Approach

Since 2014, PepsiCo has been working with suppliers, civil society and industry peers to implement our Land Rights Policy. Specifically, PepsiCo supports:

• Zero tolerance for land displacements of any peoples, in accordance with IFC Performance Standards, including Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC);
• Requiring our operations and our suppliers to meet IFC Performance Standards, including FPIC, in land acquisitions (including leasing and utilization);
• Fair and legal negotiations for land transfers and acquisitions; and
• Use of appropriate grievance mechanisms, such as the PepsiCo Grievance Mechanism for our Agricultural Supply Chain, for dispute resolutions.

We have embedded our Land Policy in our sustainability work, including:

• PepsiCo Supplier Code of Conduct, which restates our requirement that all land acquisitions by our suppliers (including leasing and utilization) meet IFC Performance Standards, including FPIC;
• PepsiCo's contribution to developing external standards and criteria that align requirements on land rights with our policy and global standards. These include:
  • The IFC Performance Standards
  • The UN FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (UN FAO Guidelines)
  • The No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation (NDPE) Implementation Reporting Framework for commodities such as Palm oil and review of the standards of certification schemes such as Bonsucro and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

While land tenure-related risks can occur anywhere in our supply chain, our focus is on our agricultural supply chain where we believe we have the greatest opportunity for impact. Challenges are often systemic to certain geographies and commodities. Our implementation approach therefore focuses on:

• Frameworks and tools to help us and our supply chain better apply due diligence to land rights and therefore understand and manage specific risks;
• Country-level engagement with suppliers and others to identify challenges, raise awareness and promote capacity building;
• Partnerships and collaboration with business, civil society and others to share expertise, learn from each other, review and improve standards and identify ways to work together to tackle systemic issues; and
• Grievance mechanisms to provide channels for affected stakeholders, their representatives and civil society to raise concerns related to the social and environmental standards in our agricultural supply chain. 

ACRE framework

PepsiCo has collaborated with Landesa, a global organization that champions and works to secure land rights for millions of the world's poorest to provide opportunity and promote social justice, to create the ACRE framework. The framework helps us to monitor our Land Policy globally across crops and borders; to monitor progress on adopting responsible land practices in our supply chain and to identify and respond to potential implementation gaps. It outlines concrete practices we expect at different levels of our supply chain and integrates with our Sustainable Farming Program (SFP) as well as crop-specific certification standards.

ACRE is grounded in PepsiCo’s Land Policy and internationally-recognized best practices for responsible land investments, including the IFC Performance Standards, UN FAO Guidelines and leading industry certification standards. It is currently being piloted in select commodities and geographies.

Country-level engagement 

For a decade, we have been implementing third-party assessment programs within our sugar, palm oil and coconut water supply chains. These are conducted with the participation of affected communities and use accepted standards to audit the social, environmental and human rights aspects of these supply chains, including impacts related to land rights.

Our aim is to understand whether the standards set out in our Land Policy and other policies and commitments relating to human rights are being upheld. How we address the findings varies in each instance, but our responses fall into two broad categories depending on the assessment outcomes:

• No significant issues found: We will continue to monitor suppliers through our existing programs, such as our Human Rights Due Diligence Program and Sustainable Farming Program, and we will continue to engage with our suppliers and external stakeholders to understand any new issues that may arise and require action. 
• Issues found that are specific to PepsiCo and our supply chain: In addition to the above, we will work with our supply chain to understand the issues and develop an action plan to address these concerns. 

Partnerships and collaboration

We will continue to engage with cross-industry bodies and other external stakeholders to better understand and inform industry-wide actions that can be taken to address systemic issues like land rights. In addition, we continue to engage with a wide range of stakeholders in industries such as mills, producers, certification bodies/certification firms and grower/industry organizations, along with other end users, governments and civil society about how to conduct improved assessments on land rights and other human rights issues in line with best practices.

As a result of these engagements, we aim to ensure that future assessments of our supply chain in these industries: 

• Are developed with input from affected stakeholders and conducted by independent organizations with expertise in the salient issues being assessed; 
• Include either a publicly available version of the assessment or a summary of the context, process and findings in line with good practice; and 
• Focus on areas and issues where these risks are greatest.

What's next?

We continue to strive to take action to implement our Land Policy within our operations and supply chain. Our plans include scaling lessons from the ACRE Framework within our business and continuing to engage and collaborate with stakeholders to further progress respect for land rights and address systemic barriers.