BIER Member Spotlight: David Grant
Meet David Grant
BIER Member Spotlight: David Grant
Name: David Grant, Director of Global Water Stewardship at PepsiCo
Company: PepsiCo
Connect with David on LinkedIn and Twitter
Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations. Learn how these practitioners and their companies are addressing pressing challenges around water, energy, agriculture, climate change, and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.
Briefly describe your role and responsibilities and how long you have worked with your company.
I am the director of Global Water Stewardship at PepsiCo, however I have only been in the role since mid-2020. Prior to that, I spent three years with AB InBev, where I was the head of sustainable development for the Africa sector, and prior to that, I was with SABMiller. So, in total, I have been in the beverage industry for a good part of 20 years.
Now, in terms of my actual role within PepsiCo, it is to oversee PepsiCo's water stewardship agenda and support the company in moving forward in delivering its global water strategy. That includes covering both internal water use efficiency, which is basically making sure that we extract the most value out of every drop that comes into our facilities, and also the broader Programs implemented to support broader conservation of the watersheds we source our water from.
How has the company’s sustainability program evolved over the years and what are your specific priorities for 2020?
As with most companies, PepsiCo’s initial focus was internal. Focusing on operational best practice and building internal capacity and capabilities. Fast forward to today, our sustainability program spans our entire value chain. We are also very focused today, meaning we have a good understanding of where our key impacts and risk areas are and as a result, setting aggressive goals, and deploying resources to these areas.
While I don't think this is necessarily unique to PepsiCo, I do think that PepsiCo recognized early on that the company had a much broader role to play in the communities and natural environment it operates in. In other words a responsibility other than just a pure profit motive. This is probably best evidenced in our sustainability strategy launched in 2006, which was called Performance with Purpose.
