— By Marilyn Gerlach — 

PepsiCo (Purchase, New York, USA; www.pepsico.com) has scrapped its ambition to deliver 20% of its beverages in reusable containers by 2030 and has softened its goals for reducing the use of virgin plastics packaging.

Greenpeace USA (Washington DC; www.greenpeace.org/USA) and shareholder activist non-profit As You Sow (El Cerrito, California; www.asyousow.org) criticised PepsiCo for abandoning its reuse ambition and reversing some of its sustainability targets. These commitments were first unveiled in 2021 when the company launched its business strategy PepsiCo Positive (pep+).

To justify the changes, the soft drinks group cited numerous challenges, including “systemic barriers, such as lagging infrastructure and business growth” in certain markets – particularly those that do not permit or have only recently allowed rPET in food-grade packaging. The company also pointed to “varying and changing government approaches”.

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“PepsiCo is updating its packaging goals to focus on key markets where it believes its efforts can make the most positive impact and to better account for external factors outside of the company’s control,” the firm said. “The company is also sunsetting its reuse target, while continuing various efforts on reuse as part of its goal around designing packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable,” it added.

The commitment to deliver 20% of all beverage servings through reusable models by 2030 is now classified as a “sunset goal”. PepsiCo’s performance metrics show it has reached 10% reuse in both 2022 and 2023. The company is expected to keep tracking reusability through its RRC (reusable, recyclable, compostable) and RCBR (recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, reusable) criteria.

These RRC/RCBR goals have also been revised. PepsiCo initially aimed to design 100% of its packaging to meet RCBR criteria by 2025. Now, it has removed “biodegradable” from the scope, pushed the timeline to 2030, and changed the target to “97% or greater”. The revised targets cover both primary and secondary areas in key packaging markets.

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PepsiCo has also reduced its ambition to cut virgin plastic packaging. The original goal was a 20% absolute reduction in virgin plastic tonnage derived from non-renewable sources by 2030, using a 2020 baseline. The baseline year has now been dropped, and the new target is a 2% year-over-year reduction, limited to primary plastic packaging in key markets. According to PepsiCo, this scope represents more than 80% of its global packaging footprint by weight in 2024.

A separate goal to cut by 50% the amount of virgin plastic from non-renewable sources per serving across its global beverages and convenient foods portfolio by 2030 has been abandoned.

Under the pillar recycled content, PepsiCo originally aimed to use 50% recycled content in plastic packaging by 2030. This has been scaled down to “40% or greater,” with a revised timeline of “2035 or sooner”. The company reported achieving 7% recycled content in 2022 and 10% in 2023.