Corporate social responsibility, more than ever before, has become a pivotal issue to top leaders in companies of all sizes. The process of globalization has witnessed the importance of formulating various strategies including sustainability in most multinational companies, among which water conservation and resources protection top many companies' sustainable development agenda, PepsiCo, for example. Apparently, two-thirds of the humanity will be faced with serious freshwater shortage in the next twenty-five years unless we change our ways.
Barlow & Clarke (2002) argued that "the global economy runs on water: fresh water powers industrial production, is the essential ingredient in many products, and is perhaps the most important natural resource for human survival". Therefore, PepsiCo is particularly aware of its responsibility, aiming to efficiently achieve its water conservation goals by preserving water resources, in its day-to-day operations and "enabling access to safe water." (Anonymous, 2008) As an indispensable part of "Performance with Purpose", water stewardship is meant to deliver and promote sustainable growth by working towards a more holistic future for the human beings and our planet (PepsiCo Corporate Citizenship Report, 2009).
This essay aims to provide a critical review of PepsiCo's Water Stewardship Project by looking into its current achievements and potential improvement in the future. Meanwhile, I will further examine the impact of this social performance on society as well as on PepsiCo's stakeholders to provide a holistic review of the Water Stewardship Project. The secondary data has been quoted from websites, academic journals, scholarly books and industry research papers.
[...] Apparently, as one subset of PepsiCo's “Performance with Purpose”, the water stewardship has accomplished a good job in affecting global social communities and the company's stakeholders as well. Meanwhile, a well-designed sustainability program and follow-up evaluation is necessary to figure out the problems, based on which unique strengths can be used to foster environmentalism. As one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, PepsiCo shows its willingness to go extra miles in order to fight water-related problems in developing countries, with a special focus on water vs. [...]
[...] Long-term effects on society and PepsiCo's stakeholders Looking back, PepsiCo's water stewardship has positive effects on the global social communities in the long run. For example, In alignment with the goal of offering safe water to “three million people in developing countries by the end of Pepsico has made tremendous progress in this benchmark in that they will provide one million people with good access to clean water “from the world's most drought-stricken regions” by 2011. (Dunston et al, 2001) It is fair to say that poverty and disease is largely resulted from water shortage worldwide. [...]
[...] (Aldhous, 2011) However if we examine issues like wastewater management and partnership, it should be argued that PepsiCo still has room to improve. If a company is not effectively secured by a worldwide public sewer system, the wastes will be clearly treated with septic systems, in which wastes are travelled from the factories to an underground tank. Therefore, the key of industrial wastewater treatment lies in the “sludge in the storage sunk to the bottom of the tank, oils float, and the water in between” (Aldhous, 2011). [...]
[...] Conclusion Taken together, PepsiCo's social performance that is illustrated by the example of Water stewardship has more positive sides than negative sides. Over the course of 6 years, by partnering with numerous global organizations, PepsiCo's global water balance initiative has achievement a lot of progress shown by the above-mentioned data. Major milestones include precisely identifying the “solutions to make PepsiCo a more water-efficient company; and reaching out into its value chain by seeking ways to help related business, suppliers and community partners find ways to use less water more effectively”, to name just a few (Walsh, 2011). [...]
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