‘The world has changed’: Pepsico CSO explains the reset of sustainability targets.

In 2025, as many promises of business sustainability have been made, more and more choruses from more and more companies are visiting and changing their goals. Some change quietly without any detailed explanation. However, PEPSICO has recently discussed the causes of the recent improvement of the sustainability goals of packaging, emissions and other areas, including decisions that have recently been decided to sunset a specific goal.

The change does not mean that consumer package products are reducing the focus of sustainability. According to JIM Andrew, Jim Andrew, it is developing a strategy to catch up with the changing time.

Andrew, who has worked as a CSO since 2021, said, “Since we announced the PEPSICO POSITIVE (PEP+) Sustainability Program in 2021, we have published the PEP+(PEP+) sustainability program in 2021,“ We ​​have learned a lot, the world has learned a lot, and we have made our learning and external reality. I wanted to integrate.

He pointed out that the three main principles, which improve the sustainability goal of PEPSI, are the basis, and focus on transparency, pragmatism, and the company’s maximum effect. Andrew also said, “We want to be based on science.” “Again, the world is different, so we tried to integrate not only business growth but also teeth.”

Due to the change, a slightly blow bag occurred. Environment and advocacy groups, including Oceana, expressed their disappointment of PEPSI’s full back to environmental promises, such as retiring previous goals for reusable packaging and weakening the goals for reducing the use of virgin plastics by 20%. AYS said PEPSI made a previous promise after submitting a shareholder proposal for the action.

Andrew said, “I have no specific response to the individual group. We interact with them. We take all feedback seriously.” We are dedicated to transparency and participation. But at the same time there are many challenges. “

In a dialogue with Food Dive’s Sister Publication Packaging Dive, Andrew explained in detail about the challenges and other issues of this challenge and the goal setting of CPG.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Packaging Diving: Pepsico is not the only company that has recently reset the sustainability goal, but not everyone else explains why and how. Talk more about what happened to this decision.

JIM Andrew: Our climate goal is now completely matched with 1.5 degrees Celsius, but not before. The range was 1 and 2, but the range 3 is less than 2 degrees.

As a food company, we had to divide range 3 into flags by flags (forests, land and agricultural emissions) and E & I -energy and industrial emissions. And as we do, let’s make all of them align with 1.5 degrees Celsius. I was talking with many stakeholders in advance, taking them through our goals and changes, and many said it was the most important of everything. Ultimately it is still part of the Paris Convention: Net Zero by 2050.

Range 1 and 2 We actually made a lot of good progress until 2024 in the reference year (2015), but range 3 has made much less progress. The reason is that the system change is literally necessary around the world. We participate in business in 200 countries and terry, the United States and franchise, and we need a system that is part of change. These are very large and very complicated.

To increase the amount of recycled plastics, a collection is required and processed. The policy must be activated so that the policy can be made on scale. The world is almost aligned around 2050, and the rate of frankly changing these systems is less than expected or expected when we set the first goal. They were things that went into it.

PEPSI mentioned external tasks to achieve previous goals, including the rules of countries such as India or China, which have the use of recycled pets in food rating packaging. How does this external forces reconstruct the strategy?

Everything we do in our main packaging is food contact. This is a very different challenge than non -food contact. Very strict requirements set.

India passed a law that allowed RPET for beverage packaging in 2023 and added food packaging in 2024. And China can still not include RPE in food rating packaging. Therefore, this is two very large markets that do not allow the integration of recycling materials.

But it is much larger than that. By country, or in some cases, the mechanisms around the legal, infrastructure, and recycling may be very different in local governments or local governments, local governments or countries other than the United States. They can be almost day and night.

Is there a deposit return system or EPR system in the state? Or is there a country? Even if you have an EPR system, it is often different. Is there a collection? Was the collection organized? Or is it an informal collection? If you can use recycling materials, do you have the cleaning and processing function for that recycling material?

In 2020, there were many discussions about how all these organizations and policies would be harmonized not only to the company but also to the NGO, the government, civil society, banks, and financialists as well as the company. That didn’t happen or something that didn’t happen more slower than us, and someone would have thought.

Instead of expanding the timeline, explain more deeply about the decision to sunset a specific goal, such as reuse.

We’ve driven the reuse goal, but in the next sentence, we’ll say we didn’t sunset our reuse. What we did is to change it.

We had a quantitative reuse goal, so. We are sunset. We are still focusing on reuse. Again, this is the area we have learned a lot since we set our goals. Significant and measurable progress is very difficult. There are many reasons for that, and there is the least regulatory reporting framework.

We want a goal to track. If you have a goal for numbers and dates, you can do that. Where it is impossible, we chose sunset.

Reuse is a good example because there is no general definition. In fact, there are several competitive regulatory frameworks around. And how can you choose to reuse scaling with your preferred, convenient and affordable choice for consumers?

To do this, a system is required in a given geography and the system must actually terminate. To this end, not only manufacturers, but also logistics providers, retailers, food services or home work outlets, policies and consumers must work for common goals. In general, a consistent regulatory framework is required for certain products.

It requires a shared infrastructure policy that makes it possible and requires a lot of non -competitive cooperation. And in many cases, standardization is required. That doesn’t happen or is happening very slowly.

We work in many cases in a reusable cup. For example, Petaluma in California had a big project. We also have a disease that can be returned to more than 75 international markets. But it was very difficult to have a single, a number of possible numbers.

We will report qualitatively. Because we think that we will actually explain the complexity more accurately until we standardize the report, unless some of these things occur. Second, we have a goal of reuse, compost, or recyclable RCR. It is a quantitative goal because we know how to measure it. Reuse is part of our work, focusing on a wide range of sustainable packaging strategies.

Where do you think it can have the greatest impact on the aspect of regeneration agriculture? What are the restrictions on the way that affects sustainable agricultural strategies?

We see, transparent, practical, sustainability goals, PEPSICO positive goals, and business priorities, and then focus on the maximum effect and are based on science.

We looked at each goal. We can achieve this goal because they help build more powerful and flexible business and cause expandable positive impacts. We are a big company. We are in 200 countries and territory, and what we want to do is good for business and has a big impact. So it was some kind after that.

We say that our goals are fixed in what we need for our business and long -term success. And we are a lot of progress in many fields, especially in recycled agriculture and water management, and extensively efficiency and supplementation. And we have made positive progress in sustainable packaging and climate change. And again, the world is different. So we tried to integrate not only business growth but also teeth.

It was really the case of regeneration agriculture. We actually raised our goals. We set a more ambitious goal from the climate goal. So we went to 10 million acres by 7 million acres by 2030. We also added natural components around Protect and Restore. We do that with farmers around the world. How do they support them when they adopt those practices?

It is a big increase. The reason is that we have learned a lot. We think we know what it works well. We have established our team, relationship, and trust again. When we look at it, we feel that this is a place we can increase our goals, but it becomes more clearly wider for nature. We know that agriculture is affected and affected by biodiversity, water and nature.

We have mentioned several forces that affect our strategies, including policymakers and consumers. Do PEPSICO also consider what competitors are doing about sustainability?

We know all the different influences and try. And we get opinions from anyone.

Our strategy is suitable for business, goals and goals. In most cases, we want to be one of the leaders from most goals. But again, it is very difficult to go far ahead of how quickly the system will change.

We talked about food packaging in consideration of PEPSI’s own brand. The center is centered on the packaging sustainability strategy of PEPSI, such as a lay ‘s and a can. How do you maintain a balance of interest in the sustainability of other business lines?

Both are important. They are at the center of our goals and what we do.

Most drink packaging is hard. Often pet bottles or aluminum cans. If these data and recycling systems exist, and in many places, there are little or no policy and infrastructure, so we have doubled the amount of recycling content used in North American business since 2020.

Most of our food is in a flexible film, which is an industry, NGO, and a supplier of materials, and everyone is a much more complex end -to -end system that must be changed from collecting to material processing, and it must be changed to the material that works on the system to provide food safety, provide freshness and provide quality. The entire ecosystem is much less developed than the ecosystem of bottles and cans. But we spend a lot of time and effort for both.