In conjunction with last week’s worldwide push to champion
sustainable water consumption practices, PepsiCo and the Coca-
Cola Company have published extensive reports that detail their
specific business practices around championing clean water. The
PepsiCo one, entitled “Water Stewardship: Good for Business.
Good for Society,” amplifies the water stewardship goals that
the company outlined in April 2010 when it released its broader
update on its corporate sustainability efforts. At that time, it
set out a goal to improve water efficiency for each unit of
production by 20 percent by 2015. So far, it has managed a 15
percent efficiency gain against its 2006 baseline. Last year,
that efficiency improvement amount to a savings of more than 12
billion liters of water. Another big theme for PepsiCo is “water
balance,” that is, the idea that it can use technology and new
business practices to give back more water to the earth and
particular regions than is actually used in its operations. This
year PepsiCo (and Coca