ESG Topics A-Z
Environment, health and safety
To PepsiCo:
Our stakeholders expect PepsiCo to demonstrate best practices by maintaining a global environment, health and safety (EHS) strategy to help ensure we achieve a consistently high standard across our global operations, reducing our EHS risk profile.
To the World:
EHS policies, procedures and best practices have been formalized to support businesses in safeguarding workers, the environment and the communities in which they operate. EHS systems and programs help ensure that businesses are managing their operational risks which support performance improvements year over year.
Approach
PepsiCo's Global EHS function strives to achieve a 'Beyond Zero' vision which, supported by our EHS strategy, aims to realize an injury-free workplace and a culture of positive impact on the health and well-being of our employees, the environment and the communities in which we operate.
Our EHS Strategy is defined and supported by the Global EHS function, with sector EHS teams executing the strategy to reduce risk and drive continuous improvements.
PepsiCo’s system of risk management is designed to reduce environmental incidents and occupational injuries and illnesses and enhance safe driving, while delivering our products. Our EHS Policy formally establishes our focus on environmental protection, safe driving and occupational health and safety and covers everyone from our front line associates to our senior leaders.
At the core of our overall EHS risk management strategy is our robust Global Environment Health & Safety Management System (GEHSMS), a cohesive and comprehensive set of management and technical standards for key EHS risks across our business. GEHSMS is designed to fit our internal needs and reflect ISO 14001 and 45001 standards. The goal of GEHSMS is to provide assurance that our businesses are:
- Identifying opportunities to improve EHS performance;
- Managing and mitigating operational EHS risks and impacts;
- Complying with applicable EHS regulations where we do business; and
- Planning for continuous EHS performance improvement.
We validate GEHSMS deployment by performing both internal and external auditing processes, as well as conducting frequent peer benchmarking to continually improve our EHS management system and processes. Globally, our focus is first and foremost on ensuring and maintaining high standards for EHS management and performance. All PepsiCo-owned manufacturing facilities are required to comply with GEHSMS, and in addition, many of our facilities maintain ISO 14001 and 45001 certification. Though parallel to our own GEHSMS, pursuing dual certification supports alignment with regulation and stakeholder expectations in certain jurisdictions. Our group ISO certification is validated annually by third-party auditors and we continue to benchmark our performance against peer companies to help ensure we are consistently executing world-class EHS processes and risk mitigation strategies.
Health and safety management
To help protect our employees from occupational injuries and illnesses, we identify high risk activities, including the examples below, and invest in a wide range of engineering and technological solutions and administrative initiatives to support our drive for a 'Beyond Zero' EHS Vision.
Improving on-the-road safety
We leverage fleet telematics and other digital distracted driving technology with an aim to reduce road traffic incidents.
Operational safety
For machine safety, we use virtual design reviews and augmented reality to conduct technical risk assessments and then invest in risk controls with the aim of ensuring physical and safety awareness measures are implemented. We also invest in ergonomic risk control technologies to promote safe handling of product and improve posture behaviors to help reduce ergonomic risk. Other operational safety risks, such as those associated with powered industrial trucks, are also addressed in similar fashion to machine safety and ergonomic risks.
Auditing EHS performance
We have a strong audit process of our Global Environmental Health & Safety Management System, which includes self-assessments, internal audits and external audits to confirm the strength and governance of our EHS performance. Our GEHSMS program is designed to mitigate our risks and comply with local laws, regulations and other requirements. It also provides a means to guide continuous improvement.
Environmental management
In addition to our internal programs that we have in place to minimize environmental impact, we use a system of internal and external auditing processes to monitor our compliance with our GEHSMS program and environmental regulations in the jurisdictions in which we operate.
We proactively monitor current and emerging environmental protection legislation and other areas of concern across our value chain, and follow a risk-based approach leveraging our GEHSMS standards and focusing on the following key priorities:
Prevention and control of spills
Our goal is to prevent all spills and unexpected environmental releases. In the event that spills occur, locations respond in accordance with internal standards and applicable regulations. PepsiCo's spill program also includes requirements for site-level spill risk analysis, operator training, communicating all reportable incidents to PepsiCo and the relevant agencies and completing follow-up actions. Sites develop and implement a tailored Spill Prevention and Response Plan based on our GEHSMS Spill Prevention and Response Standard, which includes best management practices to help prevent, respond to and minimize the risks, both for the environment and nearby communities, associated with spills of chemicals, hazardous substances, oils, petroleum products and ingredients.
Elimination and management of waste
We are striving to minimize waste generation and achieve virtually zero waste to landfill in our direct operations1, while ensuring compliance with applicable regulations. We manage our waste holistically, from end to end within our operations, and we approach each site with a tailored strategy that takes into account local infrastructure and the greatest opportunities for improvement. Our waste management program is driven by our GEHSMS Waste Management Standard to promote a systematic approach to waste management across all facilities.
Reduction and control of air emissions
PepsiCo has established a GEHSMS Air Quality Management Standard to define minimum requirements and best management practices to help ensure that each applicable PepsiCo facility and selling operation complies with applicable air regulations and applies risk management practices to reduce impacts on human health and the environment.
Minimization, control and reuse of wastewater discharges
PepsiCo's GEHSMS Discharge of Wastewater Standard formalizes the expectation that wastewater discharged from company-owned and operated facilities will:
- Meet applicable regulatory discharge standards and other requirements;
- Meet minimum PepsiCo discharge standards;
- Be conducted in an efficient, safe and responsible manner; and
- Maintain an effluent quality that does not cause degradation of local water quality.
Access to safe sanitation and hygiene
Our business depends on the thousands of dedicated employees in our manufacturing sites who ensure the safety and quality of our products, and we in turn are committed to promoting safe conditions for them. Critical to this is the provision of employees’ access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). This is aligned with our participation in the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s WASH4WORK pledge, which PepsiCo signed in 2015. For more on our WASH ambitions outside our factory walls, see Water.
Safe chemical use, storage and disposal
PepsiCo has established a GEHSMS Chemical storage and Management Standard to define minimum requirements to help ensure compliance with applicable regulations, prevent accidental releases and protect our workforce, contractors and the public from injury from chemical storage and management. All sites are required to implement a Chemical Storage and Management Program that addresses chemical selection, approval, use, handling, storage, transportation, employee training and hazard communication. Risk-based chemical selection and approval processes are used to to give priority to substances that are nonhazardous or less hazardous, and identify opportunities to eliminate the use of hazardous substances.
Understanding and managing emerging environmental legislation and aspects
Compliance with applicable legislation is an expectation of PepsiCo stakeholders, a core part of the PepsiCo EHS Policy and a fundamental element of our GEHSMS.
Progress
Health and safety
At the end of 2022, 94% of our company-owned manufacturing facilities were certified to the ISO 45001 standard. All facilities were utilizing our GEHSMS standards, which are designed to reflect ISO standards. In 2022, our Lost Time Incident Rate decreased from the prior year, down to 0.46 per 200,000 hours worked.2
Environmental Protection
At the end of 2022, 94% of our company-owned manufacturing facilities were certified to the ISO 14001 standard. All facilities were utilizing our GEHSMS standards, which are designed to reflect ISO standards. Our performance against our key focus areas was as follows:
- Prevention and control of spills: In 2022, we continued to strive for prevention of spills and, if they occurred, we quickly responded to help ensure adherence to applicable laws and regulations and best management practices for responding to and minimizing the associated risks of spills. PepsiCo’s spill program also includes requirements for site-level spill risk analysis, operator training, communicating all reportable incidents to PepsiCo and the relevant agencies and completing follow-up actions.
- Elimination and management of waste: PepsiCo continues to implement practices as it works toward its goal to send virtually zero waste to landfill as a result of its manufacturing operations. For more on our efforts and performance on operational waste reduction, see Waste.
- Reduction and control of air emissions: In 2022, PepsiCo continued exploring strategies to minimize air emissions from manufacturing operations and transportation operations through improved vehicle efficiency, cleaner fuels and electric vehicles, as described in Fleet decarbonization.
- Minimization, control and reuse of wastewater discharges: Responsible wastewater discharge from our manufacturing operations is a critical element of achieving net positive water impact. Achieving this goal is vital to the continuity of our manufacturing operations, as it helps ensure that we maintain our license to operate in local communities. In 2022, as in 2021, over 99%3 of the wastewater from our manufacturing operations met PepsiCo and regulatory discharge standards. Overall, 80% of PepsiCo locations discharging wastewater were 100% compliant in 2022, up from 77% in 2021.
- Access to safe sanitation and hygiene (WASH): By the end of 2022, our manufacturing facilities' WASH conformance was at 96%.3 Although this percentage was slightly down from 98%3 in 2021, WASH programs have been implemented at all company-owned and/or operated manufacturing sites and assessment of conformance is monitored.
- Safe chemical use, storage and disposal: In 2022, our efforts continued to encourage the safe use, storage and proper disposal of chemicals in all relevant aspects of our operations.
- Understanding and managing emerging environmental legislation and aspects: As environmental legislation emerges and evolves, we continue to work closely with internal and external partners around the world to stay abreast of all developments and compliant with all applicable regulations.
As we work to embed EHS excellence across our organization, we have made progress but faced challenges along the way.
Progress
In 2022, 94% of our company-owned manufacturing facilities were certified to the ISO 14001 and 45001 standards. All facilities were implementing our GEHSMS standards, which are designed to reflect ISO standards.
Challenges
Although our WASH conformance was slightly down from 2021, WASH programs have been implemented at all company-owned and/or operated manufacturing sites and assessment of conformance is monitored.
Strategic partnerships
PepsiCo continues to collaborate with industry leading multi-national corporations to align private sector goals with the United Nations’ Decade of Action for Road Safety to improve road safety through our membership with Together for Safer Roads Coalition.
To follow through on our commitment to water stewardship, we have partnered with the Business for Social Responsibility Sustainable Water Group. Further, we collaborate with WASH4WORK – an organization focused on bringing water access to communities.
2In order to align with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration calculation methodology, PepsiCo now reports LTIR as Lost Time incidents per 200,000 hours worked. For comparison purposes, we have re-calculated prior years' results previously reported per 1,000,000 hours.
3This figure excludes non-manufacturing and certain acquired company-owned sites.
Last updated
February 13, 2024