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Water and environmental sustainability

alt text here please“Small changes can make a big difference. We have introduced bottles made from 25% recycled plastic, and through a partnership with GreenOps, which has built recycling stations in stores like this one, we encourage more people to recycle.”
Monique Mims, Senior Innovations Manager, Nestlé Waters N.A., USA “Recycling is one of our core values, going back 30 years when Whole Foods started. It’s about caring what we do in our communities and says a lot about what we do as a company. We collect returned plastic bottles in the machines provided by our partner GreenOps, and they reprocess them.”
Tony Banuelos, Store Team Leader, Whole Foods Market, West Hollywood, LA, California, USA

Context

Globally, the combination of population growth, increasing affluence and lifestyle patterns are outstripping the planet’s ability to bear the effects of human activity. We believe that we are facing a serious water crisis in the coming years that will have serious consequences for food security. The food chain, from agriculture to manufacturing and consumption, contributes significantly to water quality and availability, climate change, energy use, biodiversity and soil quality, and air quality. At the same time, it is heavily dependent upon all these environmental resources. As an example, the availability and accessibility of fresh water already affects our business, and we also expect to see the consequences of climate change on our operations over the next decades.

Our goals

Our ambition is to produce tasty and nutritious food and beverages that also have the best environmental footprint, so we strive to continuously improve our operational efficiency and environmental performance. We apply a life cycle approach to assess the impacts of our own operations and those along the wider value chain from farm to fork, thereby contributing to a better future and Creating Shared Value to both Nestlé and society.

Our actions

We invested over CHF 175 million in environmental sustainability programmes and initiatives during 2010. We continue to identify and implement projects to reduce our use of water, non-renewable energy and other natural resources, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), to eliminate waste and to improve the environmental performance of our packaging. We also work alongside our suppliers to promote more sustainable practices in our supply chain, including the promotion of water stewardship. In 2010, we carried out pilot Biodiversity Assessments in our Nestlé Waters Plant in Viladrau, Spain, which is located in a naturally protected environment as well as our confectionery plant in Fawdon, UK. With this action, we were among the first companies in Europe that engaged in such assessments on their premises.

Our performance

We continued to make improvements in our water consumption and CO2 emissions performance through reduced energy consumption following operational energy efficiency measures and a move towards renewable energy sources. More waste is being diverted from disposal to landfill and incinerators without energy recovery. Two additional manufacturing sites, in the UK, managed to find alternative uses for manufacturing by-products, thus diverting them from disposal to landfill or incineration without energy recovery. A continued focus on packaging optimisation remains a priority.
 

For more information, download the following documents:

 

CSV summary

  • Value for Nestlé: continuously improving environmental performance; efficient operations; reduced risks; resource and cost savings; long-term availability of raw materials and water; sustainable, profitable growth.
  • Value for society: raising of environmental standards; higher incomes; better standards of living; improved food security.