Sustainability Lead, PepsiCo MENA

HOW ARE YOU CREATING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR MIDDLE EAST REGION?

At PepsiCo, we believe that there is an opportunity to change how the world produces, distributes, consumes, and disposes foods and beverages in order to tackle the shared challenges we face. As a leader in convenient food and beverages we are in a unique position to use our scale for good and are targeting every stage of our complex value chain to use resources more efficiently, reduce emissions, replenish water, improve our products, and recapture packaging materials.

We’re helping build a positive value chain that is circular and inclusive. Our key goal is to achieve net-zero emissions across our value chain by 2040, one decade earlier than called for in the Paris Agreement. And by 2025, we want 100% of our packaging to be recyclable, compostable, biodegradable or reusable. To enable optimal recycling rates across the MENA region, PepsiCo has concentrated on mass collection initiatives in partnership with large third-party companies, targeted collection drives for example in residential compounds, malls or sports complexes, and finally, educational efforts to raise awareness of collection and recycling.

In Saudi Arabia, we have collaborated with our bottling partners and mass waste collector, WASCO, to increase the amount of plastic they collect on a yearly basis through their facilities and networks. With Naqaa waste management company, we diverted plastic away from landfills at

“Collaboration is key… We are working with government industry peers, partners, and local stakeholders to drive sustainable long-term value and competitive advantage. Through pep+, our strategic end-to-end transformation, we’re charting a new course to drive positive action for the planet and people through three key pillars, Positive Value Chain, Positive Agriculture and Positive Choices” big events like Formula E and the Riyadh Marathon. circular economies and are looking at policies and incentives to encourage more industry players to invest in the region’s waste management industry.

PepsiCo has also reiterated Aquafina’s recycling commitment to support the UAE’s goal to divert 75% of total waste from landfill in 2022. This follows on from exceeding our 2021 commitment to collect and recycle the equivalent of 100% of Aquafina plastic packaging produced in the UAE in 2021, with the help of our local partners, Dulsco and Bee’ah. In 2022, we have renewed our 100% collection commitment with Beeah.

HOW ARE YOU OVERCOMING THESE CHALLENGES?

What Are The Biggest

CHALLENGES YOU FACE IN MAKING MEANINGFUL CHANGES?

Across this region, the physical geography presents one set of challenges. The UAE, like the rest of the GCC, is surrounded by arid and warm climates, presenting a particular set of challenges that are shared by some of the world’s most food insecure parts. Then there’s water scarcity in Saudi Arabia. These elements contribute to the fragility of sustainable food systems.

Another challenge is the lack of mature recycling infrastructure, and awareness of the benefits that a circular economy can offer. In many markets, this is still a work in progress with frameworks in nascent stages. We believe that more progressive regulations will ensure that packaging waste doesn’t end up in the landfill.

That said, there are encouraging signs. Several markets have committed to driving

Collaboration is key. Through partnerships and initiatives that improve collection and recycling, we are making progress, and expanding consumer awareness. We are working with government industry peers, partners, and local stakeholders to improve recycling infrastructure through solutions that can be implemented at scale to help drive a circular economy.

PepsiCo has signed an agreement with Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism to install 50 Aquafina Water Stations across the city. This movement encourages creative ways of altering our consumption behavior, reducing the prevalence of single-use plastic bottles. We’ve also partnered with Spinneys & Carrefour to introduce reverse vending machines (RVM) at select stories in Dubai. The in-store recycling machines enable customers to dispose of their plastic waste responsibly so that materials can be reused or repurposed.

In 2021, PepsiCo launched the first MENA edition of our Greenhouse Accelerator program, which seeks to enhance innovation and sustainability through collaboration with regional start-ups. The theme for the first edition of the program was sustainable packaging and circular economy solutions. Technology also offers great opportunities. We’ve digitized operations giving the farmers we work with full visibility through the crop lifecycle and the ability to track progress for each of our contract farmers’ crops at each stage. Digitization also allows us to look at the yield to make sure we are mitigating progress, reducing costs, and really working with the farmers to get the best varieties of potatoes which suits the local soil type and weather conditions.

Our agriculture efforts in Saudi Arabia in particular, are helping us double down on goals to source crops and ingredients more sustainability. We have a target to replenish 100% of the water we consume in both our snack plants in Riyadh and Dammam back into the local watershed annually through robust water replenishment programs and working closely with farmers in regions surrounding our snacks plants on knowledge transfer and investing in drip irrigation technologies.