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Nestlé has used environmental LCAs to compare the environmental performance
of a Tivall vegetarian burger (Hälsans Kök) with a conventional meat burger. The
results show that the vegetarian Tivall burgers have a considerably improved environmental performance for all indicators compared to conventional meat burgers.
The greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, are approximately 80 % lower. The
results show that the vast majority of environmental impacts of the beef burger are
related to beef production. For the vegetarian burger, distribution also plays a relatively important role (in addition to the ingredients), because they are distributed
while frozen.
The example illustrates that healthy and tasty vegetarian dishes can play an
important role in improving the environmental performance of nutrition. Given the
evidence for this and other similar studies, Nestlé has launched several R&D projects to further investigate new sources of protein with improved environmental
performance.
2.2.2 Increasing Internal Knowhow
Another key benefi t of EcodEX is that product designers’ understanding of sustainability is greatly increased as they have been trained to do the environmental assessments themselves, rather than picking up the information from LCA reports or
being informed about the results and recommendations. At Nestlé, it can very
clearly be seen that a systematic and holistic value chain approach is used. This
takes into consideration responsible sourcing, ingredients, processing, distribution,
consumer use processes, and food waste across the entire cycle, rather than only
packaging and transportation distances as was the main focus at the beginning of the
sustainability journey of Nestlé.
Life cycle management at Nestlé played an important role in expanding the
scope of the eco-design from packaging to the full product life cycle and in the
implementation and deployment of EcodEX tool across whole Nestlé. The training
has been systematically organized and has a strong infl uence.
2.3 Challenges
The development and implementation of a tool like EcodEX faces many challenges.
They can be classifi ed into four main areas: methodology, data, technical, and training. With the exception of technical challenges that will not be addressed in this
chapter, hereby we briefl y describe the remaining challenges that are very much
related to the nature of LCA.
A. Adams et al.
Nestlé has used environmental LCAs to compare the environmental performance
of a Tivall vegetarian burger (Hälsans Kök) with a conventional meat burger. The
results show that the vegetarian Tivall burgers have a considerably improved environmental performance for all indicators compared to conventional meat burgers.
The greenhouse gas emissions, for instance, are approximately 80 % lower. The
results show that the vast majority of environmental impacts of the beef burger are
related to beef production. For the vegetarian burger, distribution also plays a relatively important role (in addition to the ingredients), because they are distributed
while frozen.
The example illustrates that healthy and tasty vegetarian dishes can play an
important role in improving the environmental performance of nutrition. Given the
evidence for this and other similar studies, Nestlé has launched several R&D projects to further investigate new sources of protein with improved environmental
performance.
2.2.2 Increasing Internal Knowhow
Another key benefi t of EcodEX is that product designers’ understanding of sustainability is greatly increased as they have been trained to do the environmental assessments themselves, rather than picking up the information from LCA reports or
being informed about the results and recommendations. At Nestlé, it can very
clearly be seen that a systematic and holistic value chain approach is used. This
takes into consideration responsible sourcing, ingredients, processing, distribution,
consumer use processes, and food waste across the entire cycle, rather than only
packaging and transportation distances as was the main focus at the beginning of the
sustainability journey of Nestlé.
Life cycle management at Nestlé played an important role in expanding the
scope of the eco-design from packaging to the full product life cycle and in the
implementation and deployment of EcodEX tool across whole Nestlé. The training
has been systematically organized and has a strong infl uence.
2.3 Challenges
The development and implementation of a tool like EcodEX faces many challenges.
They can be classifi ed into four main areas: methodology, data, technical, and training. With the exception of technical challenges that will not be addressed in this
chapter, hereby we briefl y describe the remaining challenges that are very much
related to the nature of LCA.
A. Adams et al.