The Cagayan de Oro factory in the Philippines is one of Nestlé’s largest soluble coffee operations. It uses spent coffee grounds as fuel, a good example of how Nestlé puts environmental initiatives into practice. This integrated approach to managing by-products and producing energy, combined with a change from heavy fuel oil to diesel oil, has had a number of positive environmental results in 1999:

• decreased reliance on nonrenewable fuels,
• saving of more than 4000 tonnes of oil equivalents,
• reduction in SOx emissions by nearly 300 tonnes,
• prevention of about 70 000 tonnes of waste going to landfill.

Nestlé’s worldwide operations now include more than 20 factories that are using spent coffee grounds as a supplemental fuel. This amounts to about 800 000 tonnes per year of spent coffee grounds that do not have to be landfilled. And it reduces the need for non-renewable fuels by the corresponding amount of oil equivalents.

Read more about raw materials, by-products and waste.