This is how businesses become irrelevant or lose market share as the world speeds by. For more than 150 years, Nestlé has thrived as a business pushing the boundaries of progress.
Every Nestlé partnership is an opportunity to improve lives, not simply to grow our business.Mark
We've taken this same approach with a bold plan that reflects our deep commitment to help address climate change. Nestlé takes a comprehensive approach to our products and business to measure our impact, and we aren't stopping there. Now, we're taking into account our suppliers' impact and scouring our business ecosystem to see where and how we can drive equitable change.
I invite skeptics who doubt whether business can be a force for good in our world to take a look at Nestlé's Net Zero Roadmap. Our detailed plan transparently lays out every step and tool needed for us to reach net zero emissions, not just in our operations but well beyond. The tireless and thoughtful work of our colleagues around the world have positioned Nestlé to make an enormous contribution toward improving the climate impact of food systems. The global challenge before us will not abate with meek actions — we must accelerate climate work that goes farther and faster, regenerating our ecosystems and driving equity throughout our supply chain.
As the world gears up for the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, every company should ask the question we asked ourselves: How can we do our part to make a difference?
Working with farmers to meet the moment
Given the focus of our business, we believe we can have the greatest immediate and long-term impact by first prioritizing farming in our regeneration efforts. We also are intent on empowering and supporting people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures to join this global challenge. There must be no 'us' or 'them' in climate efforts, as the environment doesn't care who heals it. Nestlé sees Generation Regeneration as a calling, and mission, for all businesses and all people. Climate change progress, after all, will serve every one of us and the generations that follow.
While it's critical to change farming practices to prioritize ecosystems and regenerate our land, an equitable transition means that farmers need support as they navigate this transition. We will provide farmers in our supply chain with scientific and technical assistance to adopt regenerative agricultural practices, such as employing smart irrigation equipment and biogas (by converting waste to renewable energy). Our model — accelerating equitable and just systems — will be deployed throughout our supply chain. Nestlé is also helping to finance farmers' investments in capital and equipment, customized to each farmer's needs and opportunities. Finally, we will offer price premiums for regenerative agriculture goods. Farmers are rewarded for their quality ingredients, but also for their positive environmental impact.
Some of this critical work is already under way. We're putting our purchasing power in dairy toward reducing emissions, charting the path toward net zero dairy in South Africa, Pakistan, and in the U.S. with farm partnerships that ensure that nothing leaves farms as waste. We are partnering with farmers to repurpose water for irrigation, animal waste for fertilizer, and capture methane to reduce emissions. These farm-by-farm changes, when scaled up, will add up to significant greenhouse gas reductions.
Nestlé sees Generation Regeneration as a calling, and mission, for all businesses and all people.
We're driving similar investments in smaller-scale farms. In Indonesia, we support small family farms to manage manure through biogas digesters, making use of waste to produce energy. In Pakistan, we're enabling farmers to use drip irrigation to save water and improve productivity. As the world's leading coffee company, we're especially committed to small farmers. We've distributed 235 million coffee plantlets to help farmers around the world increase their incomes and create more resilient farms — improving lives and helping to address the challenges of climate change.
Holistically supporting our communities
We know that only a sliver of our end-to-end impact happens on the farm itself. Around every farm, production facility, and office, we're part of a community. Indeed, Nestlé values the diversity of those communities — a bustling city in Kuala Lumpur, a small town in eastern Indiana in the U.S., a cocoa community in Côte d'Ivoire. Everywhere we operate, the support for our communities looks different because every community is different. In Egypt, we're partnering with local stakeholders to rehabilitate local canals and ensure that local farmers have clean, quality water. We also worked with the local water authority to renovate community water stations and rehabilitate and extend the old piping network. This effort brought clean running water to people's homes.
Every Nestlé partnership is an opportunity to improve lives, not simply to grow our business. The work in our supply chain can have major impacts on local communities, particularly around issues of gender equity. Globally, women still have limited access to land, credit, and information. We're committed to helping to change this.
Nestlé is training more than 15,000 women in coffee farming, financial literacy, and leadership. This work covers everything from understanding global coffee prices to the ways one can strengthen market power to tips on harvesting.
Women who earn money and have a say in a family's day-to-day decisions are more likely to invest in their family's health, nutrition, and education. As our Nespresso team says, gender equality is a springboard to sustainable development.
Best practices produce the best products
All of our regeneration and sustainability investments serve our product pipeline, too. The ambitious efforts I've outlined will make us a stronger company, with even better offerings. For every cup of Nestlé coffee you drink or plant-based burger that you enjoy, you can take pride in the journey it's taken and feel good about what's inside. Our behind-the-scenes stories reflect the innovative approach we're taking across our 2,000 brands.
Whether it's investing in the link between healthy soil and nutritious food or empowering women to run their own agri-businesses, the Generation Regeneration movement will be driving us to a better, more sustainable future that serves our planet and our customers. In fact, all agriculture conservation efforts should be cheered, as they are vital to the world's urgent environmental needs.
Nestlé is committed to going beyond sustainability to help protect, renew, and restore wherever we operate, and to wherever our Net Zero Roadmap takes us. We know, too, that we will go farther together.
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