NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, December 22, 2016

PepsiCo has announced it will restore and protect a handful of watersheds in Latin American countries in which it operates, including Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala.

The company announced plans to “replenish” all the water used during manufacturing in high water risk areas by returning it to the watershed from which it was taken.

It’s biggest competitor, Coca-Cola, was criticised last year for its use of the term “replenish” after claiming it had returned nearly 192bn litres of water to the environment and local communities in 2015. It turned out Coca-Cola wasn’t returning the water directly back to the areas in which it operates. Rather, the company measured its results by the amount of water restored through its nearly 250 water conservation projects in high-risk areas around the world.

Coca-Cola acknowledged it wasn’t replacing the water in the exact location from which it was taken, but said all its plants were focused on sustainable production, and that damaging the surrounding environment wouldn’t be in the company’s “best business interest”.