The soft drink world experienced an earthquake recently when Coke Zero

The Wall Street Journal has now published an article questioning Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi’s strategy for expanding Pepsi’s product offering toward healthier choices.

Really?

Come on WSJ let’s look at the facts.

FACT #1. What soft drink displaced Pepsi at number two? It was Coke ZERO. Coke ZERO is a soft drink specifically designed to offer a soft drink experience with ZERO calories. Coke ZERO is marketed to consumers seeking healthier, ie lower calories, drink choices. If anything, Coke ZERO taking over number two positioning re-enforces the value of developing business strategies focused upon products that align with consumers searching for “in me, on me and around me” solutions. My bright green friends will have their issues on whether Coke ZERO is a healthier alternative but what can’t be questioned is that the consumer shift toward what they believe are healthier products are creating revenue growth opportunities like Coke ZERO.

Fact #2. Coke has a healthier product strategy too. Pepsi and Coke are world class at figuring out where consumers are heading in their product choices. BOTH are implementing strategies that are expanding their product lines to include healthier alternatives. Coke sells Odwalla. Coke sells Honest Tea. Coke sells Minute Maid juices. How do you conclude a failed strategy for Pepsi focusing upon healthier product offerings when Coke is doing the same thing?

Fact #3. Consumers are buying healthier choices. Market research is overwhelmingly documenting that consumers are searching for “green” solutions. Some consumers call it energy efficiency. Some call it sustainability. Some call it organic. And there is no unifying “reason” among consumers for going green. Some do it to save money. Some do it improve their health and that of their loved ones. And some do it because they believe it is the right thing to do. But what is not in question is Earth 2017′s analysis that a mega-trend shift in consumer procurement toward buying smart, healthy and green products is creating a multi-trillion dollar global annual revenue opportunity that should be integral to every business strategy.

Pepsi losing its number two position in soft drink sales is NOT an indication of a failed strategy by Pepsi in offering healthier products. Rather, it is further evidence that consumer demand is shifting in scale and speed toward products and companies offering smart, health and green solutions.

Bill Roth is the founder of Earth 2017, a company that connects businesses with customers who are buying smart, healthy and green solutions. His book, The Secret Green Sauce, profiles best practices of businesses making money going green.

This sparked the question, who are our Sustainable CEOs? The following were nominations submitted by Triple Pundit readers during the week of January 7-15, 2010 listed in order of their nominations. This list is impressive in its length and diversity of nominations. I posted with every name a link to their company’s webpage. Studying these leaders’ management practices and the “green” action items their companies are pursuing to grow profitability and revenues is an eye-opening window into the emerging sustainable global economy and why I now project $10 trillion of annual global sustainable revenues by 2017.

Doug Conan
Campbell’s Soup

Yvon Chouinard
Patagonia

Dan Hesse
Sprint

Mick Bremans
Ecover

Ray Anderson
Interface Carpet

BethAnn Lederer
Working Wonders

Lee Scott
WalMart

Jose Manuel Entrecanales
Acciona

Bill Bregman
Deltapaper Corporation

Jeff Hollender
Seventh Generation

Jeff Swartz
Timberland

Bill Ford
Ford Motor Company

Mark J. Woodward
Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

George Siemon
Organic Valley Company

Ed Lonergan
Johnson Diversey

Eric Schmidt
Google

Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan
New Belgium Brewery

Brian Walker
Herman Miller

Fuji Cho
Katsuaki Watanabe
ToyotaToyota

Steve Fambro
Paul Weber
Aptera Motors

Forrest North
Mission Motors

Dan DiMicco
Nucor CorporationNucor Corporation

William R. Johnson
H.J. Heinz Company

Jan Blittersdorf
NRG SystemsNRG

Steve Ells
Chipotle

John Mackey
Whole Foods

Irene Rosenfeld
Kraft Foods

Ross Taylor
Tenix

Gail Kelly
Westpac Bank

Indra Nooyi
Pepsico
Pepsico

Anita Roddick
CSR-Reporting

Sybil Goldfiner
comme il faut

Ofra Strauss
Strauss Group

Yehudit Bronicki
Ormat Industries

Maxine Fassberg
Intel Israel

Andy Ball
Webcor Builders

Shantanu Narayen
Adobe

Steve Roell
Johnson Controls