Nestle CSR Report Starts in Right Direction
Henry Nestle founded the company that bears his name in 1866 with a single product: breakfast cereal. With an original mission to provide proper nutrition to children, the company has since expanded, becoming a worldwide conglomerate and household name.
The company that holds 30 percent of the market share for bottled water is looking to begin improving its operations and lessen it’s impact on the Earth.
Nestle has what it calls a “Creating Shared Value” report to tally how well it achieves those objectives (its version of a corporate citizenship report). And because it has had a skeptical audience in the past, this report is vetted by an outside assurance agency that helps the company write the report. The auditors then tells us where the report succeeds and fails at being transparent and complying with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), as with other CSRs like Pepsi’s.
Like most , Nestle tries to reduce its environmental footprint and lower its operating costs simultaneously. Here are highlights from the company’s own 2007 statistics:
- 76 percent increase of production volume
- 22 percent reduction of packaging material for bottled water
- 3 percent reduction of energy use
- 16 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
- 28 percent reduction of water withdrawal
Water, Water Everywhere…
For Nestle, their key environmental issue is water use, especially in developing nations. Obviously, water resources are critical to Nestle’s operations, however, their reporting software may not be up to the level it needs to be at this time, according to the report’s auditors.
Providing resources for workers in countries where Nestle operates is also a high priority. According to the chairman of Nestle, the company is “increasingly focused on providing affordable, nutritious foods to lower-income populations in developing countries. In 2007, working with national governments, we opened large, state-of-the-art factories in rural areas of Brazil, China and Pakistan, to produce food with high nutritional value at an affordable cost for the local population.”
On the other hand, Nestle’s factories use a great deal of water and resources, especially precious in those countries. It is a tight rope that they walk.
Nestle’s goal is to have a complete life cycle assessment of all of its products (from extraction of raw materials to manufacture, distribution and end-of-life management) by 2011, through the use of its proprietary environmental management system.
…And Not a Drop to Drink
Nestle also looks to improve its environmental impact through increased recycling. The company is dedicated to doubling the recycling rate of PET plastic bottles to over 60 percent by 2018 by working closely with recycling stakeholders. Simultaneously, the corporation hopes to produce a “next generation” bottle made entirely of recycled materials or renewable resources by 2020.
Nestle’s Eco-Shape bottle already uses 30 percent less plastic than conventional bottles, driving the organization in the right direction to meet its goal. Also utilizing a label that is 35 percent smaller than typical bottles, Nestle expects to save 65 million pounds of PET and 10 million pounds of paper annually through the Eco-Shape.
In 2007, Nestle recycled 86 percent of its solid waste in its factories, including cardboard, boxes, rejected bottles, bottle pre-forms, low-density polyethylene wrap, shrink-wrap and pallet strapping. Nestle looks to further green its operations by recycling 90 percent of its in-factory waste stream by 2009 and 95 percent by 2010.
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The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
TC
posted on December 1st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I appreciate the fact Nestle’s created a report, but I’d like to point out where Nestle’s practices differ widely from their greenwashed “Shared Value” report.
First, it’s ludicrous to describe bottled water in any sort of “eco-friendly” terms; compared to the high-quality water that flows from most taps, the bottling (in plastic, 80% of which isn’t recycled) and transportation of water creates a sizable carbon footprint.
Second, Nestle has a troubling history of usurping local control of water supplies, especially in rural areas (where most of its “spring” water brands are bottled).
For example, they’ve sued the tiny town of Fryeburg (Maine) five times in an attempt to force a 24/7 truck loading station (in a residential area) on the town. In McCloud, CA, the original contract Nestle negotiated with the tiny town would have given Nestle exclusive rights to the water for 100 years, and also afforded the multinational priority over the town’s own residents.
Their stewarship of water supplies is also questionable; in Michigan they were ordered to stop pumping water for their Mecosta County plant by a judge due to the damage being done to the watershed. Their response was to sue in an attempt to overturn Michigan’s environmental law – challenging not the question of their damaging the watershed, but the right of citizens to bring suit for damaging activities taking place on the lands of others.
I could go on, but Nestle is hardly to be lauded for the “green” stance; making thinner bottles delivers sizable cost savings to them, and their record of legal bullying and predatory behavior towards small towns largely erases any profit-motivated goodwill they’ve accumulated.
Linda Hunter
posted on December 1st, 2008 at 7:52 pm
You cannot speak about being eco-friendly or good for the environment so long as you package ANYTHING in plastic. There is nothing wrong with using glass bottles. There is also nothing wrong with using tap water. Oh, yes, I see what’s wrong…you don’t make money if we use tap water.
bopeep
posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 11:07 am
It’s not exactly as if anyone is being tricked into buying bottled water. There is a large market demand for water and several bottling companies have tooled up operations to fill this need for us. This doesn’t make them evil.
Careless handling by the people who buy these products is the only problem. Our recycling and littering rates are not the manufacturer’s fault – this is the fault of the consumer’s reckless handling of waste.
TC
posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Nestle’s predatory tactics go far beyond simply serving a market, and in fact, they’ve recently run an ad proclaiming bottled water the most environmentally conscious consumer product in the world – a blatant falsehood by any reasonable standard.
Nestle’s greenwashing is legendary; their practices often vary widely from their stated guidelines. One example? They proclaim themselves good stewards of water supplies, yet in Michigan, a judge ordered a Mecosta County Nestle plant to cease pumping due to the damage being done to the watershed (Nestle ultimately cut its pumping in half to maintain some production at the plant).
In Florida, Nestle lobbyists convinced political appointees to allow the company to extract 1.47-million gallons per day from drought-stricken Blue Springs instead of the 400,000 gallons per day wanted by state scientests, who wanted to protect the spring, which was running at the lowest flows ever recorded.
Worse is Nestle/Poland’s Spring’s handling of those who oppose – for a variety of reasons – their water bottling business, including the tiny town of Fryeburg, Maine.
Fryeburg’s repeatedly said “no” to the truck loading station your multinational wants to site in a residential area, and yet Nestle/Poland Spring has sued/appealed the town five times, including a trip to the State Supreme Court.
That hardly seems like the act of benign corporate neighbor, and after hearing of Fryeburg’s predicament – including the fact that a small citizens group finds itself $21,000 in debt after fighting Nestle’s steady stream of briefs – small towns are rightfully concerned about protecting their water and local economies from an entity that seems to care more about profits than the well-being of local communities and watersheds.
Almost everything Nestle does is designed to save money, and environmental benefits are purely secondary. Another example? Nestle proudly trumpets its use of biofuels in its fleet of trucks in Maine, yet they’re only using 5% biofuel – a number suspiciously close the 4% needed to qualify for a tax break from the state.
It’s hard to see that in any light but a washed-out hue of green.
TC
bopeep
posted on December 2nd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
At the risk of seeming repetitious, my statement had nothing to do with their business practices. The fact that almost everything that they do is designed to save money only qualifies them as a well-operated business. That’s exactly what they are supposed to do. They are cutting corners – we all are. They are also making green progress. I am a process engineer and I know a bit about blow molding. Reducing the weight of plastic in bottles is actually more expensive because of the near-perfect blow that it takes. I realize that this was done as a cause marketing move, but marketing isn’t really a crime, either.
I can’t say that I have agreed with everything that they have done over the last 35 years or so, but I think this is progress.
TC
posted on December 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Not to belabor my point, but I’m a marketing guy, and while I don’t believe marketing’s a crime, I do believe when a company’s actions in the field vary widely from their “corporate citizenship report,” raising a red flag is entirely appropriate.
After all, they issued their glossy report and claimed good corporate citizenship, not me. And this site published it without critical review, which is what some of us are trying to provide in these comments.
I’m happy Nestle’s putting less plastic into bottles. Unfortunately – if Nestle leverages its considerable media power to claim sainthood because they reduced the amount of plastic in their bottles (enjoying lower plastic and transportation costs), then I feel entirely justified pointing out their business practices leave a lot to be desired, and that suing small towns in an attempt to force 24/7 truck loading stations in residential areas is hardly the act of a good corporate citizen.
I could easily list another dozen reasons why Nestle is in fact NOT a good corporate citizen. For that matter, since they extensively market their bottled water – attacking the quality of tap water supplies in the process – I feel justified in pointing out the lunacy of bottling water in plastic bottles (70%-80% of which are not recycled), transporting it, and paying $1.50 for it.
Whatever advances they’ve made in their bottling operation, Nestle’s “Shared Value” report falls under the heading of “greenwash” – at least as long as their actual, on-the-ground business practices include predatory tactics in rural towns, misleading (or blatantly false) ads, poor environmental practices, legal bullying and whole host of other deplorable tactics.