Sourcing Water for Bottling
The amount of water used in 2006 by Nestlé Waters amounted to 40 billion litres, which is an estimated 0.0009% of the total freshwater withdrawal globally. Half of this amount constitutes pure high-quality bottled water for human consumption produced in 105 Nestlé Waters’ factories and sold in more than 130 countries. The other half is mainly water used for operational processes and cleaning.
Read an interview with Kim Jeffery, CEO of Nestlé Waters North America - A Spotlight on the Green Side of Bottled Water 
in the New York Times, 3 Nov 2007.
Quality assurance “From Source to Table”
Hydrogeologist Cédric Egger, from the Corporate Water Resources Group in France, serves as Water Resources Manager for the Zone Europe, where he ensures sustainable water supply in terms of quantity and quality. Nestlé’s image and reputation of consistently delivering quality is a cornerstone of its success. Nestlé Waters has adapted the Nestlé Waters Quality System (NWQS) to the specific issues of its water business, stating explicitly that “under no circumstances we would compromise on the safety of products and every effort must be made to avoid hazards to consumer health.” The Team organises workshops and management coaching at factory/market level, performs assessments to ensure that the standards are implemented by all line operators, and validates the local compliance level. Each year, a global quality initiative is launched to focus on a specific quality-related topic. Each factory organises a quality awareness week mobilising all market and factory management to increase the awareness and commitment of the entire factory team. The implementation of the NWQS also extends throughout the supply chain, including factories and business partners. Suppliers who have their own management systems are required to demonstrate equivalence of their systems with the NWQS. These strict implementation criteria and validation are the best prerequisite to ensure highest quality of consumption by the end-user, i.e. holistic quality management “From Source to Table”.
At Nestlé Waters, a dedicated Water Resources Department is in charge of the task of water consumption optimisation, which includes the identification and selection of a water resource, installation and maintenance of equipment and material necessary to protect and monitor it, and the on-going monitoring of the source. The monitoring includes hydro-geological assessments of the sites, frequent testing of the source water quality and regular review of environmental conditions and parameters such as water levels in production boreholes, spring flow and rain fall data.
Every time a new water resource is developed or acquired, a strict characterisation and validation process is performed. This includes analyses and monitoring of the chemical, microbiological, and hydrological properties of the source water to ensure that the quality meets local, international and internal Nestlé standards to:
- ascertain the sustainability of a new water resource dedicated to bottling activities
- fix the exploitation limits
- check the compliance with the local and internal standards
- provide representative and reliable data for the definition of the water treatment
Case history: Environmental Award in the Philippines
Case history: Support from the central laboratory, PTC in Vittel
Despite this focus on sustainable water management, Nestlé is sometimes questioned by local communities regarding its performance. These enquiries are systematically investigated and external audits carried out where concerns remain.
Case history: Working with farmers to ensure water quality – France / Argentina
Case history: Leadership in energy and environmental design - USA
Case history: The Nature Conservancy
Packaging and transportation of bottled water
Computer graphics assist engineers and researchers to investigate new options in lighterweight packaging for bottled water For years, Nestlé has developed lighter packaging material and optimised surface-to-content ratios. The amount of packaging per product was reduced by 26% between 2002 and 2006, saving an equivalent of 354 thousand tons of packaging material in 2006 when compared to the relative amount that was used in 2002. These efforts led to energy and other cost savings in production and transportation as well as reductions in the amounts of solid waste. Whenever possible, Nestlé Waters collaborates with other companies and local government to ensure that the bottles are collected and recycled after use, and follows promising developments in new packaging solutions such as recycled PET (RPET).
Packaging plays a crucial role for the bottled water industry, in our ability to deliver on our promise to consumers. Packaging is what makes bottled water a convenient consumer product, and is a determinant in product taste, consistency and quality. Nestlé Waters is concerned about the environmental challenges posed by packaging and as such we are firmly committed to continue our efforts to optimise our packaging so they combine full protection and product safety with the required consumer convenience and lowest possible environmental impact.
Grammes of packaging material used per litre of bottled water, 2002 till 2006 (2006 figure estimated, source Nestlé) [D]
Transportation
Based on health and diet recommendations, drinking water throughout the day is becoming a habit, so consumers increasingly expect to find Nestlé Waters’ products at convenient locations, available at any time and in good condition. Nestlé Waters wants to provide water to its customers in ways that minimise transportation, because transportation from springs and factories to distribution centres and to customers is an important factor for its business. Nestlé Waters is concerned by the environmental challenges posed by transportation, and strives to choose the most environmentally friendly option as long as it also makes sense economically. Long-distance transportation is limited by the fact that the majority of Nestlé Water’s business is conducted locally. In fact, over 90% of Nestlé Waters’ volume is sold in the country of production. Most of the trans-continental transport of premium brands such as San Pellegrino and Perrier is done by container sea freight, which has the lowest environmental impact of all transport options.
Nestlé’s expertise in water management and its ability to make the necessary investments in technology to access and appropriately treat local water, where necessary, not only lowers transportation requirements but provides water that consumers otherwise might not be able to access. Although more than 90% of Nestlé Waters volume is sold in the country of production, there can also be a positive impact on transportation of international multi-site brands (one brand, but several local production areas), such as Nestlé Pure Life and Nestlé Aquarel. To further reduce its environmental footprint Nestlé Waters, continues to optimise all aspects of its operations such as balancing road and rail transport, exploring possibilities to use bigger-size containers for shipment, and ensuring load maximisation for return trucks. This commitment is reflected in our Nestlé Waters Transport Policy that is distributed to all markets and encourages payload maximisation, direct shipment from factory to customer, and the selection of environmentally-friendly carriers.
Case history: Vosges-Antwerp transport route – Belgium - France / Switzerland
Case history: Improved truck payload - Canada
Case history: Emissions reductions in our transportation by sea - USA