On the contrary, we know many of the issues we face today including energy security, commodity inflation, and increased frequency of extreme global weather events, are, to a large extent, directly linked to the impacts of climate change, as well as other complex geopolitical and social factors.
This year, world leaders, businesses and civil society will gather at COP27 in Egypt during November to discuss the same crucial objective of keeping alive the ambition to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees as part of the Paris Climate Agreement.
While the immediate pressures we face occupy our present-day actions, we know that without looking into the longer term and coming together to refocus efforts and double down on tackling the triple threat of climate change, nature degradation, and inequality, these challenges will only worsen.
We've been focussed on taking further action since we attended COP26 and have continued to demonstrate our commitment to reaching net zero and becoming part of the solution to climate change.
Some of the key activities I am most proud of this year include:
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Shifting towards Regenerative Agricultural Practices
We launched the Wheat Plan to support UK farmers who are adopting regenerative agriculture practices in production of wheat for our Shredded Wheat Cereals. As part of the Landscape Enterprise Networks (LENs) initiatives, these farmers are incentivised to improve the soil to store carbon and improve local biodiversity.
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Transforming our packaging
We've recently introduced recyclable paper packaging for our Quality Street twist-wrapped sweets, removing almost 2.5 billion individual pieces of packaging material from our supply chain globally. Earlier in the year, we also moved all our Buxton Water bottles to 100% recycled PET.
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Getting on the road with renewable energy
We switched 75% of our owned fleet of trucks from diesel to Bio-LNG, a liquified gas which is a by-product of waste, emitting up to 95% less carbon.
While I'm really proud of the progress we've made, it's clear we have much more to do to deliver for our customers, our consumers and for the future generations of this planet.
I'm pleased that we will have a strong Nestlé team on the ground at COP27 including both global and local colleagues from the region, who are there to continue and strengthen the advocacy work, to deepen existing and build new relationships to help us go further together.
The food sector is responsible for nearly a third of all global emissions yet has a unique role to play as part of the solution. As Nestlé, we want to see food more firmly on the menu at COP27 and the role a more sustainable, healthy and diverse food system can play in limiting warming below 1.5 degrees.
