PepsiCo leaps to No. 1 on EPA's Green Power rankings

A U.S. corporation's first green power purchase has put it at the top of three Environmental Protection Agency lists that recognize the growing number companies and organizations that have committed to green energy use.

The EPA recognized PepsiCo's commitment to purchase 100 percent green power. At more than 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), this is the largest purchase to date under the agency's Green Power Partner program, and is enough to power 90,000 average American homes each year.

"America is shifting to a 'green culture,' with more and more businesses understanding that environmental responsibility is everyone's responsibility," said EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "By switching to alternative, renewable power sources, PepsiCo is proving that going green can be the choice of every generation."

EPA's Green Power Partnership, launched in 2001, works with more than 700 partner organizations that voluntarily buy green power as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use and to promote the development of new green power resources nationwide.

PepsiCo now leads the following lists:

• The Top 25 list, which recognizes the nation's largest purchasers of green power, which comes from eligible renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biogas, as well as low-impact hydropower. EPA partners are buying more than 8.9 billion kilowatt-hours kWh of green power annually, an increase of nearly 425 percent since the end of 2004.
• EPA's Fortune 500 Challenge, launched in late 2006, focuses on the collective green power purchases of eligible Fortune 500 companies – with a goal of a combined total of more than five billion kWh of green power by the end of 2007. Johnson & Johnson, Nike and Applied Materials also moved up in the challenge as a result of increased purchases, and Baxter Health Care corporate headquarters found its first ranking in the challenge.
• The new "100 Percent Green Power Purchaser" list, which features organizations that are buying enough green power to meet 100 percent of their organization-wide purchased electricity use. This list includes more than 300 partner organizations demonstrating environmental leadership - from the largest corporations and government entities, down to some of the smallest organizations and businesses in the United States.

A complete list of EPA's National Top 25 Green Power Partners follows, listed in descending order of purchase size. Another first-timer to the list is the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, ranking No. 7 nationally:

1. PepsiCo
2. Wells Fargo & Co.
3. Whole Foods Market
4. U.S. Air Force
5. Johnson & Johnson
6. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
7. Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts
8. Starbucks
9. DuPont Co.
10. U.S. Department of Energy
11. Vail Resorts Inc.
12. HSBC North America
13. Cisco Systems Inc.
14. Staples
15. New York University
16. The World Bank Group
17. University of Pennsylvania
18. IBM Corp.
19. U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs
20. NatureWorks LLC
21. Sprint Nextel
22. Safeway Inc.
23. Pennsylvania State University
24. Kohl's Department Stores
25. Nike Inc.

For more information about each of EPA's Top Partner lists:

National Top 25: epa.gov/greenpower/partners/top25.htm

Fortune 500 Green Power Challenge: epa.gov/greenpower/partners/fortune500.htm

100 Percent Green Power Purchaser: epa.gov/greenpower/partners/partner100.htm