PepsiCo's Approach to Sustainable Packaging
Being a $200 billion multi-faceted company, PepsiCo uses its power to ensure that the large number of packages that it produces and distributes every day don't have negative impacts on the environment.
To assess potential packaging risks facing the business, PepsiCo completes a comprehensive plastic packaging-related risk assessment across its direct operations twice annually through its Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) process (Pepsico, n.d.).
Through the ERM process, we track progress and assess the key risks to delivery, such as end-to-end infrastructure and technical feasibility. We believe long-term transformation requires agility to identify what’s working, what isn’t, and adjust our approach to focus on areas where we can have the greatest impact (Pepsico, n.d.).
PepsiCo reduces plastics across primary packaging by light-weighting bottles and other packaging materials. The company’s Research and Development teams continue to explore and roll out technologies that improve packaging for snacks products, including pre-settling snacks to enable the use of a smaller bag for the same amount of product and introducing new packaging materials (Pepsico, n.d.).
Within our convenient foods business, we are implementing new technology to change the way we package our foods. In 2025, we converted chip multipacks from plastic overwraps to paper boxes for select brands in Australia... Across our North America beverage portfolio we reduced our plastic footprint by over 7 million pounds through bottle lightweighting (Pepsico, n.d.).
It's interesting to see how a large conglomerate company such as PepsiCo takes steps towards becoming a more environmentally conscious company, considering how much plastic they put out into the world. Even if it will not be feasible for the company to cut plastic entirely, as it is a lucrative element of many of their products, they are still taking steps to reduce the impact that their products make by following standards set by the ERM process. The process of risk management when it comes to a design decision could be related to how designers can use "differential diagnosis" in their design process. By identifying the risks associated with a specific type of packaging, PepsiCo has found what solution won't work, thus leading them to the path of the solution that will eventually work.
References
Packaging. Pepsico.
https://www.pepsico.com/esg-topics/packaging#why-it-matters
