Nestlé's Sustainability Promise: the aim to protect and restore the environment

It is time to face the facts: Our planet is in trouble, our resources depleted. We are not in good shape. We have arrived at the tipping point, where preservation is no longer enough. Saving our world and feeding generations to come requires a radical change in approach. We must go beyond “doing no harm,” and make it our mission to drive positive change in food systems at scale. We must embrace regeneration.?

Regeneration means that we help protect, renew and restore our planet and its resources by making the shift toward more resilient systems that support, rather than deplete, the environment.

It all begins with our farmers. Nestlé directly and indirectly purchases ingredients from more than half a million farmers around the world. Here, our regeneration initiatives are already underway with strong partnerships to help farmers adopt sustainable practices. We are working at both the farm and community level to improve yields, safeguard incomes, contribute investment and make a difference to people’s quality of life. We are also helping to drive social and environmental improvements through our Responsible Sourcing activity.

This is why, Nestlé is laying out its plans to support and accelerate the transition to a regenerative food system – one that aims to protect and restore the environment, prepare the next generation of farmers, improve their livelihoods and enhance the well-being of farming communities.?

This plan is our commitment to help co-create a resilient future for our planet and its people, by working to nurture communities, to improve the livelihoods of our partners and the wellbeing of our consumers, and to revitalise natural ecosystems.

Nestlé’s regeneration mission is a natural outgrowth of our company’s purpose: “To unlock the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come,” and will serve as a powerful motivation for our 72,000 employees across the Americas and beyond.

What do we mean exactly, when we say “to advance regenerative food systems at scale? Let me break it down:

• Advance: We will use our research, our experts on the ground and our market know-how to inspire change. We will raise our voice and work with external parties to drive progress. We have the capacity to lead, and we can have significant impact ourselves, but we know we cannot do this alone.
• Regenerative because we know that the food systems must now go beyond “doing no harm.”
• Food systems encompasses every actor, activity, process and product in growing, raising, making, delivering and consuming food.
• At scale because the planet, communities and individuals need a global, systems-level change, and we at Nestlé have more reach and scale than any other food business. But we cannot do it alone. That is why we will work with farmers, suppliers customers and consumers alike.

A key premise of our transition to a regenerative food system is to advance regenerative farming practices that improve soil health and fertility, sequester carbon, protect, and restore natural resources like water cycles, and foster biodiversity. Think about soil for a moment — Regenerative farming rebuilds the soil, the building block of life!

We believe that our approach to rural development will ensure thriving farmers and thriving communities, while respecting natural capital. At the same time, we are helping to create economic opportunities in those rural communities, enhancing livelihoods, and protecting food security.

We’ve made tremendous progress, but the work has only just begun. The next step is to significantly scale up our regenerative agriculture initiative. We are refining and growing our agripreneurship program, which we will actively enhance to align with our newly developed Net Zero Roadmap. We are very quickly intensifying our engagement with farmers so that the solutions we create for (and with) them achieve positive and sustainable change in agricultural systems.

The answers already exist. All we have to do is look to nature’s ability to renew and revive for our inspiration. As we drive the shift to regenerative agriculture in our supply chains, Nestlé will deploy natural climate solutions at scale, keeping more carbon and water locked up in the ground and creating healthier soils and landscapes. We will also invest in natural climate solutions. This includes planting three million trees in the areas from which we source across Latin America by the end of 2021.

To deliver on our objectives, we must play the role in renewing and regenerating our planet, Nestlé is committed to creating the right enabling environment. We know we don’t have all the answers, so we will partner with our suppliers and stakeholders, and with other major food industry players in rural development, and we will continue to push for bold climate action from the private sector, and for policy makers to implement clear, fair and firm rules to encourage collective action.

Together we can rebuild our planet.?