Nestlé Nigeria is committed to achieving a waste-free future. To achieve this vision, the company is taking necessary steps to promote behavioral changes and build a circular waste management ecosystem. The initiative starts with the company’s employees and extends to the surrounding communities and the wider Nigerian audience.
Through various initiatives promoting environmental sustainability, Nestlé Nigeria aims to protect, renew, and restore the environment. In 2022, the company launched an employee plastics collection scheme to encourage staff to sort waste at its source and recycle for sustainable environmental management. This scheme motivates employees to return all plastic materials, regardless of the brand, in exchange for points that culminate in exciting rewards and management recognition.
Over the years, Nestlé Nigeria has partnered with the Lagos Business School Sustainability Centre to train journalists on effective communication and education of the Nigerian populace on global best practices and lifestyle choices that impact everyday living. The training also focuses on fact-based reporting on nutrition, health, wellness, the environment, climate change, and corporate sustainability practices.
In addition, the company extends its education campaign to younger generations through the Sustainability Training for Kids program. The program enables children to imbibe a sustainability mindset from an early age, preparing them to become better stewards of the planet. The program, implemented in collaboration with the International Climate Change Development Initiative (ICCDI), teaches children about waste management, introduces them to the conversion of waste to useful items, and encourages them to adopt positive behavioral changes to enhance environmental sustainability. Participating schools receive segregated bins to sort waste at the source.
In Nigeria, waste management is still a nascent industry, and poorly managed waste ends up in waterways, clogging drainages, and exacerbating environmental hazards, including flooding due to the effects of climate change. Data shows that Nigeria generates more than 32 million tons of waste annually, with Lagos alone producing about 10,000 metric tons of waste daily. Nestlé Nigeria is collaborating with internal and external stakeholders to address the waste challenge in line with the company’s global vision of ensuring that none of its post-consumer packaging waste ends up in waterways or as litter in the environment. The company believes that there is no better place to start addressing the plastic waste challenge than from within.
The World Clean-Up Day commemorated annually in September, provides a platform for Nestlé’s employees to help promote awareness on environmentally sound waste management practices for a clean, safe and sustainable planet. Every year, volunteers under Nestlé Cares, the company’s global employee volunteering initiative, collaborate with the Africa Clean-Up Initiative (ACI), an NGO passionate about raising environmentally responsible citizens, for clean-up, sensitization and advocacy on Environmental Sustainability.
This year, over 400 Nestlé employees joined the campaign by visiting twelve markets across the country. The clean-up exercise executed in Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Sagamu, Ibadan, Jos, Abuja, Awka, Ota, Agbara, Enugu and Abaji, was powered by MAGGI, one of Nestlé’s leading brands.
Nestlé Nigeria’s Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Victoria Uwadoka, said, “At Nestlé, we are taking concrete actions to protect, renew and restore the environment every day. We are conscious that indiscriminate waste disposal coupled with limited recovery services aggravate the waste crisis. We also recognize that creating awareness through advocacy is necessary on our journey towards a waste free future. Our priorities therefore, include improving post consumption plastic waste management by motivating behavioral changes and creating an efficient recovery system in collaboration with other industry and community stakeholders. We are also accelerating sustainability education through our employees, the media, our communities and children in our Nestlé for healthier Kids beneficiary schools. The market clean-up exercises are one of the ways we have sustained our efforts of improving our environment over the past 5 years.”
According to Dr Alexander Akhigbe, Founder/CEO African Clean-Up Initiative, “Participating in clean-up exercises is a great way to get involved and make a difference in keeping our environment clean and healthy for everyone. At African Clean-Up Initiative, we are passionate about raising environmentally responsible citizens and communities, working for the highest good of the Planet. For this year’s exercise, we ensured the proper management of over 6,660kg of solid waste and 79kg of recyclables collected across all the locations, so that they do not end up back in the environment. We are honored to be working with Nestlé Nigeria as her implementing partners for this year’s event”.
Comrade Aremu Komolafe, member of the Ojuwoye market committee in Mushin, Lagos State expressed his pleasure with volunteers from Nestlé Nigeria who joined the traders and market leaders to clean up the popular market in South-West Nigeria. According to him, with the significant amount of waste generated daily due to large number of visitors and traders buying and selling, the burden of keeping the market clean is huge. To mitigate the situation, every Thursdays is designated by the Lagos State government for market clean-up and sensitization of shop and stall owners on the need for proper waste disposal. He said that the cleanup initiative by Nestlé Nigeria will support these environmental sanitation efforts.
Nestlé Nigeria is a leading member of the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), an Industry collaboration aimed at driving post consumption waste management and recycling. Volunteers from the company also joined the FBRA led clean-up initiatives for the World Clean-Up Day.
Through the Nestlé Cares platform, employees have the opportunity to give back to the society, impacting individuals and families, communities and the environment, by volunteering their time, resources and talents.
The company says it will continue to play her part to ensure a cleaner and healthier environment across her operating locations, helping to create a more sustainable world.
About Nestlé Nigeria:
Nestlé Nigeria is one of the largest food and beverage companies in Africa. For over 59 years, the company has been delighting consumers around Nigeria by consistently delivering high quality nutritious food.
With a staff strength of over 2,200 direct employees, 3 manufacturing sites, 7 branch offices and a head office located in Lagos, the company produces and markets several iconic brands including NESTLÉ PURELIFE, GOLDEN MORN, MILO, MAGGI and NESCAFÉ.
Nestlé’s purpose is to unlock the power of food to enhance quality of life for everyone today and for generations to come.
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