(Dispatch from WaterSmart Innovations 2009)
Dan Bena, Director of Sustainability, Health, Safety and Environment for PepsiCo delivered the opening keynote at WaterSmart Innovations 2009. The EPA recently named PepsiCo one their 2008 Water Efficiency Leaders, and in the May/June issue of Water Efficiency, we highlighted PepsiCo’s water conservation and sustainability efforts. (“Conservation Corp,”)
In his keynote address, Bena discusses the differences between water supply and use in industrialized nations versus the third-world, in order to illustrate how competing perspectives can influence behavior. In one startling example, Bena juxtaposed images of the world’s largest swimming pools in Algarrobo, Chile (250,000 cubic meters of water), with images of drought in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“To do nothing is not an option,” says Bena. “The cost of inaction is enormous.”
And no one can accuse PepsiCo of inaction. For starters, the company has challenged all of its facilities to meet the company’s own target goal of water consumption: reducing water use per unit of production by 20% by 2015. While working towards that goal, the company has already saved 800 million gallons of water domestically and two billion internationally.
Some of the conservation and demand reduction methods used by PepsiCo include:
• Treating and reusing wastewater produces
• Implementing dry lube technology in its manufacturing process
• Modifying maintenance tasks to create water efficiencies
• Continued monitoring of opportunities for reducing water loss and water usage
• Extending tank wash intervals
As the the second largest soft drink business in the world, PepsiCo’s actions are not insignificant, something the company is well aware of considering that many of its operations are based in nations facing severe water shortages. As part of its “performance with purpose” commitment, PepsiCo announced in March of this year that it had adopted a “human right-to-water” policy for all of its domestic and overseas operations.
In a statement posted on http://oneworld.net, Julie Goodridge, CEO of NorthStar Asset Management—the company that aided PepsiCo in developing its new water resolution—states, “This agreement moves beyond the vague promises of water conservation that many corporations claim to support. It fully commits the company to respecting the right to sufficient clean water, as well as individuals’ rights to be involved in the development of processes that extract water from their communities.”