Nestlé sets its top priorities for Europe, Middle East, and North Africa to reach its 2050 net-zero climate goal.
The company set its net-zero climate goals with a roadmap to what they want to achieve.
From now until 2025, they will continue and expand the work already undertaken to achieve a 20% reduction in emissions.
Between 2025 and 2030 to transform their operations to achieve a 50% reduction of emissions.
And from 2030 to 2050, to work towards exploring how to offset any remaining emissions through carbon removal projects or innovation, ultimately with the target results to be net zero emissions by 2050.
To achieve those milestones, they are taking action across agriculture, operations and products, including:
- Protecting trees and landscapes that help absorb carbon and planting 20 million trees every year for the next 10 years.
- Working with farmers to shift to regenerative ways of growing ingredients for food, including for the products they produce.
- Ending deforestation in their primary supply chains by 2022.
- Completing the transition to 100% renewable electricity in the 187 countries where they operate by 2025.
- Increasing the number of ‘carbon neutral’ brands to give consumers the opportunity to contribute to the fight against climate change.
Nestlé revealed that nearly two-thirds of its total emissions are linked to agriculture. To tackle those emissions, Nestlé will work with its suppliers to change the way food is produced.
Farming practices will transition to regenerative agriculture to benefit nature and improve farmer incomes.
The key ingredients for Nestlé in Europe, Middle East, and North Africa are cocoa, coffee and milk. Therefore, Nestlé focuses on healthy soils, net-zero dairy farms, and sustainably sourced cocoa and coffee.
Marco Settembri, Nestlé CEO for Europe, Middle East and North Africa, said:
Our projects on healthy soils, low emission dairy farms, and sustainably sourced cocoa and coffee show promising outcomes.
We are confident that those collaborations with farmers and suppliers can be extended to reach our net-zero climate goal.
Nestlé already carries the following initiatives to achieve its 2050 net-zero ambition:
- Through programs like Living Soils in France and LENs in the UK, Nestlé empowers farmers to use no or fewer pesticides and apply techniques such as permanent soil cover, crop rotation, and reduced tillage. These help keep more carbon and water locked up in the ground and create healthier soils.
- To develop dairy products that are good for people and the planet, Nestlé will scale up its actions in the dairy supply chain. The company’s goal is net-zero emissions dairy farms. The Nestlé projects Climate-friendly Milk in Switzerland and First Milk in the UK have already achieved strong results in reducing carbon emissions on over 220 dairy farms. Actions include implementing a range of better farming initiatives, such as keeping cows longer, using more local feed, and working on cows’ health.
- By 2025, 100% of the cocoa and coffee Nestlé uses will be sustainably sourced. For this, Nestlé is cooperating with farmers to avoid deforestation and rolling out an ambitious reforestation plan. In 2020, the company kicked off a public-private partnership to conserve and restore the Cavally Forest, one of the last remaining biodiversity locatios in Côte d’Ivoire.
Katja Seidenschnur, Nestlé Sustainability Director for Europe, Middle East and North Africa, said:
We work with farmers, shift our portfolio to more plant-based products and introduce carbon-neutral brands.
We also rethink our manufacturing and distribution processes as well as make our packaging more circular.
All those actions will help us progress on our journey down to zero. We leverage our global R&D network to deliver on our climate commitments.
Let’s work together with the whole value chain and governments to get this done.
By 2025, Nestlé aims to have all its 800 global sites using 100% renewable electricity.