BIER Member Spotlight: Erich Yaeger

Erich Yaeger, Sr. Corporate Responsibility Project Manager

Company: Keurig Dr Pepper

Connect with Erich on LinkedIn

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 a senior project manager at Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP). I've been with KDP for almost two years. In my role, I work on the climate and environment team, where I wear a couple of different hats.

At Keurig Dr Pepper we have several pillars on the “Drink Well. Do Good.” platform. We have supply chain, health and wellbeing, people and communities and then environment. I focus on climate and environment and address topics relevant to emissions, climate change, water scarcity and waste. A large part of my work centers around our greenhouse gas and water footprint strategy and managing data. I'm responsible for collecting data from across the organization and our partners, and then producing KDP’s metrics for water, waste, and climate.

Environmental data has never been more in the spotlight than it is right now. From employees to investors, we are constantly being asked to transparently report and disclose environmental metrics to demonstrate progress against key performance indicators. Proudly, I can share that robust data is available in our 2021 Corporate Responsibility Report.

The other role I have requires me to be on the ground in our plants to identify and manage opportunities for sustainability initiatives throughout our operations. My background is in energy engineering. Before coming to KDP, I worked on energy projects, specifically decarbonization projects with manufacturing and industrial plants. Transferring that experience to KDP, I work with our plants on pushing forward initiatives for reducing water waste and for exploring new opportunities for our waste streams.

For example, we have a 100% diversion from landfill goal. I work with our plants to find creative reuses of material by diverting as much from landfill as we can. Specific to climate, there are a lot of projects that I work with our plants on in terms of energy efficiency, including leading new initiatives to try to equip our plants with the internal expertise they need but also connect them with the experts in the field who can make our operations more sustainable and efficient.

How has the company's sustainability program evolved over the years, and what are your specific priorities for 2022?

2022 has been a transformational year for us. While we set a very ambitious corporate responsibility agenda when Keurig Dr pepper was formed through a merger in 2018, we took critical steps this year to advance our impact.

Specifically, we announced our ambition to achieve net positive water impact by 2050. That means we will shift beyond our own water stewardship within our operations to account for water use across our entire value chain. Meaning, beyond solely focusing on water replenishment, we will now address the quality of and access to water in our highest water risk areas. We also joined the Water Resilience Coalition – an industry-driven coalition of the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate. By doing this, Keurig Dr Pepper is joining like-minded and action-oriented companies from across the globe. Our new net positive water impact aspiration is one great example of how we are continuing to evolve and enhance our impact.

Another priority for us this year is regenerative agriculture. We recently set the goal to support regenerative agriculture and conservation on 250,000 acres of land by 2030, representing 50% of the land used to grow our top climate-sensitive crops. What makes this goal unique is that it represents the way forward for how we are evolving our approach to material ESG issues – the intersection of supply chain, climate and water.

Since joining KDP two years ago, the one common thread I have observed is that collective impact is essential to our ability to advance our corporate responsibility agenda. Partnering with organizations like BIER, we are able to expand and multiply our impact on projects like Charco Bendito. That project is BIER-led, industry-supported, and has made a bigger difference in the community where it is located than Keurig Dr Pepper could make alone.

Learn more about Erich Yaeger in this BIER Member Spotlight.