Improving Water Efficiency

Water extracted from fresh milk in the production of milk powder is reused to supplement water used in boilers and cooling towers, and for general cleaning purposes. The programme in Shuangcheng, China, reduced total water usage by 23% in 2005 For many years, a systematic approach to water conservation has led to significant improvements in water efficiencies in Nestlé factories. Since 2001, the company (excluding Nestlé Waters) has reduced its water use per kilogram of product by 38%. The Nestlé Waters business achieved a 33% reduction, that is, it reduced the amount of additional water needed to produce 1 litre of bottled water from 1.5 to 1 litres. This amount is required at this stage to maintain necessary quality and safety levels.

Since 2002,the company (excluding Nestlé Waters) has reduced its water use per kilogramme of product by 27%. The Nestlé Waters business achieved a 30% reduction, that is, it reduced the amount of additional water needed to produce 1 litre of bottled water from 1.22 to 0.86 litres. This amount is required at this stage to maintain necessary quality and safety levels. The improvements in water efficiency since 2002 enabled Nestlé (excluding Nestlé Waters) in 2006 to save the equivalent of 47 billion litres of water and Nestlé Waters to save 8 billion litres. This refers to water resources Nestlé did not use because of the higher water efficiencies of its manufacturing processes.

These improvements in water efficiency since 2002 have enabled the company to save more water than used each year by the 367,000 people who live in all the households in the city of Zürich.

Updated environmental performance indicators are available on the Nestlé Corporate Internet website at www.environment.nestle.com

Nestlé Waters - Litres of additional water used for cleaning and other purposes to produce 1 litre of bottled water (2001 – 2005) [D]

In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) formalised the need for “water efficiency” in its Plan for Implementation. The WSSD refers to both the efficiency with which water is used and the efficiency with which it is produced and provided. Nestlé’s results reflect the intentions of the WSSD and every year, Nestlé sets internal targets for all factories to further improve and build on these achievements.

Adding consumer value to raw materials

Operations manager Dave Sommer is proud of the stormwater management area of the Nestlé Waters plant in Madison, USA, which is LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). In 2005 Nestlé sold 17 billion kilograms of food and 19 billion litres of water, using on average 4.4 litres of water per kilogram to produce these products. In other words, Nestlé consumed less than 0.005% of the world’s fresh water. By contrast, it takes between 100 to 15’000 litres of water to produce each kilogram of agricultural raw material, such as coffee beans, sugar cane or maize, from which these products were made.

A comprehensive management system

The basis for all water management activities is the Nestlé Water policy, “Water Resource Guidelines for Sustainable Management”, which serves as a reference and standard for all managers. It is translated into concrete action at the factory level through the Nestlé Environmental Management System (NEMS) that defines and monitors strict criteria for compliance. NEMS is fully aligned with the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management. At the end of 2006, about 10% of Nestlé’s factories have been certified to this internationally recognised standard by external auditors, with a target of all factories ISO 14001-certified by 2010.

The Global Water Survey of 2004

Another feature of the USA Green Building Councilcertifi cation at the Madison plant is the use of natural light through skylights in the production area Water management is one of Nestlé’s top environmental priorities. During 2004, Nestlé reviewed the efforts in its worldwide factories to protect water, highlighting the CHF 30 million which are spent annually for construction and expansion of wastewater treatment facilities in its factories. Gaps with internal compliance standards, together with plant managers’ reports on local water stress levels, were addressed by factory-level action plans.

Water use levels of Nestlé factories, 2006 [D]