Circular Economy

23 Nestlé USA Factories Achieve Zero Waste to Landfill, Exceeding Nestlé's Global Goal

Nestlé USA has had a busy year so far: The company has publicly committed to removing all artificial flavors and colors from its chocolate candy by the end of 2015 and purchased enough certified cocoa to produce its entire Easter chocolate collection, a first for a major U.S. candy manufacturer.

By Tamay Kiper | Published 9 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Nestlé USA has had a busy year so far: The company has publicly committed to removing all artificial flavors and colors from its chocolate candy by the end of 2015 and purchased enough certified cocoa to produce its entire Easter chocolate collection, a first for a major U.S. candy manufacturer.

Today, the company continues the momentum by announcing that 23 of its 32 US factories — spanning all of its food (confections, dairy, frozen and refrigerated meals, ice cream, baking ingredients) and beverage categories — are now landfill-free. This brings 15 percent of the candymaker’s factories worldwide (72 in total) to zero waste for 2014, surpassing Nestlé’s goal of having 10 percent of its global factories at this stage by 2015, and bringing it another step closer to achieving its goal of producing zero waste in all of its global factories and distribution centers by 2020.

“We are incredibly proud of the effort it took to accomplish this goal,” said chairman and CEO Paul Grimwood. “This is an especially noteworthy achievement given the breadth and complexity of our manufacturing operations across a variety of categories. We are committed to working with our employees to ensure our factories remain landfill-free and are striving for new ways to reduce our environmental impact at each stage of the product lifecycle.”

As detailed in its recently released Creating Shared Value Report, Nestlé says it is continually looking for new ways to reuse, recycle and recover energy when disposing of manufacturing byproducts. Current efforts include composting, recycling, energy production, and the provision of safe byproducts for animal feed; using LCA-based eco design tool EcodEX to achieve more holistic evaluation across the value chain; and employee-led actions to minimize byproducts and engage in robust recycling programs and partnerships with credible waste vendors.