Nestle Plans to Invest $3.6 Billion in Climate Change Fight
Nestle to Invest $3.6 Billion in Fight Against Climate Change
(Bloomberg) -- Nestle SA, the world’s largest food company, said it will invest 3.2 billion Swiss francs ($3.6 billion) over the next five years in an effort to fight climate change.
The company will plant 200 million trees during the next decade and help farmers and suppliers shift toward regenerative agriculture, the KitKat maker said Thursday. Nespresso, Perrier and San Pellegrino will become carbon-neutral by 2022, with the rest of its bottled water portfolio doing so by 2025.
The food industry is stepping up attempts to burnish its reputation amid criticism for environmental damage and packaging waste. Nestle is already spending as much as 2 billion francs in an attempt to promote more food-safe recycled plastics. PepsiCo Inc. pledged Wednesday to only use recycled plastic in its namesake brand’s bottles in nine European markets by 2022. And Danone, which bottles Evian, has announced a 2 billion-euro ($2.4 billion) sustainability investment over the next three years.
“Business leaders can no longer afford to be skeptical and interminably patient,” Nestle Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider said in an op-ed in Fortune magazine. “We should not expect comprehensive public policy and unanimity to do the job for us.”
Schneider compared the situation to what executives in the car industry faced in the 1970s and 1980s, choosing to invest billions of dollars to make smaller, more fuel-efficient cars that were less profitable.
Nestle aims for all of the electricity at its 800 factories to come from renewable sources within the next five years, and will expand its offering of plant-based food and beverages.
The company will start linking executive board members’ remuneration to climate targets from next year as well as the CEO bonus package, Schneider told journalists.
When Nestle set a target last year to reach zero net greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, Schneider said climate change was one of the greatest risks to the business. The company also aims to reach net-zero in its supply chain, known as Scope 3.
Nestle will offset emissions it can’t reduce at source, using third-party certified and traceable carbon credits, said Magdi Batato, head of operations.
The company said the measures it’s taking will help reduce emissions by a fifth in the next five years, and cut them in half by 2030.
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