From the Farm, To Nestlé, To Your Kitchen — We’re Taking Action on Climate

How Nestlé’s Making Your Favorite Brands Even Better for the Planet

I started my career with Nestlé at a manufacturing facility, and I’ve seen a lot of change over the years on my path to becoming CEO. One thing never changes: we all want to eat food that tastes great. I believe that great food delights and nourishes people — it should also respect our planet and protect our resources. To do so for the long term, to help feed 10 billion people by 2050, we’ve got to grow, package, and deliver our foods sustainably.

The climate challenge isn’t something we can take on alone, but we believe that Nestlé can be part of the solution for tackling climate issues in the food system. We’re not afraid to take on hard issues like climate change, and to do so we’re harnessing the power of our employees and farmers, and empowering our consumers, to make real change.

In December, we were proud to announce our investment in the Taygete Solar Project — a 2,000 acre solar project based in Pecos County, Texas. Our investment in the project will expand the amount of solar electricity on the U.S. grid by enough to power around 90,000 homes each year and reduce our carbon emissions by an equivalent of producing 4 billion DiGiorno pizzas per year.

This is just one part of the puzzle, as we work to make our company sustainable from the ingredients we use, to the packaging that keeps our food safe. We’ve been doing this work over many years, and we’ve got exciting new things to come in the future. Here’s how we’re taking action on climate change.

On The Farm — The Ingredients We Use

We rely on the knowledge, quality, and ingenuity of American farmers to grow great ingredients that become part of your favorite brands. Our supply chain teams work closely with farmers to support sustainability efforts — harnessing the power of our scale and combining it with the multi-generational knowledge of the farmers who grow our foods.

Dairy accounts for around 2% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States today — we want to ensure brands like Carnation, DiGiorno and Stouffers are part of the solution for making a real change in the dairy industry. In 2020, we announced that we were the first company to join the Net Zero Initiative. The Initiative is a partnership to support the U.S. dairy industry’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, and to optimize water usage and improve water quality in dairy systems in the same time frame. This represents a real commitment to improvement among American dairy farmers, and we couldn’t be prouder to support their goals.

We’ve also been paying attention to how your food habits are changing as you seek a more sustainable lifestyle. In recent years, we’ve made the effort to invest in innovating more climate-friendly plant-based foods that taste great. From Sweet Earth’s popular Awesome Burger to our plant-based non-dairy Coffee mate natural bliss creamers, bringing you a whole new range of options that don’t compromise on quality or flavor.

At Nestlé — How We Make and Transport our Products

Once ingredients and other supplies are at Nestlé facilities, we want to ensure we’re cooking, packaging, and transporting them in ways that are sustainable. Building on more than a decade of efforts to generate zero waste and use water and energy more efficiently, our manufacturing and brand teams are constantly innovating new ways of improving our operations, and have set ambitious goals for the coming years.

Carbon neutrality — ensuring we’re removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as we’re emitting — is one goal brands have set for the coming years. Perrier, San Pellegrino, Nespresso, and Garden of Life have already committed to being carbon neutral by 2022, while Sweet Earth Foods have committed to add to their already-impressive sustainability caliber by committing to carbon neutrality by 2025.

We’re also changing the way our facilities operate across the globe by changing the energy we use to power them. Within the next five years, we’ll have transitioned all Nestlé facilities to renewable energy in every country in which we operate, including here in the U.S. We’re also looking at opportunities in the electrification of our freight operations, empowering our transportation network to join in the switch to renewable energy sources.

In Your Kitchen — The Packaging that Keeps our Food Safe

All of us try our best to be sustainable in our own homes, and over the last decade many of us have introduced new waste disposal practices to ensure we’re recycling what we can. At Nestlé, we’re working with industry partners and making real investments to help improve recycling infrastructure, so you have more access to recycling opportunities. We’re also designing our packaging to be as sustainable as possible while still maintaining the quality and safety of your favorite brands — in fact, we’ve committed to making 100% of our packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.

We take that commitment seriously and we’ve made big investments in recycling innovation to support your recycling goals at home. Around this time last year, we kicked off 2020 by announcing we’re investing $2 billion in recyclable and reusable packaging innovation, including a $250 million sustainable packaging venture fund to invest in startups that focus on this area.

Our brands have taken bold steps forward already. The DiGiorno team realized they could remove the cardboard disc in some of their pizza lines without compromising the quality of the pizza, reducing packaging by the equivalent of saving 49,000 trees per year. Starbucks by Nespresso and Starbucks Creamers are available in 100% recyclable bottles on store shelves today, and Coffee mate has committed to a fully recyclable portfolio by 2022.

At Nestlé, we know that you care about sustainability and expect companies and brands like ours to take meaningful action to continuously improve our portfolio. During my career at Nestlé I’ve worked across many areas of our operations, and I’ve seen first hand the skills and creativity of Nestlé teams driving the company forward with new ideas and innovation. I absolutely believe in the power of our teams to create a more sustainable food system through the work we do with farmers, in our facilities, and to help your efforts at home.

Our first priority will always be to bring you delicious, high quality food. At the same time, we know that we can combine this dedication with new innovations that make real and substantial progress in the fight against climate change. I’m excited by the work we’ve already done, and by the potential we have to drive further change in the coming years.

Originally posted on the Nestlé U.S. Medium Publication