the UK’s water grid within 10 years.

Agriculture is an area the company plans to target, pledging to work with farmers to reduce the carbon and water impacts of their crops by 50 per cent in five years, Business Green reports. Evans says the company “has a responsibility to persuade suppliers and other businesses of the benefits of stripping carbon out of the economy,” it writes.

“Building sustainability and health into our corporate DNA creates longer-term strategic advantage. Sustainable businesses can cut costs, drive innovation, reduce risk, and motivate employees. It can help our retail customers and increase consumer loyalty,” said Evans.

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The Sustainability Snack: A DIY Cycle Route in Mexico

Cycling advocates in Guadalajara, Mexico were fed up with the local authorities inaction on creating a safe biking environment so they took the law into their own hands. Their efforts to create a bike lane system in the city are captured in this video.  Treehugger has all the details on the guerrilla cycling scheme.

It’s not the first time concerned citizens have protested in this way but you do have to wonder whether bike advocates in, say, a major US or European city, would be able to pull of such a stunt without attracting the attention of the authorities?

The Danube’s Deadly Secrets - Sustainability Snack

The Danube river basin is a toxic time bomb according to a new WWF study reported on by the Guardian. In the aftermath of last week’s toxic sludge spill in Hungary, the WWF demonstrates how the river flows through a series of heavy industrial developments, many of which have been neglected over the last few decades.

The danger says the WWF is  that,”There are a string of disasters waiting to happen at sites across the Danube basin.”

Using EU data WWF has identified that Hungary has the most vulnerable sites but warns that Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria also have industrial dumps that pose a significant environmental and freshwater threat.

This is the daily Sustainability Snack provided by Custom Communication. We publish in-depth smart sustainability news digests individually tailored for companies and their employees. Contact us to hear how we can deliver you the sustainability news you need to know about.

Sustainability Snack: Google Looks to Redraw America’s Power Grid

Google and Good Energies, a New York-based investment firm specialising in renewable energy, are backing a new $5 billion wind farm energy transmission project off the Atlantic Seaboard “that could ultimately transform the region’s electrical map.” the New York Times reports this morning.

Regulators and politicians are said to be excited about the project not least because it proposes to harvest and link wind power to consumers in reliable and unobtrusive way.

“Conceptually it looks to me to be one of the most interesting transmission projects that I’ve ever seen walk through the door,” said Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission. “It provides a gathering point for offshore wind for multiple projects up and down the coast,” he told the NYT.

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