Nestlé has been on an absolute sustainability tear lately. The world’s largest food company has just announced its plans to achieve zero waste at 150 of its European factories by 2020.

The company is well-known as the largest food company in the world measured by revenues. not ambitious Now Nestlé is expanding their 10-year old AAA sustainability project to Kenya and Ethiopia. To do this, the brand has enlisted the help of (who else?) superstar spokesman/actor/activist George Clooney. The company’s sustainability program involves buying coffee from 56,000 farmers in these two countries (as well as Colombia, Guatemala, India, and Mexico) and paying them a 30-40 percent premium to market prices in New York.

Starting in 2016, Nestlé plans on introducing enhanced nutrition labels, featuring guideline daily amount (GDA) statistics, on all of their food and beverage products. So much for all that sodium-laced insta-food that Nestlé traffics.

Lest you think this is all talk, Nestlé has already reached the zero waste goal for all of its factories in the UK and Switzerland. Worldwide, the global food giant has achieved zero waste in 39 of its 468 factories as of 2012. A most recent Access to Nutrition Index places Nestlé in third place among companies trying to combat global trends of obesity and malnutrition. With this much effort being expended, it’s surprising they only ranked third.

posted by Howard Davidson