Magdi Batato knows better than most how much of an environmental impact a giant multinational can have –he’s responsible for measuring just that at Nestlé. And he knows how important it is to make the company’s operations sustainable.
“It’s good for the planet, it’s good for humankind,” he explains from the vantage of the food giant’s headquarters on the shore of Lake Geneva. And “it is essential for the survival of our business.”
That’s no mean challenge for a company with more than 300,000 employees working in nearly 3000 locations worldwide. But Nestlé has set itself some tough objectives. It aims “to get to zero net carbon by 2050,” he says.
The company has already made progress since setting out to reduce its environmental impact and use of resources.
“We will have reduced energy consumption by between 30 and 35 per cent per tonne of the product we produce” by the time Nestlé has marked the first decade of its sustainability programme later this year, says Batato.
Already, over a third of the company’s 413 factories worldwide run entirely off renewable energy, with a plan to go to 100 per cent, he says. In coffee producing factories, coffee grounds are used to generate electricity.
“We will also have reduced water consumption by 30 to 35 per cent, as well as greenhouse-gas emissions,” he adds. A strategy to completely end deforestation connected to Nestlé operations has run into delays, though the company has still managed to achieve a 90 per cent reduction and will achieve zero deforestation within the next three years, with the help of some serious high tech: satellite technology from Airbus Defence and Space is used to monitor deforestation rates.
Above all, the world’s eyes are on Nestlé’s approach to packaging and plastic. Here, Nestlé has mapped out an ambitious programme. This includes initiatives like the partnership it set up with local governments in Indonesia that aims to prevent leakage of plastic into the ocean. It’s also committed to make 100 per cent of its packaging recyclable and reusable by 2025.
Bringing it into balance
But it’s a tricky balancing act. Plastic can’t be swapped out for more eco-friendly alternatives overnight because the company needs access to food-grade packaging that “protects the food safety and also the food quality,” explains Batato. To that end, Nestlé launched its Institute of Packaging Sciences in Switzerland last September in an effort to develop functional, safe and environmentally friendly packaging solutions.
Sometimes, public perceptions haven’t kept up with Nestlé’s efforts. For instance, many consumers are worried that spent Nespresso coffee machine capsules are causing environmental damage when, in fact, they’re heavily recycled. Nestlé spends tens of millions of Swiss francs on recycling schemes whereby the aluminium capsules are collected, sorted and then turned into a wide range of products.
“We have made Caran D’Ache pens, potato peelers, Victorinox knives,” with the recycled capsules, says Batato. Nestlé has even worked with a Swedish bicycle maker to turn the capsules into aluminium bike frames.
The biggest corporations will always draw a disproportionate share of critical attention – “big trees catch wind,” as Batato puts it – and Nestlé knows that it has to be ever more transparent about its operations to win consumers’ confidence. It has increasingly opened up its production facilities and sourcing locations to NGOs and the media.
Information please
To be transparent, it needs to be informed. In 2017, Nestlé started using blockchain technology when it joined, as a founding member, the IBM Food Trust, which aims to improve the traceability of food products. For instance, it has clarity on the full value chain of its Mousline potato puree:
“You use the QR code and it will tell you about the quality of the potatoes, about the controls we have and about the farmers,” Batato explains. “It is our vehicle to be able to put on the consumer’s table our transparency and visibility in facts and figures.”
As Nestlé shows, putting sustainability at the heart of a business is a complex process that demands pursuing numerous avenues. There is much more it needs to do. But its experiences show that sustainability is possible.
