Started in 2000, the multi-awarded Greening the Supply Chain is the Company's outreach and education programme that aims to encourage and assist its over 300 business partners in developing and implementing their own environmental management systems (EMS).
To help them establish their own EMS, Nestlé transfers know-how by providing business partners access to Nestlé environmental technology, and conducting free seminars and workshops for them on planning and implementing EMS, including meeting legal requirements, audits and reviews. Already, a number of business partners have produced positive results, from being able to establish low-cost waste water treatment plants, to achieving savings in water and energy consumption, to reducing solid waste. Using what they learned from the programme, one refined sugar supplier was able to help the community set up a materials recovery facility that includes composting of biodegradables. The facility is now operated by the community cooperative and generates income that fully sustains its operations.
Tree Planting Programme
Nestlé factories sponsor various programmes to protect and preserve the environment. Portions of the Cabuyao, Lipa and Cagayan de Oro (CDO) Factories have been converted into mini-forests, where employees and their families converge regularly to plant trees. The occasion not only provides an opportunity for employees and their families to get together, it also involves families in an important endeavor, which is to help restore ecological balance in the environment.
Under the Tree Planting Programme, Nestlé provides seedlings for planting, and teaches the participating employees and their families the necessary planting techniques.
In Cagayan de Oro, the mini-forest is enhanced by a man-made pond with a small waterfall using treated waste water.
The CDO Factory also supports the Tree Planting Project of the city government along the national highway, aimed at making Cagayan de Oro clean and green. Nestlé has planted trees along the highway fronting the factory, and is now ensuring that these trees are properly cared for. The factory has also supported CDO's Reforestation Project, a three-year programme to preserve the watershed of Tablon and protect marine life in its rivers and streams.
Adopt-a-Street Programme
The Aurora and CDO Factories have also supported the urban greening projects of their respective communities. In its Adopt-a-Street Programme, the Aurora Factory has adopted the First Street of New Manila in Quezon City with the objective of cleaning it up, greening it, and beautifying it. As a starter, volunteer employees and Nestlé business partners, barangay officials, and community residents planted trees along the road, cleaned up the road, provided the street with colour-coded trash bins for waste segragation, and put up informative billboards on waste management. Leaflets on waste segragation and proper use of trash bins were also distributed to residents.
Tablon Treepository Park
Another major environmental project of the CDO Factory is the Tablon Treepository Park, which it launched in 2004 with the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office (CLENRO) and the Tablon Barangay Council. A first in Mindanao, the Tablon Treepository Park is a sloping two-hectare natural park designed to be a repository of forest trees and a watershed. The park, aside from being a haven for trees, aims to prevent soil erosion in Barangay Tablon and assure the community of sustained water reserves. In the long-term, the park will be transformed by the barangay into an eco-tourism park and a venue for livelihood programmes such as a nursery farm selling seedlings. The project is being monitored monthly by a team composed of representatives from the Barangay Council, CLENRO, and the CDO Factory.