Nestlé S.A.

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Nestle S A : Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report (pdf, 15 Mb)

March 24, 2021 at 06:49 am EDT

A message from our Chairman and CEO

U. Mark Schneider Chief Executive Officer

Paul Bulcke Chairman

Nestlé. Unlocking the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come

2020 was an extraordinary and challenging year. The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted everyone's lives and created much instability and uncertainty.

Nestlé responded immediately and with clear priorities, activating and implementing measures to keep our people safe, and ensuring the supply of essential foods and beverages to consumers.

We also provided care for our communities, as well as ﬁnancial and in-kind support to business partners. For example, we joined forces with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to provide urgently needed help for emergency services and caregivers and to strengthen healthcare systems. Our Always Open for You platform supported the food service industry by extending credit terms, suspending rental fees on coﬀee machines and oﬀering free products when those businesses are able to reopen.

It is in times as challenging as these that we can truly demonstrate how business can be a force for good. This is what Creating Shared Value (CSV) has always been about, focusing energy and resources where we can make the greatest positive impact on people and the planet.

Last year, the time frame for many of our public commitments came to an end. We have made progress that everyone at Nestlé can be proud of, having fulﬁlled the majority of our commitments. We are intensifying our eﬀorts to close the small gaps on the few that remain.

Despite the clear challenges of the past year, we have continued to respond to consumer demands and do our part for the planet by developing products that deliver great taste and nutritional value while minimizing their environmental impact. For example, we have signiﬁcantly invested in plant-based products, launching Garden Gourmet brand's Sensational Burger and Sensational Vuna, our vegan tuna alternative, in Europe.

Our commitment to supporting youth opportunities has also not wavered. Amid the pandemic, we have scaled up online training to ensure continuity of our internship and apprenticeship programs. We have made signiﬁcant progress on our journey to sustainable packaging too. This included the investment of USD 30 million (CHF 26.4 million) in the Closed Loop Leadership Fund to lead the shift from virgin plastics to food-grade recycled plastics in the US.

In 2020, we reaﬃrmed our support for the UN Global Compact and were again named a LEAD company in recognition of our ongoing determination to help achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are deﬁning new ambitions that will push us to go further and faster, drive progress on social issues and support a healthy food system.

We have set new commitments to achieve 100% reusable or recyclable packaging by 2025 and to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, supported by our Net Zero Roadmap with tangible, time-bound targets to reduce emissions, within and beyond our operations. Our actions include working with 500 000 farmers and 150 000 suppliers to support them in implementing regenerative agricultural practices, planting hundreds of millions of trees within the next 10 years and completing the company's transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2025.

This report provides a detailed overview of how Nestlé is making a diﬀerence across our three impact areas - individuals and families, communities and the planet. We know that amazing things should and can happen when we all work together. This belief is at the heart of CSV and will drive our business in 2021 and beyond.

Contents

2 Creating Shared Value
3 Our journey
4 Individuals and families
5 Communities
6 Planet
7 What's next?
8 Our 2020 commitments and progress
9 For individuals and families

10 Oﬀering tastier and healthier choices
16 Inspiring people to lead healthier lives
24 Building, applying and sharing nutrition knowledge

27 For our communities

28 Enhancing rural development and livelihoods
34 Respecting and promoting human rights
39 Promoting decent employment and diversity

43 For the planet

44 Caring for water
49 Acting on climate change
52 Safeguarding the environmentFurther detail about our report scope, strategy and governance, KPIs and materiality, as well as our GRI and UNGPRF indices can be found in the Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report 2020 Appendix

Our journey

A timeline of our achievements over the years: from the birth of Nestlé to the evolution of Creating Shared Value (CSV), and beyond.

2002

Partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies signed to collaborate on HIV prevention, WASH in cocoa supply chains, and disaster relief, including joint COVID-19 relief in 2020

2010

The Nestlé Cocoa Plan and Nescafé Plan are both launched. They are designed to develop sustainable cocoa and coﬀee supply chains, improve social conditions in farming communities and ensure proﬁtability

1997

Nestlé sets its Nutrition, Health and Wellness vision

2016

The 2030 CSV ambitions are reﬁned and targets set for the next ﬁve years

2018

Nestlé for Healthier Kids is launched globally, reaching 29 million children in the ﬁrst year of launch to improve how they eat, drink and live

2020

The ambitious Nestlé Net Zero Roadmap is launched, following the announcement of Nestlé's 2050 climate commitment in 2019

1982

Nestlé is one of the ﬁrst companies to develop policies based on the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. In 2011, Nestlé becomes the ﬁrst breast-milk substitute company to be included in the FTSE4Good Index

2006

The CSV approach is formally adopted, followed by the ﬁrst CSV Forum in 2009, beginning regular engagement between stakeholders and our leadership

2011

Nestlé is the ﬁrst food company to work with the Fair Labor Association to tackle child labor risk in the cocoa supply chain

2017

Nestlé needs YOUth, which aimed to support 10 million young people in their search for employment, is launched globally

2019

Nestlé inaugurates the Institute of Packaging Sciences to advance the development of safe, functional and sustainable packaging

Individuals and families

Nestlé for Healthier Kids

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Adding vegetables, ﬁbers and whole grains

Our commitment

Increase vegetables, fiber-rich grains, pulses, nuts and seeds in our foods and beverages

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Add to our products at least 750 million portions of vegetables, 300 million portions* of nutrient-rich grains, pulses and bran, and more nuts and seeds

Achieved in 2019

By 2020: In addition to whole grain already being the main ingredient in our ready-to-eat breakfast cereals for children and teenagers, all our Nestlé-branded cereals that carry Green Banners will be a source of ﬁber** and made with whole grain***

Achieved in 2019

*A portion of ﬁber-rich grains is the amount of grain product (variable, depending on the type of grain, type of product, etc.) that contains 16 g of whole grains **All products that carry 3 g or more of ﬁber per 100 g on pack nutrition table

***Having a minimum of 8 g of whole grain per serving

Many people all over the world do not have enough vegetables, pulses, nuts, ﬁbers and whole grains in their diets. We are working to increase the quantity of these elements in great tasting products that are easily accessible.

We achieved both of our objectives in 2019 but still continued to go further during 2020.

Promoting whole grains

Studies show that people who eat 70 g of whole grains a day lower their risk of cardiovascular disease mortality by 23% and reduce their risk of cancer mortality by 20%. That is why the majority of our cereals now feature whole grain as the main ingredient.

To promote the value of whole grains in healthy diets, we are a proud supporter of the Whole Grain Initiative. This was launched to increase global whole grain consumption and is helping support the 2017 Vienna Whole Grain Declaration.

Helping families consume more vegetables Every second, our Maggi brand is used to prepare over 21 000 food portions globally, while every minute, consumers add more than 250 tonnes of fresh ingredients to their Maggi meals. To encourage people to add vegetables to the dishes they prepare using these products, we provide tools such as online recipes and nutritional advice. An example of this is our MyMenu IQ guide, which helps people to balance their meals.

In addition, we have added more vegetable and ﬁber-rich grain content to many of our Maggi products themselves. These reformulations are particularly helping families with children to increase their vegetable intake.

Bringing more plant-based products to market To meet the demand for products that are better for people and the planet, we have launched several plant-based options this year, such as Garden Gourmet's Sensational Burger in Europe, plant-based Milo in Australia and Sensational Vuna, our vegan tuna alternative in Switzerland.

In Germany, our Maggi brand has piloted a new soup range called Krumm Glücklich ('Crooked but Happy'), made from vegetables that were destined to become food waste. The soup oﬀers a simple way to help people consume more of their daily recommended intake of vegetables while helping tackle food waste at the same time. If the pilot proves popular, the soup will be launched commercially in early 2021.

Overall achievements

Through product reformulations and new launches, we are providing millions more servings of healthy ingredients such as vegetables, pulses, brans and whole grains. Following more than 10 years of reformulation, whole grains are now the main ingredient in over 88% of our breakfast cereal recipes.

Looking ahead

Achieving our commitments in this area is only the start. We will draw on our experiences so far to redouble our eﬀorts and launch many more nutritious products in the coming years.

Promoting International Whole Grain Day

Whole grains are key for a healthy diet, but many people do not consume enough of them. We are tackling this by making them a core ingredient in many of our cereals and by supporting visible initiatives that promote whole grains. In 2020, we took part in International Whole Grain Day with a month-long social media campaign aimed at inspiring and educating more people on how to increase their whole grain intake.

• Consistency in dietary guidelines with an emphasis on whole grains.
• Clear front-of-pack labels that recognize the important contribution of whole grains to healthy diets.
• Education and marketing campaigns on the beneﬁts of whole grains.

We also reaﬃrmed our commitment to increasing whole grains in our foods and voiced our support for international governments and policymakers to ensure:

In addition, we promoted the International Whole Grain Day webinar, featuring the

Whole Grain Initiative, the Food and Agriculture Organization and a host of global leaders.

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Our objectives

Simplifying ingredient lists

Simplify our ingredient lists and remove artificial colors

Achieved

By 2020: Continue removing unfamiliar ingredients

Achieved

By 2020: Remove all artiﬁcial colors* from our products**

Achieved

*There is no internationally agreed legal deﬁnition of what is an 'artiﬁcial' color. Nestlé's position regarding these substances is based on our factual ingredient and processing knowledge

**This objective does not currently apply to our pet food products

Food plays a big part in how people take care of themselves and their families. Consumers are increasingly demanding that the products they buy have recognizable ingredients with more natural formulations they understand and trust.

Removing unfamiliar ingredients

In 2020, we continued to improve the formulation of our products by removing unfamiliar ingredients in several iconic brands, including Nesquik, Maggi, La Lechera, Nescafé and Starbucks.

For our reformulation of Nesquik, we replaced maltodextrin with oat ﬂour, added 65% more cocoa and cut the number of ingredients from 12 to 8.

Finding alternatives for artiﬁcial colors

Only 1% by weight of all colorants used in our foods and beverages is deﬁned as artiﬁcial. Replacing all artiﬁcial coloring while still meeting technical and regulatory requirements is a complex undertaking; however, we are determined to close the small remaining gap. We will continue to innovate with alternatives containing more natural elements that our consumers enjoy.

Making chocolate simpler

At Nestlé, we are always looking for new ways to simplify ingredient lists in line with evolving consumer expectations. As part of this, we explored whether chocolate, usually made of multiple ingredients, could be made from the cocoa fruit alone.

The result is our KitKat Chocolatory Cacao Fruit Chocolate, which is the ﬁrst chocolate to use the beans and pulp of the cocoa tree's fruit as the only ingredients. The pulp naturally sweetens the chocolate, eliminating the need for reﬁned sugars and cutting down on production waste.

The KitKat Chocolatory Cacao Fruit Chocolate was launched in 2019 through our KitKat Chocolatory in Japan, followed by Australia and Brazil in 2020. In 2021, we will signiﬁcantly expand the range of products using this manufacturing technique.

We have also used simple formulations with fewer ingredients in our Les Recettes de l'Atelier confectionery brand. For sale in France, Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, the brand's products are made with 100% sustainably sourced cocoa and do not contain any artiﬁcial colors, ﬂavors or preservatives.

The changes we have made to both KitKat and Les Recettes de l'Atelier are also helping to improve incomes for cocoa farmers globally by using cocoa exclusively from the Nestlé Cocoa Plan.

Overall achievements

Over the course of our commitment, we have reworked many of our most iconic brands to have simpler ingredient lists. As a result, it is now easier for consumers to understand what goes into our products and make choices that align with their needs and their values.

Looking ahead

We will soon ﬁnalize our work to remove the small amount of artiﬁcial colors still used in our products and to meet our commitment. We will continue to reformulate and innovate to create products with simple, understandable and natural ingredients.

Coloring Smarties with natural ingredients

For our Smarties confectionery products, we developed new recipes free of artiﬁcial colors globally, with the ﬁnal removals having taken place in Australia, Canada and South Africa.

The artiﬁcial colors have been replaced with natural ingredients from foods that provide color properties, such as sweet potato spirulina, turmeric and beetroot.

In addition, our Smarties brand is now using recyclable paper packaging for its confectionery products worldwide.

Read more about this story and others online

Micronutrient fortiﬁcation

Address under-nutrition through micronutrient fortification

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Reach millions of children and families with fortiﬁed foods and beverages

Achieved

By 2020: Initiate or support collective action to reduce micronutrient deﬁciencies in 10 countries

Achieved

By 2020: Continue to develop the supply chain for biofortiﬁed crops and expand our fortiﬁed portfolio

Achieved

*We have made adjustments to the scope of reporting to cover a larger number of countries in 2020 compared with 2019. Our focus is now on all emerging countries as per the UN deﬁnition

In many parts of the world, getting vital nutrients from food alone is simply not possible. Nestlé is passionate about addressing this need by fortifying commonly consumed foods and beverages with essential micronutrients.

Providing fortiﬁed food to millions

In 2020, we delivered 196.6 billion* fortiﬁed servings of foods and beverages. Of our popularly positioned products for lower-income consumers, 81% were fortiﬁed with at least one of the Big 4 micronutrients. These are iron, iodine, vitamin A and zinc. Their beneﬁts include helping prevent poor health and productivity loss, supporting brain development and maintaining normal function of the immune system.

Reducing micronutrient deﬁciencies

We work with partners and governments across the world to help promote awareness around micronutrient deﬁciency. We also invest in improving access to fortiﬁed foods, supporting research and hosting awareness campaigns.

We have collaborated with stakeholders in 10 countries in recent years: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Myanmar, Nigeria, the Philippines, Senegal and Sri Lanka.

Examples include our support for the Egyptian Government's 2030 vision to combat iron deﬁciency in mothers-to-be and children under 3 years of age.

Furthermore, in partnership with the University of Ibadan, we participated in a study into kids' nutrition and health in Nigeria.

Reframing our biofortiﬁcation approach In recent years, we have worked closely with stakeholders in Nigeria and Zimbabwe to develop supply chains for biofortiﬁed maize. We have used this maize in some of our porridge recipes in Nigeria.

We believe in the potential of biofortiﬁcation and will continue engaging with stakeholders to inform them of the beneﬁts of these crops. Going forward, we will focus on broader food and agriculturalsystems to accelerate transformational change, helping to both protect biodiversity and improve the livelihoods of farmers in our supply chains.

In addition, we remain committed to expanding our large-scale voluntary eﬀorts to make aﬀordable and fortiﬁed products more accessible.

Overall achievements

Our iconic and popular brands such as Maggi, Bear Brand or Cerevita give us a powerful platform to provide accessible fortiﬁed products for vulnerable populations - which is particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research in 2018 showed that we had reached over 100 million households with children across eight countries with high vulnerability of micronutrient deﬁciencies.

By making small changes to our popular products, we can positively impact diets. India's 2015-16 National Family Health Survey showed, for example, that 53% of females and more than 22% of males between the ages of 15 and 45 suﬀered from anemia, frequently caused by iron deﬁciency, with an almost equal split across rural and urban India. In line with our Micronutrient Fortiﬁcation Policy, our Maggi 2-Minute Masala Noodles were fortiﬁed with 15% of the daily iron requirements in 2017. As our product is core to about 70% of urban diets in India - amounting to more than 2.5 billion servings eaten each year - this change had a huge reach, playing a meaningful role in combating one of India's leading micronutrient deﬁciencies.

Looking ahead

We will continue to innovate around aﬀordable and accessible nutrition, and to further enlarge our fortiﬁed foods and beverages oﬀering.

We also want to inspire the next generation to innovate in this space. To this end, we have developed an initiative to support young students in Africa on projects related to aﬀordable nutrition.

Tackling iron deﬁciency in Africa

Iron deﬁciency is a public health problem that impacts millions of women and children across Central and West Africa. To promote awareness and drive behavior change, we launched the Live Strong with Iron campaign.

The campaign will run for three years and feature our own employees as ambassadors for the consumption of iron-rich foods. We are also collaborating closely with civil society, stakeholders, including media, and government on the issue.

A 2020 consumer survey in Ghana found high awareness of the importance of iron and the sources of common iron-rich foods (78%) among respondents, but fewer than half (49%) actually consumed these foods regularly. Many consumers did not realize how vulnerable they were to iron deﬁciency anemia, highlighting the importance of the campaign's focus on promoting awareness.

Read more about this story and others online

Inspiring people to lead healthier lives

Our commitments to inspiring people to lead healthier lives

17 Apply and explain nutrition information on packs, at-point-of-sale and online
18 Oﬀer guidance on portions for our products
19 Leverage our marketing eﬀorts to promote healthy cooking, eating and lifestyles
20 Empower parents, caregivers and teachers to foster healthy behaviors in children
21 Support breastfeeding and protect it by continuing to implement an industry-leading policy to market breast-milk substitutes responsibly
22 Inspire people to choose water to lead healthier lives
23 Partner for promoting healthy food environments

Our work on inspiring people to lead healthier lives contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Encouraging individuals and families to lead healthier lives is extremely important. We contribute to this by oﬀering clear nutrition information and intuitive portion guidance to ensure consumers have the facts they need to make good food choices.

From supporting breastfeeding to encouraging good nutrition, healthy hydration and regular exercise, we promote healthier lifestyles from birth. We know that children who are taught to eat well and exercise regularly are more likely to grow up to be ﬁt, healthy adults.

What we achieved

One of the most important ways we encourage balanced diets is by providing clear information on the nutritional value of our products, on packs and beyond.

Fifteen years ago, we began adding nutritional guidance and facts to the back of our packaging through our Nestlé Nutritional Compass. Today, it is on 98.3% of our products worldwide, based on net sales ﬁgures.

Since 2011, we have been an industry leader in promoting breastfeeding and marketing breast-milk substitutes responsibly. We were the ﬁrst company to receive FTSE4Good recognition for our eﬀorts. To ensure we comply with our policy and procedures for the implementation of the World Health Organization's International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (WHO Code), we audit company-wide activities and report annually on our ﬁndings.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have remained committed to encouraging healthier choices. Home cooking, in particular, has become a more important feature of family life. By launching campaigns to get children involved in meal preparation, we help encourage healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

We actively promote the value of water for healthy hydration, as demonstrated by our Be Heroes at Home campaign, launched in 2020 across eight countries. Meanwhile, more than 8000 chefs worldwide have been supported with education services to better understand what the out-of-home food industry will look like in a post-pandemic world.

Looking ahead

We are proud to have inspired many people to lead healthier lives. Now we must build on our work to encourage informed food choices, going beyond simply ensuring consumers understand nutritional values. This means highlighting the impact our products have on the planet and the communities where they are produced.

We will continue to add increasingly transparent on-pack nutrition communication that is both intuitive and meaningful. This will help people make informed decisions related to our products and the portions they need to consume as part of a healthy and balanced diet.

Our objective

Providing nutritional information

Our commitment

Apply and explain nutrition information on packs, at point-of-sale and online

Achieved

By 2020: Continue providing detailed product nutrition facts with daily value percentages, ingredients and allergens, and add special diet information, nutrition labeling explanations and healthy eating tips on all our relevant packs, as well as on our websites and e-retailer sites, to better enable informed choices

Achieved

Expanding nutrition information

People want to know more about what they eat and drink and the impact on their health, and this means understanding the nutritional composition of their favorite products. We provide transparent nutrition facts across as many platforms as possible, supporting consumers to make the right food choices for themselves and their families.

Every year, we make more nutrition information available to consumers and, as a result, successfully completed our commitment in 2020. Wherever relevant, we support and implement voluntary front-of-pack nutrition labeling schemes, helping consumers to make informed and healthier choices easily at point-of-sale.

In June 2019, we announced the front-of-pack nutrition labeling scheme Nutri-Score as our preferred system in Continental Europe. Since then, we have been implementing it at scale, wherever it is permitted. Products displaying this intuitive system are now on shelves in eight countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.

Nutri-Score oﬀers a holistic assessment of foods and beverages, giving each product a color-coded score from A-E based on nutritional value. For Nestlé, it already appears on several brands, including Garden Gourmet plant-based products, Nesquik chocolate-ﬂavored milk, Nestlé Dessert chocolate, Maggi culinary products, and breakfast cereals such as Nestlé Fitness and Chocapic.

Our plan is to implement Nutri-Score labels on around 7500 products by 2022.

Overall achievements

Since 2005, when we ﬁrst implemented the Nestlé Nutritional Compass - our nutritional information tool with tips on how to include our products in a balanced and healthy diet - we have empowered millions of consumers to make educated decisions about Nestlé products. By 2020, we had applied it to 98.3% of our packaging.

In 2014, we also began introducing Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) information. This is now present on 82.9% of our products, oﬀering consumers transparent information on our nutritional values.

Percentages for these two guidance systems are measured against net sales. As such, any percentage decreases year on year are not reﬂective of decreases in the number of products they are available on.

Looking ahead

We are expanding our on-pack communication, oﬀering information beyond nutrition alone. This will include sharing compelling stories about how our products are not only beneﬁcial to the health of individuals and families, but also to the communities where they are developed and to the planet. Through this information, we hope to better connect with consumers on the topics that matter most to them.

Scoring meals with MyMenu IQ

Cooking is an important part of life for many of our consumers. To help provide simple nutritional advice, we have launched a new meal-scoring service on our recipe websites in Mexico and Central and West Africa.

MyMenu IQ is a scientiﬁcally validated nutritional service that ranks the nutritional balance of meals on a scale of 0 to 100. This empowers individuals and families to choose recipes that support a healthier, more balanced diet.

By the end of 2020, MyMenu IQ had been launched in 6 countries and 10 websites globally, with more to come in 2021.

Read more stories online

Oﬀering portion guidance

Offer guidance on portions for our products

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Continue providing guidance on portions globally on all children's and family product packs and add frequency of consumption indications on relevant products

Achieved

By 2020: Extend our guidance on portions to our consumer recipes, and relevant teenager and adult products

Achieved

By 2020: Gradually increase the proportion of guidance on portions provided through product form, pack design, serving device or dispenser to make it even more intuitive than on-pack messaging

Achieved

How much people eat can be just as important as what they eat. That is why we have long been committed to providing easy-to-understand portion information on our products. Initially, our commitment focused on providing guidance on children's products. We then applied the lessons learned in the development of portion advice for teenagers and adults.

Providing better portion guidance

In 2019, we began chairing the Industry Best Practice Guide Working Group in Australia, as part of the Australian Government's Healthy Food Partnership (the Partnership). The working group is developing an Industry Best Practice Guide to support and inspire the broader food industry to improve guidance on servings.

Throughout 2020, the working group undertook an analysis of current policies and data to better understand the eﬃcacy of potential strategies. Draft recommendations have been developed, with the aim of launching a new strategy to guide serving recommendations in both the retail and out-of-home sectors by the end of 2021.

Oﬀering more intuitive portion messaging

In 2020, Nestlé Brazil updated the Nutrition, Health and Wellness section of its website to oﬀer a more interactive user experience. New infographics and reference articles share clear information on adequate portions for diﬀerent product categories, while interactive calculators show consumers the nutritional impact of their food and portion choices.

We have extended these tools beyond the corporate website, with various brand websites and social media platforms featuring them too. We have also shared the content with external audiences, such as healthcare professionals, to increase our reach.

Simplifying portion guidance through packaging design

Since the beginning of the commitment period, we have gradually increased guidance on portions we provide through product form, pack design, serving device or dispenser. By doing so, we are making it easier for consumers to understand recommendations at a glance. While we do not currently use quantitative measurements to track this guidance, we will continue to identify ways to bring our consumers even more intuitive portion information.

Overall achievements

The Nestlé Portion Guidance initiative was established to help consumers understand what appropriate portions of our products look like.

This guidance has been a key feature on our product packaging since 2013 and we have worked hard to bring it to more products each year. In 2020, 64.2% of our children's and family products, based on net sales, oﬀered portion guidance on packs worldwide.

Looking ahead

Historically, the portion guidance we have provided on products for children, teenagers and families refers to an ideal portion size. We are currently evaluating the impact of moving this guidance to a more realistic portion size that aligns more closely with how much consumers actually eat.

Providing pre-portioned superfood drinks with nesQino

With the launch of our new nesQino brand, we are bringing personalized superfood drinks to consumers in single-serve form.

People can choose from a range of ingredients, including fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, roots, microalgae and probiotics, tailoring the product to their personal requirements.

A specially designed cup blends everything together, while our smartphone app enables people to choose whether they want to enjoy their drink hot or cold. Consumers can also explore recipes and nutritional information to identify the perfect, all-natural combination.

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Marketing healthy choices

Leverage our marketing efforts to promote healthy cooking, eating and lifestyles

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: Double the outreach of our eﬀorts to promote healthy cooking and eating and healthy lifestyles for individuals, families and their pets

Achieved

Developing marketing to promote healthy lifestyles

Oﬀering nutritious foods and beverages is one way to help people live healthier lives. We also need to inspire people to make better lifestyle choices. We do this by supporting our consumers, especially parents and caregivers, to select products and activities that are better for them and their families.

We have continually increased the proportion of our marketing spend that goes toward promoting healthier choices. By the end of 2020, we had achieved close to a 106% increase of the share of expenditure on products that actively support healthy lifestyles since we began our commitment.

Throughout 2020, several of our brands played an active role in encouraging families to stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. By sharing healthy recipes and simple tips online, our Maggi brand is championing the goodness of home cooking. Meanwhile, Milo is engaging more children to keep active at home.

Overall achievements

We are committed to marketing products and encouraging consumer choices responsibly and transparently. We are a member of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and, in 2019, became a founding member of the WFA Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). The Alliance provides a forum for like-minded industry peers, media companies and digital platforms to ensure safe online spaces for viewers and advertisers. In addition, it contributes to our wider strategy for safe, transparent and accurate advertising.

We are helping to build GARM's capabilities year on year to reach a standardized approach to harmful content, with GARM creating a new working charter in 2020.

Alongside a dedication to building better online spaces, we are committed to marketing our products and services in a responsible and transparent manner. While we achieved our objective in 2017 to only market choices to children that help them achieve a nutritious diet, this is an action we remain dedicated to.

Promoting home cooking with Maggi recipes

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, cooking at home has become an even more important part of life for many families. To support this, our Maggi brand now oﬀers simple, nutritious online recipes that bring healthy Maggi products together with fresh ingredients.

Globally, our recipe websites usually receive approximately 30 million views every month. Since the pandemic, however, these pages have seen a 34% increase in traﬃc, highlighting the important role Maggi has played in encouraging healthy meals at home.

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We audit our Marketing to Children practices annually. In 2020, the results once again showed strong compliance, particularly across our television advertising. We are also monitored by the voluntary EU Pledge initiative, as well as by its partner the European Advertising Standards Alliance, in six EU countries. Nestlé demonstrated 98.9% compliance with EU Pledge criteria and 98.6% with the stricter Nestlé Marketing Communication to Children Policy.

Since 2019, we have implemented industry-leading practices in the monitoring of our policy, and commissioned yearly external audits with independent veriﬁers Ernst & Young (EY) for a selection of our markets. For example, in 2020, our Marketing to Children activities in Russia were audited, with the report publicly available on our website.

Looking ahead

We will continue working with organizations such as the WFA and the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) to improve responsible industry marketing of products designed primarily for children. Within Nestlé, we continually review our own Marketing to Children practices and will continue to do so, especially across our digital platforms. We understand the sensitivity of this topic and strive to lead the industry in marketing to children responsibly.

We know that many consumers want to act in ways that lessen their impact on the planet. We will develop our outreach eﬀorts to encourage the consumption of foods with stronger environmental credentials, as well as greater nutritional beneﬁts. For example, by highlighting the value of a well-balanced diet, with increased consumption of plant-based products, we can show consumers how they can have a smaller environmental footprint, contributing to eﬀorts to safeguard the environment.

Our objective

Promoting healthy behaviors in children

Our commitment

Empower parents, caregivers and teachers to foster healthy behaviors in children

Achieved

By 2020: Support 50 million children through our nutrition education and behavior change programs, an important milestone toward our wider 2030 ambition

Achieved

Encouraging healthy lifestyles from childhood Good habits start early - and nutrition and exercise are no exceptions. Children who have healthy, active lifestyles are more likely to grow into ﬁt and healthy adults. Through our Nestlé for Healthier Kids initiative, we help parents and caregivers give children the best start in life.

During 2020, over 19.8 million children were supported through our nutritional education and behavior change programs. As in previous years, we took a two-pronged approach: reaching children through school educational materials, and their caregivers through public communication campaigns.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we have had to rethink how we can best work with schools to educate children about healthy eating. One way to do so has been to oﬀer more teaching modules online. This way, children still received important nutrition education even as schools closed in response to local restrictions.

Cooking together

A key factor in encouraging healthy habits is to get children excited about nutritious food. Research shows that involving children in food preparation increases the likelihood that they will try more fruits and vegetables. In 2019, we launched a new global online campaign, #cooktogether, through which we encourage parents to involve their children in the preparation of delicious, healthy meals and snacks.

Having reached over 100 million caregivers in the ﬁrst year, in 2020 we expanded the campaign to more than 35 markets. By the end of the year, we had reached at least 350 million parents and caregivers through more than 1.5 billion social media impressions. We have also developed initiatives in collaboration with food professionals to engage children in healthy eating.

Overall achievements

Our ﬁrst eﬀorts to support childhood nutrition through education and behavior change were launched under two separate initiatives: United for Healthier Kids and Nestlé Healthy Kids. Approaching our ambition this way, our early programs reached around 10 million children.

By bringing everything together under the umbrella of Nestlé for Healthier Kids, we have expanded our reach to support over 80 million children since 2016 across more than 80 countries. Through these engagement programs, in addition to our campaigns to provide caregivers with important information, we are now promoting healthy childhood behaviors in the majority of countries in which we sell our products.

Looking ahead

The COVID-19 pandemic has signaled the need to be ﬂexible and to work diﬀerently. We are developing our activities in response to this. For example, we are continuing to digitalize our school education programs so that children can receive nutrition information wherever they are.

We will also engage families in adopting habits that are healthier for the planet as well as themselves. This includes the promotion of plant-based diets, at-home food waste reduction and increased packaging recycling.

The progress we have made throughout the commitment period is just the start. We will continue developing global nutritional education as we progress toward our wider ambition to support 50 million children every year by 2030.

Reshaping online education in Australia

We believe that online education should be as teacher-friendly and student-led as possible. In 2020, Nestlé Australia began updating its entire online Nestlé for Healthier Kids school program to make nutrition information as accessible as possible. This is especially timely in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Set to launch in early 2021, the refreshed site will align with national curriculums, bringing nutrition to life with lesson plans, worksheets, games and other teaching resources. It will also include a new area dedicated to environmental sustainability.

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Supporting breastfeeding

Support breastfeeding and protect it by continuing to implement an industry-leading policy to market breast-milk substitutes responsibly

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Advocate for a breastfeeding-friendly environment by supporting the set-up of breastfeeding rooms in communities where we operate

Achieved

Ongoing: Ensure the practices of the Nutrition business consistently meet the FTSE4Good Index Breast Milk Substitutes criteria

Achieved

Ongoing: Continue to strengthen our policy and procedures to maintain industry leadership on the implementation of the WHO Code

Achieved

Ongoing: Continue to report publicly on our progress on the implementation of our policy on the WHO Code

Achieved

Advocating for breastfeeding-friendly environments

We support and protect breastfeeding throughout Nestlé and beyond. We have installed 545 breastfeeding rooms in Nestlé facilities and supported the installation of 5517 in global communities.

In 2019, we launched our Global Parental Support Policy. Among other updates, the policy requires that all Nestlé facilities with over 50 female employees provide rooms or spaces for breastfeeding. By the end of 2020, we had committed to implementing these inclusive and enhanced standards across 30% of countries where we operate, a ﬁgure set to increase in the future.

Ensuring best practices for breast-milk substitutes We are leading the industry in promoting breastfeeding and responsibly marketing breast-milk substitutes (BMS). In 2011, we became the ﬁrst manufacturer of BMS to be recognized in the FTSE4Good index, and we have maintained our inclusion in the index every year since.

To ensure BMS marketing standards are upheld throughout Nestlé, we self-assessed compliance through internal and external audits in 18 countries in 2020. This is lower than the 30 countries usuallycovered, but many audits could not take place in 2020 due to the COVID-19 restrictions.

Leading the industry in WHO Code implementation

Through its policy, Nestlé recognizes the WHO Code and subsequent relevant resolutions as the international reference framework for the promotion of BMS and, at a minimum, complies with the WHO Code as implemented by national governments everywhere.

In 2020, we welcomed a Call to Action from civil society organizations, the WHO and Unicef for BMS manufacturers to fully implement the WHO Code. In response, we committed to:

• Stop the promotion of formulas for infants aged 0 to 6 months in all countries by 2022.
• Engage with stakeholders to advance industry commitments on the promotion of BMS products for 0 to 12-month-olds while ensuring compliance with antitrust laws.
• Advocate for widespread Code adoption. Nestlé supports regulations for products for babies aged 0 to 12 months globally.
• Continue providing transparent information to the Access to Nutrition Index (ATNI).

A love like no other: Launching our Global Parental Support Policy across the Philippines

When we launched our Global Parental Support Policy, several markets acted quickly to implement it, including the Philippines.

The policy launch fell during Valentine's Day celebrations. The day's theme - 'Love Like No Other' - paid homage to the special bond between parents and children.

Through this new, gender-neutral policy, primary carers will receive 18 weeks' parental leave. Secondary carers will also be oﬀered four weeks' paid leave regardless of gender.

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• Oﬀer technical expertise to BMS companies working to create a robust WHO Code-aligned policy and governance system.
• Support coalitions advocating for more supportive parenting environments and the elimination of inappropriate BMS use.

In 2020, we developed a video to enhance employees' knowledge of the Code. Distributed across all markets, the video was designed to encourage company-wide compliance. Throughout the year, 2536 employees also completed formal training on breastfeeding and the WHO Code.

Maintaining transparent reporting

In 2020, we launched our Leading the Way: Responsible Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes 2019 Report. The report openly details instances of noncompliance, how they were addressed and how we will increase compliance.

Based on our audits, we reported 107 instances of noncompliance, resulting in disciplinary actions (warning letters and/or dismissals) for nine people. Of these incidents, 61% involved external trade partners.

Overall achievements

Whether a parent decides to feed their baby with breast-milk, BMS or a combination of both, we want mothers and babies to receive optimal nutrition in the ﬁrst 1000 days of life. That is why we have developed and marketed a range of products to support all parents, no matter what they choose.

Since 2013, Nestlé has been assessed by ATNI for marketing policies and practices. We achieved top-two rankings in the 2016 and 2018 BMS sub-indices.

Looking ahead

We encourage other manufacturers to follow our lead in complying with the FTSE4Good BMS criteria and improve their performance in the ATNI BMS sub-index. To date, two other companies have also been recognized by FTSE4Good and another voluntarily follows the criteria. As we go forward, we will push for more robust industry action, encouraging other BMS producers to meet these requirements.

Encouraging healthy hydration

Inspire people to choose water to lead healthier lives

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: Launch national campaigns promoting healthy hydration with public and private partners in 10 countries

Achieved

Engaging consumers in healthy hydration Water is essential for every cell in the body, helping to remove waste products and carry nutrients. However, many people do not drink enough water throughout the day.

We celebrate plain water as the best option for healthy hydration and are proud to encourage it as the ﬁrst choice for people globally. We have exceeded our objective to launch hydration campaigns, with 55 countries now formally incorporating the Choose Water module into Nestlé for Healthier Kids initiatives.

Throughout 2020, we launched a Be Heroes at Home hydration campaign across Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Spain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the campaign highlighted the crucial role consumers can play in keeping people safe by staying at home if they can. Furthermore, it showed how Nestlé Pure Life helps keep people both hydrated and entertained, thanks to a range of water-centered activities. Similar campaigns were launched in Argentina, Pakistan and the US.

Overall achievements

In addition to oﬀering water products, supporting healthy hydration habits in individuals and families requires behavior change initiatives that promote the beneﬁts of choosing water.

Many of our campaigns encourage healthy hydration from an early age, equipping parents and caregivers with knowledge and information to encourage children to drink more water. By continuing to promote child-friendly tools, such as the TummyFish app, which was ﬁrst launched in 2016, we are helping to make water the fun drink of choice for kids. Our Wild About Water campaign, which brings hydration to life with animal-shaped bottles and exciting water facts and activities, was launched in 2019 in 15 markets. In 2020, we maintained the campaign and expanded it to one more market.

Looking ahead

We want our water products to oﬀer nutritional beneﬁts beyond hydration. While plain water remains at the core of the Nestlé Waters portfolio, we are also exploring new innovations that meet a variety of consumer preferences. This includes developing water products with increased vitamin and mineral levels.

We will take a more integrated approach to our public education eﬀorts. By bringing together the health beneﬁts of water with the environmental eﬀorts we are making in this area, we can develop campaigns that champion the needs of people as well as the planet.

Launching Hydration Week in Argentina

In July 2020, Nestlé Pure Life launched a week-long campaign dedicated to educating consumers in Argentina on the health beneﬁts of drinking water.

Hydration surveys brought into focus what people already knew about hydration, and provided information on the importance of drinking more water.

The media campaign reached more than 10 million people and included a collaboration with mother/baby inﬂuencers.

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Health-promoting food environments

Partner for promoting healthy food environments

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: Partner with retailers and food professionals to foster environments that promote healthier diets and lifestyles

Achieved

Developing out-of-home nutrition education and support

With the pandemic dramatically impacting our out-of-home and food service customers, we are proud to have supported them through our Always Open For You platform.

Nestlé Professional also continued to partner with the World Association of Chefs' Societies (Worldchefs) to develop free educational tools for food professionals. In 2020, we created a webinar series on nutrition, health and wellness, as well as a podcast about the future of nutrition in a post-pandemic world. This includes the role chefs will play in promoting healthy diets in the out-of-home environment. We also sponsor the World on a Plate podcast and enable free education through weekly episodes, which have listeners in 104 countries. Together, these resources are publicly available to all chefs and culinary professionals, educational institutions and anyone who is interested all over the world through Worldchefs website.

Our Nutripro materials enable professionals to access nutritional knowledge, insights and emerging trends in the food service sector. In 2020, through our partnership with Worldchefs, over 2000 copies of the magazine were distributed, while online content received approximately 55 000 impressions.

Promoting healthier choices in-store

Good food decisions start in-store. Through retail initiatives, we can use our inﬂuence, and that of our retail partners, to encourage consumers to ﬁll their shopping baskets with healthier options.

We have continuously leveraged our long-standing leadership role within the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), a global CEO-led industry network, to encourage these healthier lifestyle choices.

In April 2017, we supported the creation of the CGF Collaboration for Healthier Lives. To date, through the program, we have developed relationships with 24 retailers, 90 manufacturers and 47 stakeholder groups, from public health authorities to academics. We have helped develop various reports on global eﬀorts to address health challenges, contributing, for instance, to the launch of the Healthy China, Nutrition First analysis.

In April 2020, the CGF created the Collaboration for Healthier Lives Coalition of Action. This was established to drive impactful cooperation across 14 countries to inspire healthier lifestyles. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, however, the focus was quickly shifted to ensure more food and hygiene supplies were distributed to vulnerable people and communities. Additional resources were diverted to research the impact of COVID-19 on consumer health and well-being.

International Chefs Day: Healthy Food for the Future

International Chefs Day is celebrated every year on October 20. This year we developed a virtual toolkit to enable the day to be continued online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through a range of digital resources, chefs engaged children on the impact food production and consumption have on the environment. A child-friendly sustainability booklet helped to bring this year's theme - Healthy Food for the Future - to life for over 112 000 children.

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In addition to promoting healthier consumer choices, we want to empower employers to prioritize workforce nutrition. Through the CGF, we have supported the development of the Workforce Nutrition Alliance, which aims to improve nutrition for 3 million employees by 2025.

Overall achievements

The Nestlé Professional LinkedIn page oﬀers information on developments in the food service industry, as well as chefs' healthy eating tips. In 2020, over 117 000 people followed the page, a ﬁgure that rises year on year.

As well as helping established food professionals expand their knowledge, we are committed to developing new talent. Together with Worldchefs, we oﬀer a free online program called Worldchefs Academy, which introduces young people to the culinary sector. In 2020, more than 11 000 young chefs from across the world made the decision to enroll at the academy, which is now also available in Spanish and Portuguese.

Looking ahead

We will continue engaging with local stakeholders to promote health and wellness initiatives for consumers and employees through our role in the Collaboration for Healthier Lives coalition.

We want to be a trusted partner for the out-of-home sector, especially as it recovers from the impact of the pandemic. Through our collaboration with Worldchefs and our magazines (Nutripro and the newly developed Planetpro), we will continue to share tips on how food professionals can oﬀer options that are not only healthier but planet positive as well.

Building, applying and sharing nutrition knowledge

Our commitments to building, applying and sharing nutrition knowledge

25 Build and share nutrition knowledge from the ﬁrst 1000 days through to healthy aging

Build biomedical science leading to health-promoting products, personalized nutrition and digital solutions

Our work on building, applying and sharing nutrition knowledge contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Good diets start with an understanding of nutritional needs, which is why Nestlé has always been committed to enabling innovative scientiﬁc research. For decades, we have not only produced tasty and nutritious foods, but also driven the science and technology that have made them possible.

We research and develop science-based nutritional solutions to promote health across life stages from pre-conception to healthy aging. This ensures we have solid scientiﬁc foundations for unlocking the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone, today and for generations to come.

What we achieved

Our research and partnerships have made vital contributions to our understanding of nutrition, especially in the ﬁrst 1000 days of life. We have applied these and other learnings to the development of multiple health-promoting products, in addition to sharing ﬁndings in peer-reviewed papers and participating in conferences globally.

We have invested heavily in research activities globally, both through our own operations and by providing support for external initiatives.

We have also empowered parents and caregivers to track and understand good diets through accessible digital tools. A good example of this work includes Bear Brand's Tibay calculator.

Looking ahead

Our work to drive and share innovation is fundamental to who we are as a company.

We will continue to research, develop and share nutrition knowledge even as we move beyond our 2020 commitments. This means supporting ongoing innovation to create science-based nutrition solutions that we can scale, and that work for as many people as possible.

Sharing nutrition knowledge throughout life

Our commitment

Build and share nutrition knowledge from the first 1000 days through to healthy aging

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Build knowledge on the associations between nutrition and lifestyle, and biomarkers of health in mothers and children through the EpiGen collaboration

Achieved

By 2020: Build further knowledge on dietary intake, eating behaviors and lifestyles in infants and children

Achieved

By 2020: Develop a deeper understanding of dietary intake, preferences and lifestyle habits during aging

Achieved

Building nutrition knowledge

To enhance global understanding of nutritional needs, we continued both our Feeding Infants and Toddlers Study (FITS) and Kids Nutrition and Health Study (KNHS). These studies enable us to better understand children's dietary intakes and the impact of factors such as meal timing, types of foods consumed at each meal and feeding practices.

Throughout 2020, we continued to collect and analyze data in Brazil, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We will share our ﬁndings at conferences and through publications in 2021.

In the Philippines, we launched a new range of Nido nutritional milk drinks for diﬀerent age groups covering ages 1 to 5. The formulations are tailored to support the age-speciﬁc developmental milestones of Filipino toddlers. We also created the NutriTods Program - a guide that gives caregivers expert tips on age-appropriate nutrition to support optimal physical, social and cognitive development for young Filipino children.

Shaping the future of infant and maternal nutrition

To build knowledge on the impact of prenatal nutrition interventions on childhood growth and development, we continued the clinical study NiPPeR (Nutritional Intervention Preconception and During Pregnancy to Maintain Healthy Glucose Metabolism and Oﬀspring Health). In 2020, the trial completed the follow-up of more than 550 babies throughout their ﬁrst year of life. Additional follow-ups at the ages of 2 and 3 and a half will continue until 2022.

The ﬁrst results from the study were presented at the American Society of Nutrition Conference in a presentation entitled 'Preconception Dietary Patterns and Their Sociodemographic and Lifestyle Correlates in a Multi-Country Cohort: The NiPPeR Study'.

Supporting mobility during aging

We also focus on health at later life stages. Decreasing mobility is one of the top challenges of aging. In China, we launched a milk product for adults that has a unique combination of ingredientsto support bone health, muscle strength and joint functionality. The powdered beverage under the YIYANG Active brand has been clinically proven to enhance mobility during aging, and is the ﬁrst Nestlé product to gain functional food approval in China.

Sharing what we learn

The Nestlé Nutrition Institute (NNI) shares nutrition-focused information and education with healthcare providers. It is active in over 178 countries and its 19 websites have 425 000 members worldwide. In 2020, NNI launched the NNI Campus, which provides practical information covering a wide array of subjects. It comprises the HMO (Human Milk Oligosaccharides) Academy, Toddler Hub and Sustainability Portal, with more organizations set to join in 2021.

Overall achievements

To date, FITS and the KNHS research initiative have studied more than 77 000 infants, toddlers and children across Africa, Australia, China, Mexico, the Middle East, the Philippines, Russia, South America and the US.

Since 2014, through KNHS, we have published 68 peer-reviewed papers in collaboration with research partners around the world. Results have been shared with health professionals through NNI workshops and scientiﬁc congresses, and key ﬁndings from FITS are now available on the NNI Research Portal.

Looking ahead

Our work to develop science-based products and services from the ﬁrst 1 000 days through to healthy aging continues.

We want to learn more about how nutrition, combined with active lifestyles, can support health across all generations of people and pets. To do this, we will continue to invest in research and complement our internal capabilities through partnerships with leading universities, research organizations and start-ups.

Helping kids thrive

In 2020, Gerber launched two new gummy multivitamins based on data collected in our FITS study in the US.

The study found that the majority of 2 to 4-year-olds do not eat suﬃcient foods (such as ﬁsh) that contain Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an essential type of Omega 3 fat.

In response, Gerber created Lil' Brainies Multivitamins, which are formulated with an Omega Tri-Blend made with chia seed oil, plant-based DHA and choline. This formulation helps children get these crucial nutrients during the important early learning and exploration stage.

Our new gluten- and GMO-free Grow Mighty Complete Kids Multivitamins contain key nutrients to help strengthen kids' immune systems and bone and eye health, while also supporting their brain development. They oﬀer an easy way to tackle nutritional deﬁcits in children's diets and help them get the best possible start in life.

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Enhancing biomedical science

Build biomedical science leading to health-promoting products, personalized nutrition and digital solutions

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Develop digital nutrition proﬁling for calculating nutrient intakes, as well as for making recommendations for nutritional balance, into a comprehensive tool to assist individuals and families to lead happier and healthier lives

Achieved

By 2020: Develop new interventional nutritional solutions driven by studies and diagnostic proﬁling. These programs will focus on key areas such as metabolism, gastrointestinal and brain health, healthy aging, skin health and pets

Achieved

Giving parents and caregivers the tools to support better childhood nutrition

We continuously explore new ways to help parents and caregivers make the best nutritional choices for their child's development. In the Philippines, our Bear Brand range of aﬀordable, fortiﬁed foods and beverages launched a new digital nutrition assessment tool, the Tibay calculator. This tool, which is a collaboration between the Food and Nutrition Research Institute in the Philippines and Nestlé Research scientists, helps caregivers understand the quality and diversity of their child's diet. Based on an algorithm designed to calculate diet diversity scores, the calculator identiﬁes nutrient gaps in the diets of 6 to 12-year-olds and provides diet and product recommendations to help parents close this gap.

Growing our personalized nutrition portfolio We explore personalized and targeted nutritional products and solutions across diﬀerent life stages and speciﬁc health conditions - and even for pets.

This also includes research on the gut microbiome and how we can support healthy digestion, an eﬀective immune system and general well-being.

In 2020, Nestlé Health Science's personalized vitamin subscription service, Persona Nutrition, expanded its operations and reach. Today, its online assessment - which creates personalized nutritional recommendations - is available to meet the unique needs and lifestyle goals of people in more than 160 countries.

Creating solutions for mild cognitive impairment In 2020, we launched BrainXpert, a ground-breaking ketogenic drink that is clinically proven to support brain function in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

MCI aﬀects 12-21% of individuals age 60 and older. The disruptive symptoms of this condition include memory loss, forgetfulness and a decline in decision-making ability and judgment.

A study showed that BrainXpert eﬀectively reduced symptoms and led to a signiﬁcant improvement in participants' cognitive abilities. These results give new hope to people with MCI.

Unleashing innovations in pet care

Purina LiveClear, launched in 2020, is the ﬁrst and only cat food that helps cat owners by managing allergies caused by cat hair and dander.

The breakthrough product is the result of more than a decade of research dedicated to ﬁnding a safe, eﬀective way to improve quality of life for cats and their owners.

Overall achievements

Over the course of our commitments, our research has been translated into science-based interventions and products for diﬀerent populations.

We have also launched multiple digital-proﬁling tools targeted to speciﬁc age stages and health conditions. In addition, we have released research-driven and innovative new pet products that support animals and owners.

Looking ahead

We will continue investing in biomedical research to enable us to provide targeted solutions for diﬀerent health conditions across all life stages in people and pets.

We are focused on creating personalized nutritional products based on our research into dietary patterns, genetics, the microbiome and metabolic response.

Where possible, we will apply our research across categories to develop science-based nutrition concepts for humans and pets.

Creating science-based solutions for healthy aging

For years, Nestlé scientists have been examining ways to restore cellular health with nutrition and promote healthy aging. Our aim is to support consumers in later life stages to maintain vitality and enjoy a high quality of life.

To achieve this, we are increasing our focus on nutritional concepts that support better outcomes for aging populations. Our newly launched Celltrient Cellular Nutrition solutions target deep inside cells to help renew key natural processes that can decline as we age. The product comes in powder drink mixes or capsules, and represents a new generation of solutions to target the key drivers of aging.

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For our communities

2030 ambition

To improve 30 million livelihoods in communities directly connected to our business activities

In this section

28 Enhancing rural development and livelihoods

34 Respecting and promoting human rights

39 Promoting decent employment and diversity

Enhancing rural development and livelihoods

Our commitments to enhancing rural development and livelihoods

29 Improve farm economics among the farmers who supply us
30 Improve food availability and dietary diversity among the farmers who supply us
31 Implement responsible sourcing in our supply chain and promote animal welfare
32 Continuously improve our green coﬀee supply chain
33 Roll out the Nestlé Cocoa Plan with cocoa farmers

Our work on enhancing rural development and livelihoods contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Millions of farmers produce the food that nourishes us. Yet many of them struggle to earn a living income.

Families who are battling to make ends meet may be faced with making diﬃcult sacriﬁces. This can include taking children out of school to help on farms or being unable to aﬀord nutritionally balanced foods to sustain their families.

Poverty in rural communities, and its related challenges, is discouraging young people from following careers in farming. As a result, the farming population is aging, and with fewer young farmers growing the crops we need, global food systems are under strain.

As the world's biggest food company, we can help agricultural communities make changes that enhance rural incomes now and build a prosperous future for the next generation of farmers.

What we achieved

Tackling the challenges of agriculture and poverty requires an integrated, sensitive approach. In recent years, we have used an innovative Theory of Change (ToC) model to scale up our capabilities and impact.

Using ToC, we identify the issues that matter most. We then measure our progress and continuously test our assumptions about allocating resources.

Through this approach, we have developed local farmer support strategies that are unique to speciﬁc raw materials, such as coﬀee and dairy. We have also invested in helping farmers create more resilient businesses through initiatives such as Farmer Connect. In 2020, this included providing basic training to more than 355 000 farmers and developing future farm enterprises through our agripreneurship program, which beneﬁted more than 39 000 young farmers.

Enhancing farmer incomes is critical; however, we must ensure we are addressing other challenges faced by farming communities. We were also the ﬁrst company to implement a Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS), which has now been adopted by other companies.

Looking ahead

Through these initiatives, more farmers are achieving economic stability, more ingredients are responsibly sourced and human rights are more deeply embedded into agricultural supply chains.

Of the ﬁve commitments in this area with a 2020 completion date, three have been fully met. We are on the way to closing the remaining gaps, and the learnings have provided the foundation for our related future ambitions.

Delivering impact through Farmer Connect

Our commitment

Improve farm economics among the farmers who supply us

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: Improve farm economics in seven priority sourcing locations based on the results of the Rural Development Framework baselines

Achieved

Improving farm economics

We work with many diﬀerent types of farmer all over the world in order to source the raw materials we need. The success of our business relies on the success of these rural communities, which is why we share an interest in their development. In 2015, we published our Rural Development Framework, which used insights gained from studying 11 countries to guide our approach.

By continuously helping family farms improve their economic sustainability, our intention was to make farming more attractive. Through collaboration and eﬀort, we achieved our objective a year early.

While we are pleased with this accomplishment, we believe that improving farmer skills to enhance prosperity and livelihoods is an ongoing task. In 2020, however, this work was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, we accelerated our plan to move as much of our farmer engagement and support as possible onto mobile platforms.

Overall achievements

Every year, we train or retrain hundreds of thousands of farmers through our Farmer Connect program, helping to spread farming practices and skills around the world. Sharing these insights will enable farmers to develop more sustainable farms that are resilient to a changing environment and evolving market demands. This is a positive step to transform the outlook for farming communities facing the challenge of aging populations. As part of the solution, we also identiﬁed tens of thousands of young people as agripreneurs.

Through this global program, we are helping secure the next generation of young farmers, developing the knowledge and skills they need to sustainably manage their farms.

It nurtures their entrepreneurial spirit through three pillars:

• Developing farmers of the future
• Transforming farms for the future
• Creating conducive environments for farmers to expand their oﬀering

By giving young farmers what they need to kick-start their careers in agriculture, we have helped ensure farming can continue and grow for future generations.

Looking ahead

Nestlé has committed to achieving net zero emissions by 2050. Meeting this vital goal will depend on signiﬁcantly scaling up regenerative agriculture. That means reﬁning and growing our agripreneurship program. We will actively enhance this program to align with our newly developed Net Zero Roadmap.

To achieve this, we will intensify our engagement with farmers so that the solutions we create for and with them achieve positive and sustainable change in agricultural systems.

Meeting our net zero pledge with farmers

In 2020, we launched our Net Zero Roadmap detailing how we will reach our net zero commitment. One of the key pillars of the strategy is to work with farmers to increase the use of regenerative agricultural practices.

We are leveraging the work we have already done to develop skilled agripreneurs and future-ﬁt farmers across priority raw materials like dairy, coﬀee and cocoa. Working with these talented and passionate suppliers, we will build on their knowledge and experience to help create net zero farms. Our eﬀorts will include cutting methane emissions, helping farmers take advantage of new technology, and extending leading soil and land management techniques.

Our goal is to help the half a million farmers from whom we directly and indirectly purchase ingredients to adopt sustainable practices and enhance their livelihoods.

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Improving farmers' diets

Improve food availability and dietary diversity among the farmers who supply us

Extended

Our objective

By 2020: Improve food availability and dietary diversity in ﬁve priority sourcing locations, based on the results of the Rural Development Framework baselines

Enabling dietary diversity

We believe the health of farming families is intrinsically tied to their resilience and that a good diet is key to well-being. By promoting diverse diets and greater access to nutritious foods, we are nurturing stronger farming communities.

This is challenging work, made even harder by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, we have continued to progress our eﬀorts and seen some positive outcomes, helping support diet diversity at a time when it is needed more due to the pandemic and the associated health impacts.

Extended

In Kenya, our Farmer Family Nutrition pilot program has shown that, with training and support from our local partners Coﬀee Management Services and Simlaw Seeds, the adoption of kitchen gardens has increased by 35% since 2017. More than three-quarters of the farmers surveyed indicated that the supply of vegetables from their garden met their household needs. A 'train the trainer' approach has been introduced to support both the gardens and a healthy eating initiative. Four local demonstration plots have been established for trainers to show how nutritious vegetables can be introduced.

To support farmers further, we have introduced entrepreneurship training programs. This will help them use any excess produce from their kitchen gardens to generate extra income with which to purchase more diverse, nutritious foods.

We have also developed other pilot projects to help us explore how best to work toward achieving our objective of improving food availability and dietary diversity. These pilots were developed in Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia and Côte d'Ivoire, and where possible, connected to existing Nestlé farmer programs.

Overall achievements

Over several years, we have developed and launched multiple initiatives that take a comprehensive approach to addressing the causes of poor diet.

Our work around the world includes:

• Kitchen gardens to support household nutrition and food security.
• Entrepreneurship training for farmers in Kenya.
• Supporting women in agribusiness with the FarmStrong Foundation in Côte d'Ivoire.

• Food bank donations to support over 7500 households in Mexico - including those in rural communities - through our partnership with the Bancos de Alimentos de México.
• Teaching crop diversiﬁcation to farmers in the Philippines.

We have also implemented our Nestlé for Healthier Kids program in the targeted rural communities to help ensure children eat nutritious foods.

Looking ahead

The COVID-19 pandemic both disrupted the pilots and demonstrated their value. Good health, supported by sustainable access to nutritious food, will be crucial to developing healthier, more resilient communities as the world continues to battle COVID-19 and its eﬀects. The relationships we have developed in our pilot regions will help drive this work further in the coming years.

We will also continue working to meet this commitment and have extended it until 2021, which will allow us to ﬁnish collecting the results.

Creating kitchen gardens and food and nutrition security

Since 2017, our Farmer Family Nutrition pilot program in Kenya has trained 657 farmers in basic nutrition and kitchen garden management, and 535 in cooking healthy meals. Households experiencing food inadequacies of three months or more in the previous year reduced from 57% to 40% from baseline to the current period.

However, the farmers also reported longer dry periods than before, and so access to water for irrigation is a limiting factor. Although 61% of families reported that COVID-19 had aﬀected their food security (through increased food demand at home, increased food prices, possible income reduction), 81% believed that the program had helped maintain their dietary diversity during this time.

Meanwhile, the household adoption of kitchen gardens has increased from 52% to 87%, with more than 90% of farmers reporting the kitchen garden training as useful.

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Implement responsible sourcing

Implement responsible sourcing in our supply chain and promote animal welfare

Partially achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: For Tier 1 suppliers, over 80% of the total spend and volume sourced from audited and compliant suppliers

Not met

By 2020: For upstream, 80% of the spend and volume of our priority categories to be traceable and 70% to be responsibly sourced*

Achieved

*Deﬁnition of the responsibly sourced and traceable priority categories can be found on page 14 of the Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report 2020 Appendix **The new audit methodology changed the scope of the audits. Today, audits are based on site compliance instead of spend and volume percentages, with a focus on the higher risk and most important suppliers. As such, both the scope and key performance indicator of our program have evolved, resulting in this objective not being met for 2020

*** Deﬁnition of deforestation-free key commodities can be found on page 17 of the Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report 2020 Appendix

Tracing ingredients to their source

Good food is about more than just taste. Our ingredients must be sustainable. Our responsible sourcing program helps us trace ingredients to their origin and understand how they were produced.

In 2019, we met our target of 70% responsibly sourced and further increased this percentage in 2020.

Sourcing from audited and compliant suppliers

In 2020, we continued the important work on our audit program. During the year, the calculation methodology and scope changed, on request of internal clients. The new methodology** meant we not able to complete and meet our Tier 1 objective.

Protecting children

Our eﬀorts to source responsibly have enabled us to make important progress in promoting human rights in agricultural supply chains, especially around child labor in cocoa-growing communities.

Our Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) has yielded strong results in recent years.

As of 2020, CLMRS covers over 80 000 cocoa farmers in West Africa, and over 14 000 children beneﬁted from preventive and remedial interventions during the year.

Avoiding deforestation

As of December 2020, 90% of the key forest-risk commodities we buy that are in scope - soya, palm oil, meat, sugar, and pulp and paper - were assessed as deforestation-free***. We will continue to work with

2018 63%

2019 70%

Raw materials that are traceable, % of the volume of our

2p0ri2o0rity categories

73%

201872%
201976%

202084%

Raw materials that are responsibly sourced, % of the volume of our priority categories

201863%
201970%

202073%

2018 72%

2019 76%

smallholder farmers and large suppliers to reach 100% deforestation-free by 2022.

Through the Cocoa & Forests Initiative, we also participate in additional programs to tackle the deforestation associated with cocoa farming in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. Read more about the Nestlé Cocoa Plan here.

Scaling up animal welfare

In 2020, we were ranked in the top 15% of assessed food companies on welfare standards and practices, for the ﬁrst time, by the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare. We were also commended for our transparency on animal welfare in our supply chain.

Taking a forest positive approach

In 2020, we took an important step toward evolving our strategy from a focus on no deforestation to a forest positive approach. This means we will source from suppliers who are actively conserving and restoring forests while promoting sustainable livelihoods and respecting human rights.

We carried out a Forest Footprint pilot exercise across Indonesia's Aceh province to better understand forest- and peatland-related risks within our palm oil supply chain. The exercise helped us assess our exposure to future deforestation risks and land rights conﬂicts in Aceh. We believe this process is an important factor in helping us develop our forest positive strategy for the future.

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We are going further by helping improve animal welfare in agriculture more broadly. This has driven our work with the Global Coalition for Animal Welfare. During 2020, three new companies joined the Coalition. This is a critical step toward scaling up responsible and compassionate farming. We also lead the Coalition's Laying Hens Working Group to advance cage-free eggs globally, having met our own goal of sourcing cage-free eggs for Europe.

Harnessing Technology

In 2020, we continued our work with OpenSC, a platform founded by WWF-Australia and Boston Consulting Group Digital Ventures. We have completed the initial test phase of our project in South America to track palm fruits from the farm to the mills and to Nestlé. A new coﬀee project with OpenSC is trialing our approach in tackling social and environmental monitoring in coﬀee regions. In 2021, we intend to test the outcome of this collaboration with consumers on at least one Nestlé product.

Overall achievements

We believe transparency and progress are mutually dependent. New technologies, like satellite monitoring, worker voice mechanisms and blockchain have been critical to understanding the issues we face in the supply chains and how to address them.

Looking ahead

From 2021, we will move beyond addressing deforestation in our supply chains. We will build a forest positive strategy that aims to actively conserve and restore forests while promoting sustainable livelihoods and respecting human rights.

We are using our membership of the Global Coalition for Animal Welfare to transition to higher standards for broiler chickens in the US by 2024 and in Europe by 2026. More investments in plant-based innovations will continue work to enhance standards for farmed animals and farmer livelihoods. This will, in turn, ensure we meet our aspirations for prosperous farming communities and net zero.

Responsible coﬀee sourcing

Continuously improve our green coffee supply chain

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: 70% of the total Nescafé coﬀee supply to be responsibly sourced*

Achieved

By 2020: Nescafé to improve the quality, quantity and sustainability of its coﬀee supply chain by distributing 220 million coﬀee plantlets

Achieved

By 2020: Nescafé to improve coﬀee farm economics in at least four coﬀee-sourcing countries

Achieved

By 2020: Nescafé to monitor and improve labor rights in at least two coﬀee-sourcing countries

Achieved

By 2020: Source toward 100% of the coﬀee for Nespresso's permanent range through its AAA Sustainable Quality Program on coﬀee sourcing

Achieved

*Deﬁnition of the coﬀee volumes considered responsibly sourced can be found on page 14 of the Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report 2020 Appendix

Sourcing coffee responsibly

Coﬀee is one of the world's most popular beverages, with billions of cups enjoyed every day. Enhancing responsible practices in coﬀee farming is crucial to its future.

Our dedication to improving our coﬀee supply chain meant we surpassed our objectives. In 2020, Nescafé exceeded the 70% responsible sourcing goal, reaching 75%.

We have achieved this by taking an integrated approach that supports positive environmental and economic impacts for farmers. Examples of our work include the distribution of coﬀee plantlets, development of partnerships to train farmers and monitoring and improving labor rights.

Distributing coffee plantlets

Since 2010, we have been distributing high-yield, disease-resistant plantlets to farmers under the Nescafé Plan to increase farm productivity and income. Our 2020 goal was to distribute 220 million plantlets. We exceeded this, achieving 235 million. Our distribution program covered 15 countries, with particularly notable successes in Colombia, Mexico and Vietnam.

Improving farm economics

We believe that quality coﬀee should come from resilient farmers growing proﬁtable crops. To ensure this happens, we partnered with Rainforest Alliance to launch monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities on farms in three countries in 2014. Rainforest Alliance now trains and supervises local partners to conduct M&E in 13 countries, with a plan to expand to all 15 countries where our farmer ﬁeld programs are located.

We have started collecting data in several countries. We will begin reporting this data as soon as it is available. In the meantime, we will keep tracking our progress and highlight areas for improvement.

Monitoring and improving labor rights

We have established intensive monitoring, engagement and remediation programs for labor rights in Mexico and the Philippines.

While COVID-19 created some challenges, we continued our programs, working with Certiﬁcadora de Productos Sostenibles (CPS) in Mexico and with Catholic Relief Services in the Philippines.

During 2020 in Mexico, our partner Verité carried out renewed labor rights training for our farmers, our agronomist team and our local partner CPS. CPS then surveyed 232 medium-to-large farms (more than 10 hectares) in the states of Chiapas and Veracruz. Out of this total, 19 were found to be hiring minors (those under 18 years old as per Mexican law). All were formally notiﬁed and committed to take immediate corrective actions. These actions were followed up closely by our local team.

As part of the 2020 survey, CPS revisited the four farms that were found to be hiring minors in 2019 and had then agreed to take corrective actions. There was no hiring of minors observed on these four farms.

We believe that we have made signiﬁcant progress in tackling unacceptable child labor practices on coﬀee farms in Mexico, and we will continue these eﬀorts until the practices are eradicated.

Meeting Nespresso's targets

We now source 93% of the coﬀee for Nespresso's permanent range through the AAA Sustainable Quality Program. This coﬀee-sourcing program wasdeveloped with Rainforest Alliance and focuses on building long-term relationships with farmers to drive sustainable improvements.

Overall achievements

Over 75% and 93% of the coﬀee for our Nescafé and Nespresso brands respectively is responsibly sourced. This has led to improved livelihoods for farmers, a more robust approach to human rights and focused protection of the environment in coﬀee-growing communities. For example, our Nespresso brand made a signiﬁcant contribution to conserving forests. Over the past six years, the brand has planted close to 5 million trees across nine coﬀee-growing countries, with various partners, including PUR Projet.

Looking ahead

Having met our 2020 sourcing objectives, we are scaling up our ambitions. By 2025, we aim to have 100% responsibly sourced coﬀee for Nescafé.

Nespresso has committed to being carbon neutral by 2022, which will support our work to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This new target will help drive our ongoing work to produce exceptional coﬀees, build a resilient and regenerative agriculture system, and drive sustainable livelihoods.

Nescafé enhancing productivity in Mexico

In Mexico, we have been working closely with coﬀee-growing communities since 2001. In the last 10 years, our coﬀee agronomists have visited about 6700 coﬀee farms, given more than 6000 training sessions and reached more than 100 000 farmers. During the same period, 39.5 million coﬀee plantlets have been distributed, renovating more than 15 900 hectares of land and beneﬁting over 34 000 coﬀee farmers.

Thanks to these interventions, productivity in Veracruz increased by more than 90% between 2014 and 2019. While in Chiapas, we recorded an increase in the same period of more than 150%.

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Nestlé Cocoa Plan

Our commitment

Roll out the Nestlé Cocoa Plan with cocoa farmers

Extended

Our objective

By 2025: Source all cocoa through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan

New

Taking an integrated approach

Cocoa is a key ingredient in many of our products, and we are committed to sourcing 100% of it through our Nestlé Cocoa Plan by 2025. Cocoa issues include deforestation, child labor and lack of living income for cocoa farming households. Around 70% of the world's cocoa comes from West Africa, which is why most of our eﬀorts are concentrated there. We have developed the Nestlé Cocoa Plan to address social and environmental issues and create a responsible cocoa supply chain. Our original 2020 commitment was updated in 2019, to source all the cocoa for Nestlé confectionery through the Plan for 2025. However, while we have retained the 2025 deadline, our commitment now applies to all the cocoa we purchase, regardless of the product it will be used in.

Sourcing responsibly through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan

In 2020, the Nestlé Cocoa Plan launched two pilots to address agricultural poverty and support living incomes for farmers. One pilot aims to spread the insight and learnings of successful farmers, while the other - the Household Income Accelerator (described in the case study on the right) - uses cash incentives to encourage more responsible farming practices.

We continued to monitor the children in our supply chain despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Some results, however, have been impacted because we had to shut down certain remediation eﬀorts from March to September.

Tackling deforestation

In 2020, we achieved another milestone when we released the ﬁrst Cocoa & Forests Initiative progress report.

The report details the extent of our work to tackle deforestation and promote regenerative practices in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. This includes distributing over half a million forest trees and mapping tens of thousands of farmers to ensure farms do not extend into protected areas.

In 2020, we launched the Cavally Forest project with the Côte d'Ivoire Government and Earthworm Foundation. The forest is a key biodiversity region and home to endangered species that spans Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The partnership will tackle the threat of deforestation by working with the communities in or near the threatened forest. We have recruited our ﬁeld team and are currently working to collect diagnostics of the current challenges. Using this information, we will co-create and implement sustainable land use plans.

Incentivizing prosperity with living income pilots

Our innovative living income pilot is designed to accelerate change at the farm, co-operative and household level.

Using ﬁnancial incentives, we will encourage behavior change that will steadily and sustainably deliver economic growth for cocoa farmers in Côte d'Ivoire. Incentivized actions include applying good agricultural practices, introducing alternative income streams, running a robust Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) program and planting shade trees.

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Picture taken before the COVID-19 pandemic

Overall achievements

As we have increased the scope of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan, we have achieved results that will transform cocoa supply chains beyond Nestlé. For example, our work in tackling child labor has generated a truly transparent model that other companies have used to begin rolling out new systems across their supply chains. To protect children in cocoa-growing communities we scaled up our Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) work and published two landmark child labor reports that are industry-leading in terms of their transparency and data reporting. Today, we are monitoring over 86 000 children. As a result of our eﬀorts, nearly one-third of all children were no longer in child labor in 2020.

Looking ahead

The results our cocoa supply chain programs have achieved so far show that they work. Now we want to expand on these successes, maintaining positive momentum by scaling up these initiatives and bringing them to new sourcing regions.

This includes expanding CLMRS to cover all of our West Africa sourcing, and accelerating the rollout of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan in Brazil. In recognition of this, we have extended our objective to source all cocoa for Nestlé through the Nestlé Cocoa Plan to 2025.

We will continue our work to preserve forests and support the broader aim of reducing our carbon footprint and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

Our eﬀorts across our cocoa supply chain will include partnerships with others such as the World Cocoa Foundation and the International Cocoa Initiative to share learnings and scale eﬀorts.

We will keep reporting to the leading standards we have developed. In the near future, we will be measuring the impact of our work through the Netherlands' Royal Tropical Institute and reporting the progress of our living income pilots.

Respecting and promoting human rights

Our commitments to respecting and promoting human rights

35 Assess and address human rights impacts across our business activities
36 Improve workers' livelihoods and protect children in our agricultural supply chain
37 Enhance a culture of integrity across the organization
38 Provide eﬀective grievance mechanisms to employees and stakeholders

Our work on respecting and promoting human rights contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

As the world's biggest food and beverage company, we use our scale and reach to respect human rights and protect people all along our value chain. We do this by developing and deploying best practices and nurturing partnerships that make lasting changes.

What we achieved

We have scaled up our human rights eﬀorts signiﬁcantly over the past decade. This has enabled some fundamental changes while actively raising the bar for transparency and understanding around child labor. In 2012, we became the ﬁrst company in the cocoa industry to introduce a comprehensive Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS). In 2017, we became the ﬁrst to openly report child labor risk in our supply chain. Our landmark report detailed our eﬀorts to tackle child labor and provided an honest insight into our successes and challenges.

We know that child labor and other human rights abuses are exacerbated by rural poverty. That is why we take a holistic approach focused on securing resilience in the communities we source from. We have signiﬁcantly increased our eﬀorts to improve livelihoods for farmers. This includes launching multiple living income pilots across diﬀerent raw materials.

We also continue to reﬁne and improve our grievance mechanisms. These are a lifeline to help workers in our supply chain protect their rights and are essential to ensure our business partners are meeting our standards. In addition, we continue to explore new technologies to strengthen our supply chain auditing tools.

Our Human Rights Due Diligence program drives our human rights work. This program will be kept up to date with revisions to 18 diﬀerent corporate policies, standards and commitments to incorporate the most relevant and impactful human rights elements and language. An example of this is the updated version of our Corporate Business Principles and our Responsible Sourcing Standard. We have also conducted multiple impact assessments in at-risk countries, trained hundreds of thousands of employees on human rights awareness and added new categories of data to our reporting.

Looking ahead

Expectations and best practices around human rights are evolving continuously. There will always be more to learn and new ways to engage with our employees, farmers and communities.

From transparency on child labor to training our employees and improving our grievance reporting systems, we have achieved many signiﬁcant milestones over the course of our 2020 commitments. But there is still more to do.

That is why we have revised our commitment to reﬂect our continued dedication to protecting human rights globally. In 2021, we will publish our Human Rights Framework and Roadmap, developed by our internal Human Rights Community.

Our objectives

Assess and address human rights impacts

Our commitment

Assess and address human rights impacts across our business activities

Partially achieved

By 2018 (2020): Carry out six human rights impact assessments in our upstream supply chain*

Achieved

By 2019: Have a functioning governance structure in place in all markets that looks after human rights risks and opportunities

Achieved

By 2020: Train all Nestlé employees on human rights

Extended

*Our partner, the Fair Labor Association, has an ongoing program of assessments in our upstream supply chain, which will inform our human rights work. Because of this, we extended this objective to 2020

Raising awareness and driving implementation We need our own people to help us respect and promote human rights across our supply chain. Training them drives awareness, understanding and the implementation of best practices. Since 2011, we have trained 282 532 employees on human rights globally, starting with the countries that have a high risk of human rights violations.

In 2019, we launched an online human rights training tool in all countries where we have operations and made it a mandatory element of induction training. By the end of 2020, 157 250 employees had completed their training during the year. As our commitment came to an end, we analyzed data at country level, and have identiﬁed a handful of countries with gaps in terms of percentage of employees trained. These are mainly low-risk countries with a substantial number of factory workers with no computer access and where in-person training was made diﬃcult in 2020 because of COVID-19 restrictions. However, we will ensure that we close the gap in these countries by the end of 2021.

Completing our impact assessments

By the end of 2020, we had achieved our objective, completing six human rights impact assessments in our upstream supply chain. They include one for palm oil in Indonesia, two for cocoa in Côte d'Ivoire and three for hazelnuts in Turkey.

Some of our progress in 2020 has been assessed by the Fair Labor Association and published in a report evaluating our Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) eﬀorts in Côte d'Ivoire.

Promoting binding standards

We support mandatory human rights due diligence legislation. In 2020, the European Commission announced that it would build a legal framework to establish mandatory human rights standards. Nestlé joined 25 other global corporations in signing a declaration in support of the move.

Overall achievements

In the supply chains for each of our priority raw materials, our due diligence work serves as a powerful enforcer that puts human rights programs and initiatives at the heart of our eﬀorts.

For example, our CLMRS sets new standards for transparency in the cocoa industry, actively transforming lives for thousands of children.

Every farmer should have access to an income that meets their basic needs. In our cocoa and coﬀee supply chains, we have launched living income initiatives that will provide farmers with the living income we believe is their right.

Additionally, we launched regional programs to support economic resilience in coﬀee and cocoa communities in regions including West Africa and Brazil, focusing on empowering women and promoting income diversity.

Looking ahead

In an uncertain world, our commitment to respecting human rights in our business activities matters more than ever.

In response, we are linking our human rights agenda with other sustainability priorities. For example, our Net Zero Roadmap speciﬁcally references the importance of a just and fair transition to a lower carbon world. In packaging, we want to complete baseline assessments in three diﬀerent locations to help us understand the human rights risks and impacts in the plastics recovery and waste management sectors.

We are also exploring multiple options and technologies for promoting human rights across our value chain. These approaches include further tech-enabled worker voice mechanisms, as well as digital surveys that provide new ways to reach workers beyond traditional audits.

We will continue to train our people on human rights and keep the topic front of mind, recognizing the vital importance of everyone at Nestlé in meeting our objectives in this area.

In 2021, we will publish our Human Rights Framework and Roadmap, developed by our Human Rights Community.

Expanding due diligence with our new Human Rights Community

To continuously embed human rights into our business activities, we launched a new internal Human Rights Community in 2020.

Made up of 25 Nestlé employees, the Community meets monthly to oversee the implementation of the Nestlé Human Rights Due Diligence program. Its members represent all relevant functions that manage human rights within Nestlé.

In 2020, the work of the Community helped us clarify our governance structure and develop a new Human Rights Framework and Roadmap that will be published in 2021.

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Our objective

Protecting workers and children

Improve workers' livelihoods and protect children in our agricultural supply chain

Achieved

By 2020: Start reporting on the number of workers in agricultural supply chains having beneﬁted from our interventions on all salient labor rights issues

Achieved

Building strong relationships

Human rights are a global priority for Nestlé. By engaging at a local level in the communities where we have a presence, and by collecting data and tracking our impact, we have been able to reﬁne and scale up our human rights eﬀorts to help hundreds of thousands of people in multiple ways.

As part of our responsible sourcing program, we assess and address labor rights risks across our agricultural supply chains. In many cases, we identify issues that require tailored interventions and collaborations with our partners and suppliers. In 2020, more than 73 000 agricultural supply chain workers beneﬁted from interventions to address and improve labor rights. Interventions included the provision of grievance mechanisms, training sessions on labor rights or renovation of workers' accommodations.

Using data to drive improvement COVID-19 lockdown measures made it more diﬃcult to track much of our data in 2020. Despite the disruption, internal and external stakeholders along our supply chains showed their commitment to driving progress on our initiatives. This is particularly important because analysis in some cocoa-growing regions shows a rise in the risk of child labor during lockdowns.

We also continued supporting human rights through improving grievance mechanisms to enable stakeholders to conﬁdently report issues. For example, in Malaysia, continued collaboration with Sime Darby Plantation (SDP) and the Responsible Business Alliance supported the development of our available reporting resources.

Together, we launched the second phase of the palm oil industry's ﬁrst Workers' Voice (Suara Kami) grievance helpline. After successfully completing the pilot in February 2019, this new phase sees the helpline expanded to cover more than 23 000 of SDP's migrant workers, the majority of whom are from Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

As a result, we are able to analyze all reports made to this and other grievance lines and identify trends and opportunities for improvement.

Overall achievements

Our work throughout the commitment period has supported more responsible agricultural supply chains globally. This has been acknowledged by KnowTheChain, which ranked Nestlé third out of 42 companies and highlighted our leadership in transparency.

We have positively impacted the lives of more than 73 000 workers in 2020 through our labor rights activities, and positively impacted the lives of over 127 000 children in our agricultural supply chains through our remediation eﬀorts.

Looking ahead

We want to support thriving and resilient rural communities, where child labor risk has been eliminated, human rights are respected and farming oﬀers a sustainable future. We will continue taking action on the ground with our partners. We will also keep helping to tackle root causes through collective action and engagement.

Our eﬀorts to address child labor risk in our West African cocoa supply chain and our hazelnut supply chain in Turkey have delivered insights that we can build on. From this, we developed a new risk assessment tool to understand child labor risks across all the priority commodities we buy. The results of these assessments will deﬁne our new strategy to tackle child labor risk.

Recognition of our Child Labor actions

Nestlé, with support from the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), developed the Child Labor Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) to identify and remediate child labor. Since it's launch in 2012, the approach is being increasingly adopted by the industry as best practice.The system uses facilitators within cocoa-growing communities who raise awareness on the issue of child labor, identify cases and request remediation action. The ICI implements and manages the program on the ground.

In 2020, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) published a report evaluating the impact of our CLMRS in Côte d'Ivoire. The report assessed whether the cocoa farmers, workers, and their families believe they have beneﬁted from the CLMRS and how it is impacting the incidence of child labor.

The FLA report recognizes the progress we have made on increasing transparency, school attendance and income-generating activities. It also highlighted the beneﬁts of our various remediation strategies, which we are now expanding based on these learnings.

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Our objective

Our culture of business ethics and integrity

Our commitment

Enhance a culture of integrity across the organization

Achieved

By 2020: A proactive review is conducted for our compliance activities and policies in light of our evolving product portfolio

Achieved

Integrated assurance for our value chain Business ethics and compliance are a fundamental condition for Creating Shared Value. Our commitments to integrity, fairness and authenticity are stated in our purpose and values, our Corporate Business Principles (see case study on right) and Code of Business Conduct. Our comprehensive Compliance Management System enables our employees and managers to do the right thing for the right reason while protecting and strengthening Nestlé's reputation. It supports our advocacy strategy for environmental and social matters, and it is a condition for making Nestlé a 'force for good'.

Leveraging our information technology (IT)

During 2020, we implemented a range of new tools. These tools automate the execution of our compliance audit program (CARE) and consolidate audit results and operational results, such as the completion of our mandatory corporate training courses.

The new tools are part of our IT Roadmap, designed to streamline and standardize our compliance processes.

The Roadmap will guide our way forward, leveraging new IT capabilities and enhancing our third-party risk management.

We also added a new compliance section to our Know Your Supplier questionnaire, which covers our global procurement operations. If information about a supplier triggers red or yellow ﬂags on compliance questions, our Legal and Compliance teams immediately conduct a review.

Overall achievements

Our evolution continues to adapt to emerging risks. It promotes and protects ethics and compliance across the organization, creating sustainable value for our activities and operations. It also strengthens our reputation and legitimacy in the eyes of our stakeholders.

CARE audits 2020
Audits carried out	124
Locations covered	245
Improvement opportunities identified	212
Gaps closed in the year	73

Looking ahead

We will continue to promote compliance with our employees. Future eﬀorts will also focus on the evolution of how we execute our integrated reporting system, our mandatory compliance training and our compliance communication.

Updating our Corporate Business Principles

As society continuously transforms, we evolve with it. That is why, in July 2020, we launched our updated Corporate Business Principles, which include our positions on sustainability, human rights, diversity and inclusion, transparency and open communication.

The new Principles were shared across the company through an internal digital communication campaign in July 2020, accompanied by mandatory training on the key elements. In addition, all our markets were provided with a tailored local communication plan.

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Grievance mechanisms and remediation

Our commitment

Provide effective grievance mechanisms to employees and stakeholders

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2019: Review grievance systems' eﬀectiveness with internal and external stakeholders to deﬁne improvement opportunities

Achieved

By 2020: Grievance systems improvements implemented in pilot markets

Achieved

Strengthening our grievance systems

At Nestlé, we want all our employees to work in a safe and healthy environment, based on constructive professional relationships and where everyone is empowered to speak up. This is fundamental to staying true to our values, which are rooted in respect. Our work on human rights depends on a robust reporting system that gives anyone along our value chain the conﬁdence to speak freely.

We maintain two reporting systems: our Integrity Reporting System for internal employees and Tell us, the independently operated system for all stakeholders. We have been continuously analyzing trends from these platforms, such as report volumes and the rate of substantiated reports. In 2020, we used insights from this analysis to drive improvements.

A new automated ﬂagging feature went live across both our platforms to help us expedite the more serious allegations. This will generate more eﬃciency and transparency in how we handle potential violations that misalign with our Corporate Business Principles.

Grievance reporting in numbers

Every year, conﬁdence in our grievance reporting mechanisms has grown and we have experienced a corresponding collective increase in reporting across the two platforms.

In 2020, through our Integrity Reporting System, we received 1624 messages - slightly down from 1740 during 2019. Of these, 464 cases were substantiated and related to issues such as abuse of power and/or harassment/bullying, labor practices and kickbacks. So far, 1583 cases have been investigated and closed.

During the same period, our Tell us reporting platform received 1681 messages - 40% up from the 1178 during 2019. Of these, 68 were substantiated and related to matters such as human resources (HR) issues, fraud, compliance and safety. So far, 1138 have now been closed.

Nestlé Integrity Reporting System (2020)
Number of messages received	1624
Number of cases closed	1583
Number of cases substantiated	464

Tell us (2020)
Number of messages received	1681
Number of cases closed	1138
Number of cases substantiated	68

Overall achievements

With the increased awareness of the system due to internal communications and the eﬀectiveness of the platform, the collective number of cases has been increasing. Decisive action has been taken in all substantiated cases, which has served to strengthen conﬁdence in the platform.

Our approach to advancing our grievance reporting mechanisms and transparently reporting their use has been fundamental to embedding a Speak Up culture. This in turn has helped us step up our responses to high-risk and sensitive allegations.

Looking ahead

Over the next two years, we will roll out the case management system (CMS) tool across all markets (see the case study below), which will empower an automated data consolidation and enable a more eﬃcient trend analysis. In addition, we will unify the Integrity Reporting System and Tell us platforms into one global reporting system, thereby simplifying the overall handling of cases and reinforcing Nestlé'srole in society.

Creating better reporting systems

In 2020, we piloted the CMS tool designed to streamline how we handle grievance cases in the system. The tool has been launched in ﬁve markets: Brazil; Greater China Region; Russia and Eurasia; the Middle East and North Africa; and Colombia.

The CMS tool marks an important step in the evolution of our system and will improve our capabilities to capture, document and monitor the cases. The CMS will be rolled out to all markets in 2021-2022.

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Promoting decent employment and diversity

Our commitments to promoting decent employment and diversity

40 Roll out our Nestlé needs YOUth initiative across all our operations
41 Enhance gender balance in our workforce and empower women across the entire value chain
42 Advocate for healthy workplaces and healthier employees

Our work on promoting decent employment and diversity contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Building sustainable economies will depend on ensuring the next generation is able to access employment opportunities. Yet young people around the world are struggling to ﬁnd such opportunities or to start their own business. This situation has only become more challenging as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a major employer, we can make a positive diﬀerence, providing employment, training and skills development opportunities to young people. We also use our platform as a global company to inﬂuence key stakeholders and drive collective action. We encourage better practices in workplaces globally, including diversity, which is an integral part of our company's culture. We develop workplaces that lead by example, by increasing representation of women at all levels and supporting the health and well-being of hundreds of thousands of employees.

What we achieved

Our Nestlé needs YOUth initiative is helping young people around the world. We oﬀer training, mentorships and professional development opportunities and advance the skills they need to kickstart their careers. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we scaled up the digitalization of our programs to ensure continued support for young people amid global restrictions.

Through the Alliance for YOUth, we collaborate with hundreds of like-minded business partners globally, regionally and locally to promote youth employment and employability.

We apply the same passion and commitment to taking care of the people who work for us. Our safe and inclusive workplace represents the diversity of our global markets. Empowering women is a particular focus and one that drives broader anti-bias eﬀorts across our business. Today, 43% of our managers are women.

We also empower our local oﬃces to develop and host relevant, impactful programs to increase diverse representation among our workforce. Diversity and inclusion are the foundation of our strength. They are one of the ways we bring our purpose and values to life. To read more go to Supporting our people web page.

Looking ahead

We want to scale up the strong results we have achieved to date with our youth-focused initiative and alliance to broaden their impact.

We will continue our Gender Balance Acceleration Plan that puts further emphasis on increasing the number of women in senior executive positions globally. Today, we are on track to achieve our 2022 commitment to have 30% women in our top 200+ positions.

Opportunities for young people

Roll out our Nestlé needs YOUth initiative across all our operations

Extended

Our objectives

By 2020: Nestlé needs YOUth initiative commits to deliver:

• 45 000 to 50 000 apprenticeship and traineeship opportunities
• Continued readiness-for-work events globally, with an increasing number of employees involved in such events
• Enhanced collaboration with external partners to motivate them to join and to increase the impact
• 20 000 to 25 000 job opportunities for people under 30 years of age every year

Extended

Building tomorrow together

The global Nestlé needs YOUth ambition focuses on our core impact areas of employment and employability, agripreneurship and entrepreneurship.

Nestlé needs YOUth was launched to help 10 million young people access economic opportunities by 2030. Since 2014, we have established over 300 private sector partnerships to develop the skills and resources young people need to enter the workplace or start their own business.

We have accelerated the digitalization of Nestlé needs YOUth and its activities. For example, in Mexico, Nestlé developed an entrepreneurship program to support young innovators through mentoring and strategic support for their businesses. This has helped us to maintain momentum regionally and locally during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, we launched the Nesternship initiative across our Zone AOA (Asia, Oceania and sub-Saharan Africa). This digital internship program helps young people gain professional experience remotely, which is a lifeline opportunity for those aﬀected by the pandemic.

Growing the Global Alliance for YOUth

The Global Alliance for YOUth was launched in 2019 and today counts more than 20 multinational companies among its members. The initial commitment was to support 6 million young people to develop the necessary skills to thrive in the world of work, today and tomorrow. The Alliance exceeded all expectations and positively impacted more than 10 million young people in 2019 alone. In response, the Global Alliance scaled up its commitment, aiming to support 15 million young people by 2022.

Overall achievements

Since the start of our commitments, we have oﬀered more than 43 000 apprenticeships and traineeships worldwide and provided over 100 000 job opportunities for young people under 30.

In addition, in 2020 more than 1 million young people have attended work readiness training events in person or online, and over 3088 entrepreneurs have beneﬁted from advanced mentoring.

As part of the same objectives, and aligned with our ambition to increase the number of young people choosing a career in farming, we have identiﬁed around 9920 agripreneurs who can become future-ﬁt farmers.

Looking ahead

Through Nestlé needs YOUth, we will keep working toward our 2030 commitment to help 10 million young people access economic opportunity.

We are also developing important new commitments to keep leveraging the momentum we have built to help young people reach their potential.

Reaching youth around the world

In October 2020, Nestlé and The Global Alliance for YOUth organized a Facebook live event for Europe, Middle East and North Africa (EMENA) featuring the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit. Nestlé and the Alliance for YOUth announced that they will oﬀer 300 000 ﬁrst jobs, apprenticeships and traineeships across EMENA by 2025. Nestlé will contribute 40 000 of these positions.

November with more than 20 000 participants. The focus of the event was on tackling the social and economic integration of young people impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through these opportunities, we aim to help young people gain the skills necessary to shape the society of tomorrow and contribute to a sustainable COVID-19 recovery.

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Under Nestlé's leadership, the ﬁfth Paciﬁc Alliance Youth Summit, hosted by Nestlé Chile, took place virtually for the ﬁrst time in late

Empowering women

Enhance gender balance in our workforce and empower women across the entire value chain

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: The livelihoods of women have been improved in ﬁve priority sourcing locations

Achieved

Changing the face of our workforce

We understand that if we are to build a company that serves everyone, it must be one that also mirrors the richness and cultural diversity of society. That is why we are building a more diverse company through our Gender Balance Acceleration Plan. Launched in 2019, the plan aims to increase the proportion of women in our top 200+ senior executive positions to 30% by 2022. By the end of 2020, we had achieved 25.6% representation. Meeting the goal was achieved through measurable goals, anti-bias training, and mentoring and sponsorship programs.

In line with our inclusive people practices, our performance and rewards management systems are built on the standards of fairness and parity. To make sure that men and women performing comparable jobs are paid equitably and that no systemic gender bias exists, a worldwide equal pay assessment process is now conducted regularly.

We were also recognized by the Bloomberg Equality Index for the second time for advancing the gender balance in our workplace and our transparent reporting.

Accelerating opportunity for women across our supply chain

Since 2015, we have achieved more than we anticipated - improving livelihoods for women in 10 locations along our supply chain. Our work has focused on several key supply chains (dairy, coﬀee, cocoa and hazelnuts) and contrasting locations: Guatemala, Brazil, Turkey, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Iran, India and Indonesia.

We spent 2018-2020 assessing gender roles in these locations and developed appropriate activities to pilot.

Since 2019, pilot activities have included a gender capacity strengthening program for agronomists in our coﬀee supply chain. The program was co-designed by Nespresso and KIT Royal Tropical Institute. It assigns regional gender trainers to work closely with agronomists for a minimum of six months to help them become more aware of inequalities and to recognize the critical role of women in coﬀee production.

Overall achievements

Strengthened policies and training are transforming our workplaces into truly inclusive spaces. We are especially proud of our best practice parental leave policy and our robust sexual harassment training. We have also scaled up support for breastfeeding in our own workplaces and beyond.

The range of approaches to support women along our supply chain are helping us change their economic outlook. For example, our eﬀorts on income diversiﬁcation training are helping women in cocoa-growing communities in West Africa support their families while gaining ﬁnancial independence and work experience.

Looking ahead

Momentum is key to creating lasting change for women who work at Nestlé and beyond, in our supply chains. We have made solid progress, but we must keep building on the foundations we have laid. We have collated feedback from our supply chain pilots and will be using this to reﬁne other impact plans and commitments going forward.

Recognizing leaders

In 2019, Ghazal Nemati, Application, Innovation & Renovation Agriculture Manager (Nestlé Iran), was named among women leaders advancing sustainability in their company.

Ghazal has been a pioneer since the start of her career with us. She has been a driving force in developing large-scale dairy farms in Iran to produce infant-grade quality milk. Her visionary approach has ensured the farms adopt water stewardship and biodiversity projects. Moreover, Ghazal has used her success to inspire other women to move into the dairy and agricultural sectors by leading several female empowerment programs.

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Workplace health and safety

Advocate for healthy workplaces and healthier employees

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Oﬀer our employees education, early screening and programs that support healthier lifestyle choices

Achieved

By 2020: Continue leading through industry forums

Achieved

*Calculations of the Know Your Numbers data are not based on the total workforce.

Caring for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has been transformational - both in the external world and within Nestlé. Throughout this disruptive and uncertain period, the health, safety and well-being of all our employees have been our priority.

We are encouraging remote working as much as possible and given parents the ﬂexibility to manage their family and professional responsibilities.

We have put additional safety measures in place in our oﬃces, factories and distribution centers, and halted international travel for business purposes. We made our workplaces as safe as possible for our people and oﬀered additional support by way of testing campaigns, ﬂu vaccination campaigns and other measures wherever feasible and applicable.

We also oﬀer free meals and transport for staﬀ in factories and distribution centers where relevant. We provide generous sick leave arrangements for those who do contract the virus, and ﬁnancial support for employees aﬀected by temporary stoppages during the pandemic.

Inspiring healthier lives

The pandemic's impacts, while considerable, did not disrupt our scheduled commitments to the well-being of our employees. We are pleased to have made good progress through our three major global programs - Know Your Numbers (KYNP), #HealthyLives and Stress and Resilience. By the end of 2020, we had made KYNP available to 87.6% of our employees*. In addition, around 22 962 employees had completed video sessions of the #HealthyLives training program and 79% of our human resources business partners had undergone Stress and Resilience training.

This is a signiﬁcant achievement given our size and geographic spread. We also continued to lead through industry bodies, including our work with the Consumer Goods Forum where we are a member of the Employee Health & Wellbeing working group.

Safeguarding healthy futures for employees

As the COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdowns, we wanted to inspire and empower our employees to embrace healthy habits and safeguard a healthier future for themselves, their families and our business. In late 2020, we launched two pilots focusing on physical and mental health.

The ﬁrst pilot provides an easy-access digital platform to encourage healthy breaks. This helps remove the stigma behind taking a break during working hours. The science-based breaks oﬀer fun and motivating activities for breaks and are designed to help tackle the eﬀects of sedentary lifestyles. These include mindfulness exercises and oﬃce yoga.

The second pilot includes an app with a variety of virtual activity challenges such as competing on steps, distance or active minutes. There are individual and team-based tasks, enabling employees to drive healthy lifestyle changes and have fun.

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Furthermore, we engage with our industry through conferences, such as the European Health Network. In 2020, we remained committed to sharing our expertise and supporting key initiatives through these groups, with our key collective focus being our industry's response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Overall achievements

Our KYNP employee health program has given us signiﬁcant insight into employee health proﬁles. The program includes an initial anonymous screening (biometrics and health risk assessment), followed by professional guidance leading to targeted health support. While none of the data we collected is connected to individual employees, it will be key to developing eﬀective wellness programs and interventions going forward. Throughout 2021 and onward, we will be aiming for higher participation and driving better use of data insights for the continued development of targeted health interventions.

Looking ahead

Poor mental health is one of the three most reported work-related illnesses globally. Emerging trends from KYNP also identify stress as a key risk among employees. We believe the pandemic and the profound changes it has caused to the professional and personal lives of our employees will lead to a rise in mental health challenges. In 2020, the focus on the mental health and well-being of employees was strengthened through customized communication and webinars oﬀered to employees globally through diﬀerent internal channels and platforms. We will continue to drive interventions that support our employees' overall well-being with a holistic approach, considering mental and physical health.

For the planet

2030 ambition

To strive for zero environmental impact in our operations

In this section

44 Caring for water
49 Acting on climate change
52 Safeguarding the environment

Caring for water

Our commitments to caring for water

45 Work to achieve water eﬃciency and sustainability across our operations
46 Advocate for eﬀective water policies and stewardship
47 Engage with suppliers, especially those in agriculture
48 Raise awareness on water conservation and improve access to water and sanitation across our value chain

Our work on caring for water contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Water is key to all life. As our climate changes, so does the availability of water. Extreme weather events, such as droughts and ﬂooding are also occurring increasingly frequently. Although this is a global problem, the impacts are felt locally, especially by vulnerable societies.

Water is a vital resource for farmers. Without it, they cannot grow the raw materials needed to produce our foods and beverages. We are passionate about helping make the changes our suppliers need to protect this precious resource. We work closely with them to ensure water is used more eﬃciently, now and for the future.

What we achieved

Protecting water sources requires robust actions. Our 2020 commitments for water stewardship were ambitious from the start, and we are proud of our results.

We have reduced our direct water withdrawals per tonne of product by 32% since 2010. These savings have been achieved, in part, through robust water management, something that our bottled water facility in Ontario, California, exempliﬁes. In August 2020, it became the ﬁrst food and beverage factory to receive platinum-level Alliance for Water Stewardship certiﬁcation.

As well as minimizing our water footprint, we support our local communities. Access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services is a basic human right. With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, WASH has become more important than ever. We extended a long-standing partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to secure access to clean water and sanitation in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Everything we have achieved to date supports our ﬂagship Caring for Water initiative and its four key impact areas:

• Agricultural supply chains
• Communities
• Factories
• Watersheds
Looking ahead

While we continually reduce our direct impact on watersheds, we realize more can be achieved through collective action and engaging all our stakeholders. We are already taking practical steps. As part of an integrated approach to environmental sustainability, Nestlé Waters has set robust goals for water withdrawals and carbon neutrality by 2025. Across the whole of our organization, we will drive systemic change in water use by strengthening partnerships with our suppliers, industry peers, governments, academia, scientists and sustainability organizations.

Improving water eﬃciency

Work to achieve water efficiency and sustainability across our operations

Extended

Our objectives

By 2020: Reduce direct water withdrawals per tonne of product in every product category to achieve an overall reduction of 35% since 2010

Extended

By 2020: Carry out 40 new Water Resource Reviews in selected manufacturing facilities in all greenﬁeld sites

Achieving industry-leading water withdrawal reductions

Sustainable water use has long been a priority for Nestlé, even before we set our 2020 commitments. As such, we were already operating very eﬃciently when we established oﬃcial objectives. By the end of 2020, we had built on this strong foundation, investing in technology and process developments to reduce direct water withdrawals per tonne of product by 32% versus 2010. Some of our markets are even further ahead. For example, in Spain, we have approximately halved water withdrawals per tonne of product since 2010.

Extended

Changes in product portfolio across the commitment period have resulted in us falling just short of our target of 35%. For example, while we had achieved a high level of water use eﬃciency in bottled water facilities, reductions in the production of these products have translated into a decline in overall water use eﬃciency performance. To account for future evolutions in our product portfolios, we are transitioning away from a global water use eﬃciency target to focus on progress at the product category and factory levels.

Carrying out Water Resource Reviews To control our water impact, we must ﬁrst understand it. Our Water Resource Reviews oﬀer valuable insights into where we can improve water eﬃciency and management.

Direct water withdrawal reduction, % variation since 2010 per tonne of product in our manufacturing operations

201625%
201729%
201830%
201931%

202032%

Water withdrawals at our factories by product category (m3 per tonne of product)
Category 2010 2020 % reduction since 2010
Milk products	5.5 3.4 37
Confectionery	7.2 3.2 56
Nutrition and healthcare	13.6 8.3 39
PetCare	1.2 1.1 10
Powdered and liquid beverages	13.9 5.8 59
Prepared dishes and cooking aids	5.5 3.3 40
Water	1.7 1.5 11

Safeguarding water with real-time insights

We want to ensure we are always using water in the most eﬃcient ways possible. That is why, in 2019, we began installing Aquassay technology in our factories to monitor water from source through to discharge.

The technology, which helps factory managers highlight areas for improvement in real time, has now been fully deployed in 10 sites. Additionally, 21 facilities are in the implementation phase, with 15 more scheduled to install Aquassay throughout 2021.

Despite delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we carried out two Water Resource Reviews throughout 2020, reaching a total of 34 reviews since 2016.

Overall achievements

We are always looking for new ways to save water. By constantly reviewing our factories and processes, we have successfully reduced our water withdrawals year on year.

In 2014, our reviews uncovered an opportunity in our dairy factories. By developing a state-of-the-art method of extracting water from processed milk, we could recycle recovered water back into operations. Thanks to this technology, we are actively helping to relieve the pressure on important water sources near several of our factories.

Looking ahead

We have already achieved signiﬁcant water use savings, but we will not stop there. We will continue to invest in new technologies and initiatives, closing the gap between our existing water withdrawal rate and our 35% target.

As well as building on our internal eﬀorts, we are aware that we must develop water-saving initiatives throughout the value chain, particularly in water-stressed regions. We will work collaboratively with our agricultural suppliers and local communities to invest in water-saving technologies that deliver both environmental and social beneﬁts. At the same time, we will work with other stakeholders from catchment areas surrounding our facilities to develop joint responses to local water protection.

Water stewardship advocacy

Advocate for effective water policies and stewardship

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Continue to build the 2030 Water Resources Group public-private partnership by adding one more state or country per year

Achieved

By 2020: Continue supporting the Alliance for Water Stewardship Standard by implementing it in ﬁve new locations

Achieved

Encouraging collaborative action for water stewardship

Water is a shared resource, so protecting it must be a shared responsibility. We are pursuing joint action to preserve vulnerable water sources and ensure sustainable water management.

One such collaboration is the 2030 Water Resources Group (2030 WRG), of which we have been a dedicated member since its launch in 2008. We have supported the group to create multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) in water-stressed areas, committing to add one new partnership each year for a decade. Each MSP is developed through a three-pronged approach:

• Analyze the issue
• Convene a 'hydro-economic' analysis to identify solutions
• Transform water management through targeted solutions

We have supported the group to create 14 MSPs in water-stressed locations in the last decade, thus achieving our commitment (adding, on average, one country/state for every year over a 10-year period).

We continue to actively contribute to the 2030 WRG. In 2020, we contributed to research into how to harness the multi-stakeholder approach to address water issues locally. Starting with Cape Town, South Africa, we will support hydro-economic analyses of water-scarce cities to understand how domestic water use can be reduced.

During 2020, several MSPs redirected resources to increase access to water and sanitation services in a rapid COVID-19 response. Plans have been established across Mongolia, Mexico, Kenya, Brazil, Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa to support economy recovery and job creation.

Implementing the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard

We have signiﬁcantly surpassed our objective to uphold the AWS Standard. Between 2017 and 2020, the Standard was implemented in 41 locations, with several of our markets achieving even more important milestones. For example:

• In August 2020, Nestlé Waters North America achieved two ﬁrsts. Our bottled water plant in Ontario, California, became the ﬁrst food and beverage factory globally - and Nestlé Waters the ﬁrst company in any sector in North America - to receive platinum-level AWS certiﬁcation.
• In Pakistan, AWS certiﬁcation for the last of our four factories made this the ﬁrst Nestlé market to achieve 100% certiﬁcation by 2020.

By 2025, all Nestlé Waters sites will be certiﬁed to the AWS Standard. We have also begun implementation in other business areas, achieving certiﬁcation in several food and beverage factories across Mexico, Ecuador, Spain and Ireland.

Overall achievements

Through the 2030 WRG, nearly USD 1 billion (CHF 8.8 billion) has been mobilized in water security responses. Since 2018, the World Bank Group has hosted the 2030 WRG, allowing eﬀorts to be scaled up. To date, 25 projects are active in collaboration with the World Bank Group, with another 29 opportunities in the pipeline.

To improve our own stewardship, we have continuously implemented the AWS Standard across more sites every year. To date, we have achieved AWS certiﬁcation in 41 sites.

Looking ahead

Water sources and watersheds demand increasing protection - tailored to the requirements of each country. By harnessing collective knowledge, we are connecting the issue of water stress with climate change and biodiversity to oﬀer more integrated solutions. More critically, by drawing on the resources and inﬂuence of the 2030 WRG, we will continue to actively encourage political leaders to place greater importance on water-related issues.

Funding eﬃcient irrigation in Tanzania

Agriculture in Tanzania is responsible for 85% of national freshwater withdrawals. However, ineﬃcient practices mean that up to 45% of this is lost.

The 2030 WRG is working with 3000 farmers in the Pangani and Ruﬁji Basins to increase access to ﬁnancing for improved technologies, such as drip irrigation systems, to reduce water losses.

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Picture taken before the COVID-19 pandemic

Engaging with our suppliers

Engage with suppliers, especially those in agriculture

Extended

Our objective

By 2020: Implement all action plans deﬁned for improved water management in our upstream supply chain for coﬀee, sugar, dairy and cereals in high-priority locations

Extended

Implementing action plans

Farmers rely on a constant supply of water to grow the crops we need for our key raw materials. This means that eﬃcient water management is essential - especially for those working in water-scarce areas.

We have always taken a targeted approach to agricultural water use by partnering with growers to address local needs. The development of detailed action plans has helped identify the most pressing issues, including drought and ﬂooding resilience, wastewater treatment and sustainable agriculture methods.

During the commitment period, we implemented several action plans in water-stressed areas throughout our supply chains for coﬀee, dairy and cereals. These action plans have enabled us to target water management initiatives in high-priority sourcing areas.

This commitment is still in progress for our sugar supply chain due to foundational steps taking longer than originally planned. Beyond 2020, we will place a stronger emphasis on environmental considerations, working with our producers to identify and address their key water management needs.

Overall achievements

Since the beginning of this commitment, we have developed long-term initiatives to improve water use eﬃciency. These have been developed in collaboration with various suppliers, using advanced technologies and global best practices.

• Coﬀee farmers in Colombia, Brazil and Vietnam
• Wheat producers in the US
• Dairy producers in South Africa, Pakistan, India and Iran
• Tomato growers in Spain

These projects are evolving as our capabilities and supplier needs develop.

We know that implementing and scaling ongoing programs such as these are key to achieving long-term improvements. We continually look for new ways to work with our suppliers to further enhance water management.

Looking ahead

As we move beyond 2020, we will work diligently to complete the implementation of our remaining action plans. This will inform the development of more ambitious, collaborative water interventions.

Water use in our agricultural supply chains remains a priority for Nestlé, and we will work with growers to improve the management of this precious resource. In particular, we will strengthen our focus on addressing irrigation ineﬃciencies in water-stressed areas.

Saving water with tomato suppliers in Spain

In Extremadura, Spain, nearly 90% of water use occurs in the agriculture sector. With rains both seasonal and scarce, strong water management is key.

We have worked with stakeholders throughout our Spanish tomato supply chain to improve water use. This has included installing new technologies such as buried irrigation, humidity sensors and ﬂow meters.

Since 2013, we have achieved water savings of over 1 million m3 with our tomato suppliers. This has contributed to our Miajadas factory in Extremadura becoming the ﬁrst European food factory to achieve AWS gold-level certiﬁcation in 2020.

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Picture taken before the COVID-19 pandemic

Access to water, sanitation and hygiene

Our commitment

Raise awareness on water conservation and improve access to water and sanitation across our value chain

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Implement detailed guidelines on human rights to water and sanitation due diligence in all Nestlé markets and key agricultural supply chains

Achieved

By 2020: 600 000 beneﬁciaries in local communities have access to water, sanitation and hygiene projects around our manufacturing facilities and key agricultural supply chains

Achieved

Implementing guidelines on the human right to WASH

Access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) is a key human right. We can, and must, play our part in breaking down barriers to WASH access in our local communities.

That is why, in 2015, we developed our Nestlé Guidelines on Respecting the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation. To date, these rules have been implemented in all of our markets and key agricultural supply chains.

We cannot do it alone - we need the support of our suppliers to make sure WASH is accessible everywhere. We have included the human right to WASH as an urgent consideration for our Tier 1 suppliers in the Nestlé Responsible Sourcing Standard.

Launching local WASH projects

Over the course of this commitment, we have worked with local stakeholders and organizations to increase access to WASH projects for 1 407 443 beneﬁciaries in the areas surrounding our facilities.

WASH is key to keeping people safe, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, we built on a long-standing partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to ensure more people had access to safe water and sanitation. To do this, we:

• Donated CHF 3 million to the IFRC's global COVID-19 response fund.
• Established partnerships with local IFRC branches, oﬀering CHF 7 million in ﬁnancial support and in-kind donations.
• Launched WASH programs in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa to combat the spread of COVID-19.
• Matched employee donations.

Overall achievements

We realize diﬀerent communities have diﬀerent priorities. If our support is to have positive impact, we need to understand these unique needs. In 2019, we developed a Community Relations Process (CRP) tool for our medium- and high-risk markets. This mapping tool helps us identify key community stakeholders, with whom we then engage on tailored WASH interventions. In the ﬁrst year, we piloted the CRP tool in Colombia, Mexico, Iran, Pakistan and South Africa. In 2020, we launched it in all medium- and high-risk markets to inform future WASH interventions.

Supporting Kenyan communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

In June 2020, we donated nearly CHF 110 000 to support COVID-19 relief initiatives developed by the Kenya Red Cross Society and the IFRC. This donation was just part of our larger response, ﬁghting the crisis with over CHF 10 million in combined ﬁnancial and in-kind donations to assist people and communities.

Part of the donation went to vulnerable households in Samburu county in the form of cash and food rations. The remainder ﬁnanced the installation of a solar water-pumping system, water storage and distribution network, and WASH interventions.

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Looking ahead

We will continue to respond to the needs of the communities surrounding our factories and supply chains. This includes bringing the CRP tool to all our markets, promoting the development of relationships that are mutually beneﬁcial to Nestlé, our stakeholders and communities throughout our value chain.

Acting on climate change

Our commitments to acting on climate change

50 Provide climate change leadership
51 Promote transparency and proactive, long-term engagement in climate policy

Our work on acting on climate change contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Everyone is aﬀected by climate change, from the farmers who supply us to the consumers who enjoy our products. With increasingly extreme weather patterns already seriously impacting our planet, the time for decisive, collective action is now.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has called for global warming to be limited to 1.5°C. It is widely agreed that ambitious policy changes and collective actions are needed to achieve this limit.

As a global company, we are harnessing our scale and reach to inﬂuence long-term engagement in climate policy, both within and outside our organization.

What we achieved

We have been uncompromising in our commitment to reduce climate impacts, leading by example in identifying pioneering solutions.

Our determination has resulted in signiﬁcant emissions reductions. We have surpassed our goals, achieving a 37% decrease in direct and indirect emissions per tonne of product since 2010. 50% of all our electricity purchased came from renewable sources. Several of our markets even achieved 100% renewable electricity.

We are also addressing impacts outside the direct operations of Nestlé. For example, we are joining forces with other leading companies to advocate for a greener EU trucking industry.

2020 saw us prepare and publish even more ambitious goals and strategies to direct our eﬀorts. As a member of the newly established Race to Zero coalition, we are joining global leaders in the challenge to achieve net zero emissions no later than 2050. In December 2020, we completed a major study to better understand how we can achieve this goal. The data collected was then used to formulate new targets, which we have publicly committed to.

Looking ahead

Our goals outline where we want to be by 2050. Our Net Zero Roadmap, which was launched in December 2020 with targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), is how we will get there.

Historically, we have focused on emissions that are produced within our own factories (Scope 1), as well as those related to the electricity we purchase and use in our facilities (Scope 2).

To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, we must now address emissions throughout our value chain. As the vast majority of our emissions come from activities in our supply chain (Scope 3), that is where we must focus eﬀorts, collaborating with various partners to achieve our goals.

The power of our products is key to driving industry action, and we have set goals for some of our best-known brands. Nespresso, S.Pellegrino, Perrier and Acqua Panna are planning to achieve carbon neutrality by 2022, with the rest of our Nestlé Waters portfolio achieving the same by 2025.

Climate change leadership

Provide climate change leadership

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: As a member of RE100, aim to procure 100% of our electricity from renewable sources with the shortest practical timescale

Achieved

By 2020: Reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 and 2) per tonne of product in every product category to achieve an overall reduction of 35% in our manufacturing operations versus 2010

Achieved

By 2020: Reduce GHG emissions per tonne of product by 10% in our distribution operations versus 2014

Achieved

By 2020: Reduce GHG emissions per tonne of product by 10% in the 100 major warehouses we use versus 2014

Achieved

By 2020: Expand the use of natural refrigerants, which do not harm the ozone layer and have a negligible impact on climate change, in our industrial refrigeration systems

Achieved

We know that cooperation is the cornerstone of climate action, and so we have stepped into a leadership role. This means addressing climate impacts in our own operations as well as our industry as a whole. That is why we have worked hard to reduce GHG emissions across our own business as well.

Procuring renewable electricity

In 2015, we joined RE100, a global renewable electricity initiative, to accelerate global action and support our own ambitious renewables commitment. By the end of 2020, we achieved what we had committed to, with 50% of electricity met by renewables, a signiﬁcant increase on 2019 (41%). Our Latin American and Western European markets are now close to 100%. These achievements contribute to our company-wide aim of 100% renewables by 2025.

In the US, we took the next step, supporting the development of a 2000-acre solar project in Pecos County, Texas. Our largest renewable energy investment to date (by capacity), Nestlé will purchase 100% of the renewable electricity attributes generated, helping to achieve net zero by 2050.

Reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions

Five years ago, we set an ambitious science-based target to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions per tonne of product by 2020 (versus 2010).

Today, we are proud to have exceeded it, achieving a 37% reduction. We introduced an interim target in 2016, committing to a 12% drop in absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions (versus 2014). We have passed this milestone, achieving a 32% reduction by 2020.

GHG emissions reduction, % variation since 2010 per tonne of product in our manufacturing operations

201622%
201727%
201832%
201934%

202037%

Reducing distribution emissions

Over 90% of emissions associated with our activities occur outside our direct operations. We are working closely with value chain partners to tackle their climate impact. Since 2014, emissions in our distribution operations have fallen by 11.5%.

In July 2020, we partnered with over 20 organizations to establish the European Clean Trucking Alliance. The alliance is accelerating the decarbonization of road freight transport in Europe, activating transformational change in the trucking industry.

Making every cup of Nespresso carbon neutral

Our coﬀee brand Nespresso has been taking climate action for over a decade, achieving carbon neutrality for Scope 1 and 2 in 2017.

Now the brand has committed to delivering 100% carbon neutral coﬀee for at-home and professional customers by 2022. Achieving this goal will require tackling Scope 3 emissions throughout the product's life cycle.

Read more about this story and others online

Reducing warehouse emissions

We have established a program of continual improvement in our warehouses. As a result, we have signiﬁcantly surpassed our objective, achieving a 52% reduction in warehouse emissions to date.

Harnessing natural refrigerants

In 2019, our factory in Cacapava, Brazil, replaced 11 chillers units containing synthetic hydrochloroﬂuorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerants. In their place, we installed systems that run on natural ammonia refrigerants and a heat pump. To date, this switch has seen factory Scope 1 and 2 emissions fall by 60%.

Overall achievements

We are harnessing more renewable options to power our facilities, drawing on diﬀerent sources based on local requirements. Our coﬀee factories are tackling emissions and waste by installing biomass boilers that run on spent coﬀee grounds.

Looking ahead

Our brands have an important role to play in accelerating climate action. Garden Gourmet, Garden of Life and Sweet Earth have all set targets for carbon neutrality. Nestlé Waters signature brands Perrier, S.Pellegrino and Acqua Panna are committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2022, with the rest of Nestlé Waters working to achieve the same goal by 2025.

Tackling emissions across the value chain demands collaboration. We have a ﬁve-point strategy to focus our interventions:

• Tackling deforestation
• Reducing food loss and waste
• Developing alternative protein sources
• Designing alternative packaging solutions
• Promoting natural climate solutions

Our objective

Proactive engagement on climate change

Our commitment

Promote transparency and proactive, long-term engagement in climate policy

Achieved

By 2020: Implement the Guide for Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy developed by CDP, the UNGC, Ceres, The Climate Group, the WWF and the World Resources Institute

Achieved

Implementing the Guide for Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy We continued implementing the Guide for Responsible Corporate Engagement in Climate Policy throughout 2020. This included disclosing our climate actions and initiatives through public reporting and stakeholder engagement.

In December 2020, we launched our ambitious Net Zero Roadmap. Through this document, we are publicly disclosing the steps we are taking to achieve our Science Based Targets initiative- approved net zero targets by 2050. Our membership in the Race to Zero initiative brings us together with other organizations who share this ambition (see case study).

Supporting a green recovery

Keeping global temperature increases below 1.5°C will require collaborative eﬀorts, with companies, governments and people all working together to minimize emissions. Throughout 2020, we have continued to actively participate in eﬀorts to elevate the importance of climate action.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a renewed opportunity to advocate for collective action to achieve global sustainability targets. We have joined other companies in calling on governments to support a sustainable recovery from the pandemic. In September 2020, we backed a World Economic Forum initiative to reset Europe's economy with a growth model to net zero emissions.

We also collaborated with partners through the Solar Impulse Foundation and the UN Global Compact's Uniting Business and Governments to Recover Better initiative to push for a clean economic recovery.

Overall achievements

Investor interest in climate change and sustainability is increasing. In response, the investor-led Climate Action 100+ initiative was launched in 2018.

Through this organization, we engage over 500 investors whose shared assets value USD 52 trillion (CHF 45.8 trillion) in open discussions on our latest initiatives, targets, policy support and transparency eﬀorts.

Climate Action 100+ inspired the alignment of our climate reporting with the requirements of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). They were also a guiding force behind our decision to include social impacts in our climate change analyses.

Looking ahead

We want to lead our industry in enabling the transition to a sustainable economy. To achieve this, we are setting our sights on bold, new targets.

Our Net Zero Roadmap details how we will achieve zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. We have developed signiﬁcant interim milestones, in line with a 1.5°C pathway, to be accomplished over the next ﬁve and ten years.

We know each of our markets has unique climate-related needs and challenges. We are focusing eﬀorts at the local level, developing action plans for each zone and engaging with local stakeholders.

Issues impacting the environment are complex and interconnected, and interventions need to reﬂect this. Our future commitments will take into consideration the relationship between climate action, protecting biodiversity and ensuring that progress delivers social beneﬁts. Working with raw materials suppliers and other key stakeholders, we will continue to tackle GHG emissions while encouraging regenerative agriculture practices to support biodiversity.

Joining the Race to Zero

In 2020, we joined the Race to Zero, and other cross-sector eﬀorts to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Nestlé participated in global events and movements, including UN Climate Week, highlighting our commitment to put this ambition at the heart of every decision we make. We advocated for nature-based solutions, including at the Walmart Sustainability Milestone Summit and later in 2020 we joined the Exponential Roadmap Initiative.

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Safeguarding the environment

Our commitments to safeguarding the environment

53 Improve the environmental performance of our packaging
54 Reduce food loss and waste
55 Provide meaningful and accurate environmental information
56 Preserve natural capital

Our work on safeguarding the environment contributes to the following SDGs:

How we map our material issues to the UN SDGs

Why it matters

Everything, from people to plants, relies on a thriving environment for survival. However, resources are currently being used at an unsustainable rate. Preserving natural capital and biodiversity is critical to safeguarding this.

We are also seeing plastic packaging waste continue to accumulate in landﬁlls and in our oceans, endangering wildlife. It is an urgent priority for us and a responsibility we take seriously.

Our vision is that none of our packaging, including plastics, ends up in landﬁll or as litter, including in oceans, lakes or rivers. This means increasing recycling and identifying packaging alternatives, from new materials to delivery systems. It also means using our size and reach to provide information that helps suppliers, farmers and consumers act more sustainably.

What we achieved

We are pleased to have achieved all our commitments in this area. 88% of our packaging is now recyclable or reusable, while 40% of materials used in 2020 were renewable. We are now using our expertise to innovate new materials, alternative delivery systems and packaging-free options.

We set an objective to reach zero waste for disposal, an aim that requires continuous eﬀort to achieve. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we acted quickly to send surplus food to those in need. This had the dual beneﬁt of providing emergency relief while reducing food waste.

As a member of the One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B) coalition, we are working to preserve biodiversity. At the same time, by collaborating throughout our supply chains, we are scaling up regenerative agriculture and eliminating deforestation.

Looking ahead

The ﬁrst step when we began our sustainability journey was to identify our most pressing environmental challenges. These insights informed our 2020 commitments. We are now focusing on developing and broadening our initiatives. We remain committed to building relationships and taking part in initiatives to preserve the planet.

We understand that the issues aﬀecting the planet are interconnected. Our landmark

Net Zero Roadmap will enable us to transform our impact through a holistic approach to environmental protection.

Improving packaging performance

Our commitment

Improve the environmental performance of our packaging

Achieved

Our objectives

By 2020: Continue to systematically analyze and optimize our packaging portfolio, avoiding the use of at least 140 000 tonnes from 2015 to 2020

Achieved

By 2020: Drive alliances with relevant stakeholders to address packaging waste management and marine littering in 10 relevant markets

Achieved

Analyzing and optimizing our packaging portfolio

Reducing the amount of packaging in circulation is the ﬁrst step to realizing a future without waste. Understanding this, we accelerated our eﬀorts to avoid the use of at least 140 000 tonnes of packaging. As we accomplished our objective a year early, we spent 2020 focusing on the development of alternative product delivery systems.

We have signiﬁcantly increased research into bulk systems and packaging-free options. Additionally, we joined forces with reusables experts Algramo, MIWA and Loop to bring more products to market in reﬁllable packaging.

To further improve the sustainability of our packaging, we must understand what our baseline is. In 2020, we used 4.5 million tonnes of material for packaging and placed 352 billion packaging pieces on the market. Of this, 88% was recyclable or reusable, while 40% was renewable. In 2020, recycled materials constituted 35% of packaging used, including 4.2% recycled plastic in plastic packaging.

Percentage of global plastic use by weight and type, % of total
2019 2020
PET (Polyester)	40% 39%
PE (Polyethylene)	29% 17.8%
PP (Polypropylene)	9% 15.5%
PO (Polyolefin)	4% 7.8%
Laminates	17% 19.1%
Others	1% 0.8%
Not allocated	0% 0%

Building alliances to address packaging waste Our initial commitment was ambitious: address packaging waste management and marine littering with alliances in 10 markets. Today, understanding of the issue has advanced, enabling us to accelerate our eﬀorts. By the end of 2019, we had developed stakeholder alliances across 15 markets. Throughout 2020, we built on this, signing 10 national or regional Plastics Pacts for a more circular economy for plastic packaging. Through the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's New Plastics Economy, we also signed a manifesto calling for a global treaty on plastic pollution.

Harnessing the power of paper packaging

One objective of the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences is to identify and develop ways to safely deliver the same products without plastic packaging.

In September 2020, we launched our Maggi bouillon cubes in paper wrappers. This new packaging is recyclable and certiﬁed by the Forest Stewardship Council.

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Protecting natural capital

Preserve natural capital

Achieved

Our objective

By 2020: 70% of the volume of our 15* priority categories of raw materials have been assessed against our Responsible Sourcing Standard requirements and are compliant, or improvement plans to preserve natural capital are ongoing

Achieved

*Due to the sale of our ice cream business in 2020, vanilla will no longer be classed as a priority raw material for Nestlé. Therefore, only the data for our 14 remaining priority raw materials has been veriﬁed by our external auditors

** Deﬁnition of deforestation-free key commodities can be found on page 17 of the Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report 2020 Appendix

Sourcing raw materials sustainably

Natural capital is a shared treasure; protecting it is a complex, multi-stakeholder endeavor. We leverage a global network of suppliers to preserve nature wherever we operate. To date, 73% of the volume of our priority raw materials is responsibly sourced.

We are committed to achieving 100% deforestation-free supply chains by 2022. We employ several tools, including supply chain mapping, certiﬁcation, on-the-ground assessments and satellite technologies, to continually monitor our supply chains for instances of deforestation. In September 2020, we joined the Consumer Goods Forum's Forest Positive Coalition to drive collective action against deforestation. We are also engaging our suppliers, from smallholders to large-scale operators, in initiatives to achieve our commitment. In Côte d'Ivoire, we are engaging cocoa growers, as well as our partners Earthworm Foundation and the Côte d'Ivoire Government, in eﬀorts to end deforestation in the Cavally Forest.

Our constant dedication has meant that, by the end of 2020, 90% of our forest-risk commodities in scope (palm oil, pulp and paper, soya, meat and sugar) were assessed as deforestation-free**.

Overall achievements

Every environmental initiative should contribute to natural capital preservation. To ensure this, in 2019, we formally recognized our priorities in a comprehensive, three-pronged approach:

• Protect: Work to reduce deforestation, minimize impacts on the oceans and prevent degradation of soils.
• Restore: Work with farmers to restore natural rivers and streams, replant ﬁeld margins and improve soil health.
• Diversify: Work with farmers to diversify crops and land use to develop more resilient farms.

While this approach served to highlight our dedication, protecting natural capital is not a new focus for Nestlé. We have been working hard for a decade to address environmental issues in our own supply chains and have achieved a lot. However, we understand that we can further increase our impact through collective action.

For this reason, in September 2019, we became an active member of One Planet Business for Biodiversity (OP2B), a cross-sector coalition with a focus on food and agriculture. OP2B is determined to drive transformational change, catalyzing joint action to protect and restore biodiversity. We are driving this approach throughout our meat, poultry and eggs supply chains, as well as with our cocoa and soya suppliers.

Looking ahead

2020 has been pivotal for natural capital protection at Nestlé. As a company, our aim is to do no harm. We are dedicated to contributing positively to natural capital protection.

To date, our primary focus has been on supply chain deforestation. This is an important ambition we will continue to work toward. However, we are also aware that to protect natural capital we must go further. That is why we are shifting focus, developing solutions that contribute to forest conservation, reforestation and regenerative agriculture. By 2030, we are committing to planting 200 million trees and to sourcing 50% of our key ingredients through regenerative agricultural methods.

We must also be respectful of how these initiatives impact the livelihoods of smallholders. We will continue to identify solutions that both protect natural capital and support those who produce our ingredients.

Reforesting Sabah, Malaysia, with Project RELeaf

In September 2020, we committed to planting 3 million trees in Malaysia through Project RELeaf.

This will support our pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Moreover, the project will restore riverbanks and forests in areas where oil palms grow, helping to develop corridors for local wildlife.

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Nestlé SA published this content on 23 March 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 24 March 2021 10:40:10 UTC.

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Chart Nestlé S.A.

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Company Profile

Nestlé S.A. is the world's leading agri-food group. Net sales break down by category of products as follows: - powdered and liquid beverages (26.7%): soluble coffees (Nescafé and Starbucks brands), coffee in capsules (Nespresso), chocolate drinks (Nesquik, Milo, etc.), tea drinks (Nestea), etc.; - pet food (20.3%): brands such as Purina, Friskies, Felix, etc.; - pharmaceutical, nutrition and well-being products (16.4%): nutritional supplements (Resource, Boost, Nutren, Optifast, Peptamen brands, etc.), infant and maternal nutrition products (NAN, illuma, Cerelac, Nido, Gerber), ketogenic beverages (BrainXpert), (Nesquick, Fitness, Cheerios, Lion, etc.), etc.; - ready meals and seasoning products (12.5%): frozen and chilled dishes (Lean Cuisine, Hot Pockets and Stouffer's brands), soups (Maggi), etc.; - dairy products and ice cream (11.8%): powdered milk, sweetened condensed milk, yoghurt and cream desserts, ice cream (Nido, Nesvita, Carnation, La Laitière, Coffee Mate, Nestlé Ice Cream, Dreyers, Häagen-Dazs, Extrême brands, etc.); - chocolates, sweets and biscuits (8.7%): Kit Kat, Smarties, Cailler, Terrafertil, etc. brands; - bottled waters (3.6%): Nestlé Pure Life, Vittel, Perrier, S. Pellegrino, etc. brands. Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Switzerland (1.2%), France (3.8%), the United Kingdom (3.8%), Germany (2.4%), Europe (12.8%), the United States and Canada (35%), China (5.9%), Asia and Oceania (21.4%) and Latin America (13.7%).

Sector

Food Processing

Calendar

01:00am - Q1 2024 Sales and Revenue Release

Related indices

SMI , STOXX EUROPE 600 (EUR)

More about the company

Income Statement Evolution

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Analysis / Opinion

Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider: Outlook, acquisitions, inflation

December 13, 2023 at 08:03 am EST

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Ratings for Nestlé S.A.

Trading Rating

Investor Rating

ESG Refinitiv

A-

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Analysts' Consensus

Sell

Buy

Mean consensus

OUTPERFORM

Number of Analysts

Last Close Price

93.98 CHF

Average target price

108.9 CHF

Spread / Average Target

+15.87%

Consensus

EPS Revisions

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Quarterly earnings - Rate of surprise

Company calendar

Sector Other Food Processing

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ASSOCIATED BRITISH FOODS PLC	+13.77%	25.11B
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Other Food Processing

Nestlé S.A.

Equities

NESN

CH0038863350

Food Processing

Nestle S A : Creating Shared Value and Sustainability Report (pdf, 15 Mb)

EPS Revisions