Nestlé UK and Ireland is stepping up its plans to protect and restore the beautiful British countryside by working with a number of partners through a new landscape model.
Nestlé and sustainability consultancy, 3Keel, have developed the Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) model – an independent mechanism through which businesses with a common interest in protecting the environment work together to protect it.
LENs systematically connects groups of buyers of nature-based solutions (usually habitat restoration, or regenerative farming methods) with groups of land managers who can deliver the work on the ground. It’s structured into regional, self-governing trading networks, and these are being replicated across the country.
Matt Ryan, Regeneration Lead at Nestlé UK and Ireland, said: “LENs connects different businesses to land managers, most often farmers, to deliver these programmes which are often centred around water quality, flooding, management of carbon or biodiversity, or air quality.
“It’s about looking at what businesses and the landscapes need to thrive, and about shared interests. Collaboration is at the heart of the LENs model.”
Tom Curtis, Founding Partner of 3Keel, said: “A critical success factor of LENs is that it’s business-like. The trades we set up deliver tangible value; protecting assets, workforce, and supply chains, and they represent a profit-making opportunity for farmers. Equally critical is that LENs is local. Collaborations, land management solutions, and trades are all organised within the regional economy. That means LENs achieves outcomes that make sense to the communities and ecosystems we operate in.”
Nestlé has an ambition to use its size, scale and reach to play its part in tackling climate chance and make a big difference while transforming the way it operates and inspiring those it works with to start to make the change too.
Building on a decade of action, Nestlé will halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. As almost two-thirds of Nestlé’s emissions come from agriculture, the food and drink business is investing in regenerative agriculture.
Nature-based solutions are fundamental to regenerative farming. By supporting farmers to implement these practices across their farms for all of the ingredients which go to make its products, it can produce food in a way which leverages nature-based solutions.
In other words, food can be produced with less impact on the environment, not only halting the decline in nature and climate change, but also regenerating the landscapes on which we rely to live on, feed from and enjoy.
For more information about LENs, visit Landscape Enterprise Networks.