Agro Perspectiva

Environmental sustainability at Nestlé

04.06.2010 10:49 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) — Nestlé backs a new report by the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) which explores today’s global water crisis. The ‘Tackling the World Water Crisis: Reshaping the Future of Foreign Policy’ report is released ahead of World Environment Day 2010 on June 5 — the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative to create awareness of the environment and enhance political attention and public action. The collection of small essays includes analysis from contributors including the Rt Hon William Hague MP, the new UK Foreign Secretary and Baroness Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief. The report argues that global water scarcity is not inevitable, even in the face of climate change and the global population explosion. This crisis can be averted if governments and political leaders prioritise better water management. In backing its Creating Shared Value approach to business, Nestlé further highlights its proactive role by investing over CHF 220 million in environmental sustainability programmes and initiatives during 2009, to actively improve its environmental performance, while aiming to raise environmental standards. Prominently, the Company has reduced its water withdrawal by over half, per one tonne of product, in comparison to 2000. For example, the Nestlé Chachoengsao factory in Thailand was designed around a minimum water withdrawal and near zero discharge concept. While at Nestlé Waters Henniez in Switzerland, water has been used sustainably for bottling since 1905 with 15 years work alongside local stakeholders for the implementation of land use practices that value the environment and local water resources. Today, Nestlé has reduced energy usage by nearly half, per one tonne of product, compared to a decade ago. In June 2009, the Nestlé Pure Life bottling plant in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, became the first Nestlé Waters North America site to be Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), certified by the United States Green Building Council. All nine NWNA facility and plant extensions have now achieved this status, with all future bottling sites earmarked to be LEED certified. Backing its environmental stance, Nestlé has also cut its greenhouse gases emissions by half, per one tonne of product, in comparison to 10 years ago. In reducing CO2, a «green fleet» project was launched in November 2009 to cut the environmental impact of its fleet or passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, which currently cover 14,000 of such vehicles worldwide. A number of other projects have increased use of energy from renewable sources last year. For example, at the Nestlé Bugalagrande factory in Columbia, the installation of the latest spent coffee grounds-fuelled boiler allows the recovery of energy from this biomass. This renewable fuel, which is carbon neutral and has 95% lower CO2 emissions than the fossil fuels it replaces, provides 13% of the total energy required in the factory.