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Nestlé Endorses Caring for Climate, Other Climate Change Initiatives at U.N. Summit

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WASHINGTON, D.C.
Nestlé has announced its endorsement of Caring for Climate, the world’s largest coalition on climate issues, as part of the company’s long standing efforts to further provide climate change leadership.

Speaking at the U.N. Climate Summit in New York, José Lopez, Nestlé Executive Vice President and Head of Operations, said the company would back related initiatives of other leading international organizations, such as Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), given the need of addressing the climate change issue. 

“The Caring for Climate initiative is fully aligned with our own explicit commitments, which reflect our respect for the society in which we operate, respect for the environment, and respect for future generations” said Mr. Lopez. 

“Climate change must ultimately be addressed through mutually beneficial collaboration and multi-stakeholder channels to be effective,” he said.

Caring for Climate

Caring for Climate is led by the U.N. Global Compact, the U.N. Environment Programme and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Nestlé partners with a variety of U.N. agencies, academia and NGOs, including the U.N. Global Compact and Rainforest Alliance, to address the range of complex climate, environmental and social issues that Nestlé and the world faces.

Caring for Climate commitments include continuously improving the efficiency of energy use and reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of products, services and processes. 

As the world’s biggest food and beverage company, Nestlé is directly impacted by the effects of climate change and that is why the company has for several years taken meaningful GHG emissions reduction and climate change adaptation actions, like using renewable energy and improving energy efficiency in its operations.

Through such actions and the company’s work with suppliers, farmers and consumers to encourage resource efficiency, responsible product sourcing and environmental stewardship, Nestlé has been recognized over the years as an industry leader by a variety of organizations and NGOs, such as Oxfam and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. 

Other Climate Action Initiatives

Nestlé has backed the New York Declaration on Forests, whose vision of halting and reversing the loss of forests is aligned with Nestlé’s pledge to help achieve zero net deforestation by 2020.

The company is also supporting major initiatives from other leading international organizations: the six climate action initiatives of CDP and the Trillion Tonne Communiqué of the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders Group.

The CDP aims, among other key goals, to remove commodity-driven deforestation from all supply chains by 2020 and to encourage responsible corporate engagement in climate policy. 

Further, the company joined Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP), a project of Ceres, to advocate for energy and climate legislation and publicly support the principles contained within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan. As a signee, Nestlé joins more than 170 businesses in acknowledging the risks of carbon pollution from power plants and the economic benefits associated with energy efficiency and renewable energy deployment.

Nestlé has reduced the GHG emitted in the manufacturing of one kilogram of products by half compared to 10 years ago. By 2015, Nestlé expects to reduce direct GHG emissions per ton of product by 35% compared with 2005, leading to an absolute reduction in GHG emissions. 

Environmental sustainability is a key dimension to Nestlé’s annual Creating Shared Value Forum to be held on October 9 in Switzerland. The forum is an annual gathering of representatives from non-governmental organizations, industry and higher education where best practices around the concept of how to create shared value are shared and discussed.

Lisa Gibby
(202) 292-2928
[email protected]