Taking the carbon out of carbonated

PepsiCo’s new three-year deal with renewable energy provider Sterling Planet takes the corporate giant to the top of America’s Green Power Partnership list.

“PepsiCo is proving that going green can be the choice of every generation,” said Stephen Johnson of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which publishes the quarterly ranking. The list recognises the growing number of organisations that have committed to green energy use. At more than 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours, PepsiCo’s purchase is the largest to date under the agency’s programme and equates to 90,000 average American homes going over to renewables.

“This is a marvellous thing,” says Paul Dickinson, author and chief executive of the UK-based Carbon Disclosure Project - the largest registry of corporate greenhouse gas emissions in the world. “Assuming, that is, that green energy really does mean greenhouse-gas-free energy. They should print it on every can: ‘PepsiCo is a Beautiful Corporation’.” PepsiCo’s shareholders will have noticed a very pretty 24-cent rise in the company’s stock since the EPA’s announcement - though the two are not necessarily related.

There are two reasons to be cheerful here. With enormous players such as PepsiCo, Starbucks, the World Bank and Nike making it in to the top 25, the list suggests, as the EPA goes on to say, that “America is shifting to a ‘green culture’, with more and more businesses understanding that environmental responsibility is everyone’s responsibility.” [For more on this shift see ‘Leaders of the pack ’.]

In addition, the existence of easy to understand statistics on corporate energy use is key to helping responsible investors combat ‘greenwash’. In its 2006 report on FTSE 350 companies, the Carbon Disclosure Project highlights that it remains “something of a missed opportunity” not to have standardised measures allowing for at-a-glance comparisons. A homegrown green energy purchase list, with British Telecom tipped for pole position, can’t be far away. - Ruth McCance

24 June 2007

Ruth McCance