Food for thought - Pepsi’s Tropicana finds its carbon footrpint

I previously blogged about PepsiCo and their Green vending machines; this article is about another of their green initiatives - life cycle carbon footprint for PepsiCo owned Tropicana Pure Premium Oranage Juice.  It was concluded that a 200mL glass of Tropicana has a carbon footprint of 180g of CO2-equivalent.  That amount is similar to driving 720 metres in a compact car or using 11443.7 staples!  Although it may not sound a lot (the driving analogy), think about how many people drink orange juice each morning!

What is a “life cycle” carbon footprint for a product?  They are also called “cradle to grave” carbon footprint, which literally means the accounting of carbon for a product starting from raw material and (usually) end in the landfill. Using the Pure Premium organe juice as an example, the life cycle carbon footprint would include carbon associated with:

• Growing the oranges
• Harvesting and transporting oranges to be processed
• Processing of the oranges to orange juice
• Bottling orange juice
• Tranporting “made’ orange juice to grocery stores
• Transporting orange juice to households
• Disposing of orange juice boxes

You get the idea.  Personally I like the idea of product life cycle carbon footprint, as long as the boundary is set properly.  In this case, we don’t really know what the boundary is because I don’t have the actual study.  I think that PepsiCo has decided not to include the carbon footprint assocaited with producing the juice box, but the disposal of the juice box is included in the carbon footprint.  The problem with that is that if there is a life cycle carbon footprint analysis done on the juice box, then the disposal of the juice box would be counted twice, which would not be correct.  How to fix this problem?  Well, in an ideal world where all products needs a carbon label, there’d be regulations (one’d hope).  This is just a really small problem in this case which may happen in other cases, but the bottom line is that this is great and I hope more and more products having life cycle carbon footprint and creating carbon labels!  

By the way - 60% of the life cycle carbon footprint is from juice production (not surprising), but 58% of the 60% (or 34.8% overall) of the life cycle carbon footprint is from growing the oranges (more surprising)!  I’ll have to look for other examples but that’s quite significant if it is the benchmark for most processed food products!  

So what is PepsiCo doing with the result of the life cycle analysis? They have started looking into alternative approach to growing the oranges, they’re even considering organic approach since it can reduce the fertilizer usage and thus the ccarbon footprint!  Of course it’s not that easy - growing orange oranically will likely reduce yield and thus increasing carbo nassicated with irrigation, transportation, and so on….  What else is PepsiCo doing?  They will be releasing carbon footprint for several other products in the near future!

PepsiCo tests green vending machines

PepsiCo will be testing 30 “green” vending machines in Washington DC.  They are considered green because they use less energy than typical vending machines and they do not have hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants.  HFCs have one of the highest GHG potential, much higher than CO2.  This basically means that for the same amount of HFC, there is more impact on GHG than CO2. 

Moreover, PepsiCo said it was the first in the industry to mandate that the foam used to insulate its vending machines and coolers must be free of HFCs.  From this initiative alone, PepsiCo, which has 4 to 5 millions of vending machines worldwide, has reduced GHG emissions from its refrigeration equipment by 282,000 tonnes/year.

Some facts:

• the new machines use 5.08 kilowatt-hours of energy per day, 15% lower than the  nationwide average (6 kWh)
• the machines emits about 12% less GHG
• refrigerant used in these vending machines is CO2 (instead of HFC)

Some interesting facts on vending machines in general:

• On average, 2008 model vending machines all meet EPA Energy Star requirements, use 51% less energy than 2003 models, 
• 2008 coolers consume 44 percent less energy than their 2004 counterparts.

Like Wal-mart’s sustainable 360 initiatives I blogged about last week, PepsiCo is doing this for money saving and good PR just happens to come with it. By the way, if all 4.5 million (average) PepsiCo vending machines worldwide are replaced with these energy efficient ones,  4,140 MWh saved!  

And - do you know what else I’m thinking?  PepsiCo should investigate the opportunity of selling carbon offset credits by storing CO2 in vending machines as carbon sinks!  Maybe I should patent this idea =p

Wal-Mart Canada’s First Environmental Demonstration Store

Wal-mart Canada opens its first Environmental Demonstration Store in Burlington Ontario in 2009.

These are some highlighted features:

• demonstration of geothermal heating and cooling technology in a large-scale Canadian retail operation – facilitated by 15 km of piping buried under parking lot ->> i love geothermal heat pumps…  i have one before moving back to Vancouver!  see more here. It’s pretty crazy to have 15km of pipes.  i’ll do a little RETScreen study on it, i’m pretty sure even with this much piping there is not enough heating/cooling for the entire store… 
• Daylight harvesting system using skylights to refract daylight throughout the store; light sensors monitor the amount of natural light available and rise, dim or turn off lighting as needed 
• bought green power from Bullfrog Power ->> yes, buy our selves to sustainability!
• In-floor radiant heating and cooling system circulates water to transfer heat and cold instead of air vents
• Environmentally preferable CO2 refrigeration system ->> i wonder what is Wal-mart’s cooling/heating load!
• Heat from refrigeration system captured and reused to heat store
• Energy-saving motion-activated LED lights in refrigerator and freezer cases reduces energy use ->> these are AWESOME…  best for kids running across the whole freezer case hall and light everything up!
• Low-wattage parking lot lights as well as LED external signs reduce energy use
• White roof membrane deflects sunlight by an estimated 85 per cent  ->> this supposely reduce heat island effect…  and lowers cooling cost!
• Increased insulation on the roof reduces heat and cooling loss

There are some more features that you can see in this article.  It looks like it’s build to LEED standard by reading these features…. There is no LEED for retail (yet) and maybe that’s why they have not decided to go for LEED… who knows.  it also costs money to be LEED certified!

Walmart’s sustainable policy - big company, big impact

Do you shop at Wal-Mart?  I’m not a big fan but I have been to Wal-Mart numerous times when we used to live in Kingston, Ontario.  It’s a typical big box store similar to the Canadian Superstore without veggies (although the new Walmart Super Centres have veggies), Zellers with less clothing, Home Depot with less building material.  Really, it sells everything, and it sells for cheaper.  Despite all the negative news (like the Walrmart movie) relating to Wal-Mart in basically every aspect, I have to admit that a super large company like Wal-Mart, when it decides to catch the sustainable fad, is really effective.  They call it “Sustainable 360“.  

Some quick stats:

• Every week 176 million customers shop our stores in 16 countries around this world;
• over 7,800 Wal-Mart stores and Sam’s Club; and
• employ more than 2 million associates.

Not hard to see why when they implement a policy, the impact is quite significant!  This week I will go through their sustainable newsletters, sustainable fact sheets, and research some news about their carbon footprint… stay tuned.  

some quick food for thoughts with their sustainable measures:

• In 2008, Wal-Mart was able to reach its goal to improve the efficiency of its fleet by 25 percent by loading trucks more efficiently, working with suppliers to reduce packaging, creating better driving routes that reduce miles and adding fuel-saving technologies to the truck.  
  • In a single year, this change could eliminate approximately 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, reduce the use of 10 million gallons of diesel fuel and save the company an estimated $25 million per year.
• In May 2008, Wal-Mart reached its goal to sell only concentrated liquid laundry detergent in all of its U.S. stores and Sam’s Club locations. President and CEO Lee Scott made this commitment at the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative.
  • it is expected to save, over a three-year period, more than 400 million gallons of water, more than 95 million pounds of plastic resin and more than 125 million pounds of cardboard.  For water alone, this is the equivalent of 100 million individual showers.

Pretty impressive in my view - we really need some big companies to get their act together to make big impacts like this!  What do you think?