How Green Is My Orange?
Chip Litherland for The New York Times
Above, oranges are processed at a Tropicana plant in Bradenton, Fla. More Photos >
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: January 21, 2009
BRADENTON, Fla. — How much does your morning glass of orange juice contribute to
global warming?
Multimedia
Slide Show
Tracking Carbon Footprints to the Breakfast Table
Graphic
The Environmental Cost of Orange Juice
PepsiCo, which owns the Tropicana brand, decided to try to answer that question. It
figured that as public concern grows about the fate of the planet, companies will find
themselves under pressure to perform such calculations. Orange juice seemed like a good
case study.
PepsiCo hired experts to do the math, measuring the emissions from such energyintensive tasks as running a factory and transporting heavy juice cartons. But it turned
out that the biggest single source of emissions was simply growing oranges. Citrus groves
use a lot of nitrogen fertilizer, which requires natural gas to make and can turn into a
potent greenhouse gas when it is spread on fields.
PepsiCo finally came up with a number: the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide
are emitted to the atmosphere for each half-gallon carton of orange juice. But the
company is still debating how to use that information. Should it cite the number in its
marketing, and would consumers have a clue what to make of it?
PepsiCo’s experience is a harbinger of the complexities other companies may face as they
come under pressure to calculate their emission of carbon dioxide, a number known as a
carbon footprint, and eventually to lower it.
“The main thing is helping us figure out where the carbon is in the chain,” said Neil
Campbell, president of Tropicana North America, a division of PepsiCo. While
acknowledging that protocols for measuring greenhouse emissions are far from perfect,
Mr. Campbell said, “you can end up doing nothing if you let that stop you.”
PepsiCo, a manufacturer of soda, salty snacks and cereal based in Purchase, N.Y., is
among a growing number of companies that hope to get ahead of potential government
mandates and curb their energy use as prices and long-term supply grow less certain.
They also want to promote supposedly low-carbon products to consumers anxious about
rising global temperatures; such labeling has already appeared in Europe.
The list of companies that have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions includes I.B.M.,
Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Google, Yahoo and Dell are among the companies
that have vowed to become “carbon neutral.”
PepsiCo is among the first that will provide consumers with an absolute number for a
product’s carbon footprint, which many expect to be a trend. The information will be
posted on Tropicana’s Web site. The company has not yet decided if it will eventually put
it on the package.
While carbon reduction efforts are generally welcomed by environmentalists, some
complain that the marketing claims are backed by fuzzy numbers and dubious
assumptions.
Standards exist for determining a carbon footprint, but companies can apply them in
different ways. They can decide how rigorous they want to be in counting emissions in
the supply chain, and what data sources they should use in the process.
“Any time people are making a legitimate effort to reduce emissions directly or indirectly
with their product and services, most of us would think that is a good thing,” said
Michael Gillenwater, dean of the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute, a nonprofit
organization that teaches greenhouse gas management and accounting.
“The trick is when you try to put a strict label that has implications for comparing your
product to another product, or implying that you have no climate change impact,” he
said.
Nancy Hirshberg, vice president for natural resources at the yogurt maker Stonyfield
Farm, said measuring a carbon footprint is a “fabulous tool” for pinpointing areas to
reduce emissions. For instance, her company was surprised to learn that milk production
was a far bigger contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than its factory.
But she said there were so many variables in determining a carbon footprint that an
absolute number was meaningless as a marketing tool.
“I’m thrilled that people are thinking about their carbon footprint, but to put a number
on a package is misleading at best,” she said.
PepsiCo’s interest in determining the carbon footprint of its products began in England,
where carbon anxiety is further advanced than in the United States. In 2007, Walkers, a
PepsiCo brand, published the carbon footprint of its potato chips on its Web site and on
the package.
Mr. Campbell, who ran the Walkers brand, championed the idea when he came to
Tropicana at the beginning of 2008. As was the case with Walkers, Tropicana hired an
outside auditor, the Carbon Trust, to review its calculations and certify its footprint. The
Carbon Trust was set up by the British government to accelerate progress toward a lowcarbon economy.
Making orange juice is relatively straightforward: the oranges are picked by hand,
trucked to the plant, squeezed, pasteurized and packed into cartons and shipped by train
to distribution points around the country. Early on, company officials roughed out the
carbon footprint of Tropicana juice. But when the Carbon Trust came back with its own
calculations, that initial estimate was off by more than 20 percent.
Growing the oranges accounted for a larger share — about a third — than PepsiCo had
expected, almost entirely because of the production and application of fertilizer.
Now, PepsiCo managers said they planned to work with their growers and with
researchers at the University of Florida to find ways to grow oranges using less carbon.
And they are starting to grapple with ways to teach the public how to interpret the
carbon footprint of a product.
PepsiCo is scheduled to announce its Tropicana results on Thursday, and will publish
carbon-footprint numbers for products including Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Gatorade. Said
Bryan Lembke, a PepsiCo manager on the project: “If you don’t measure it, you can’t
improve it.”
Some Facts:
$
$
$
$
1,200,000
7.5
9,000,000
2204
4,083
3
1,361
2.47
3,362
3,000
10,086,207
2
2,400,000
3.00
4.20
gallons consumed 2009/2010 growing season
lbs of carbon per gallon
lbs of carbon with total consumption
lbs in a metric ton
metric tonnes of carbon with total consumption
tons per hectare sequestered annually by a hectare in forest
hectares needed to create forestry offset
acres per hectares
acres needed to create forestry offset
value of commercial forest per acre
total value of forest for 3362 acres
number of half gallons in a gallon
half gallons consumed
price per half gallon
forest carbon value in a half gallon
Discussion Questions:
Consider how Tropicana can produce its own reduction credits. If not possible, how can they
become carbon neutral? Consider this week‘s discussions in class.
Given the facts stated above, is it possible for Tropicana to pass along its cost using a forestry
carbon credit option to consumers? Explain.
The price of commercial forest lands is higher than abandoned farmlands. Say an acre of
abandoned farmland with planting costs included runs around $300 per acre, how much will
Tropicana need to increase its price of orange juice to offset the cost of becoming carbon neutral.
Recently, Tropicana increased its prices by 7% without any substantial loss in market share.
Would it be possible to raise the revenues needed to become carbon neutral through a price
increase per carton?
Recently, Tropicana joined forces with CoolEarth. Using codes found on cartons, you can join
CoolEarth and save a tree, an acre of forest, and other community activities. These activities are
focused in an area undergoing active deforestation in Peru. Comment on the success such an
activity will have on reducing greenhouse gases. How does it compare with the afforestation
example above?