Community Engagement – Nestlé Waters

The importance of community engagement

Nestlé Waters North America provides benefits to communities through job creation, support of local businesses, local taxes, charitable giving, employee engagement, and by sharing our experience in water resource management. We know strong community relationships are critical to developing and managing our source sites, and we strive to operate in ways that benefit the community and our company.

Our approach to community engagement in siting

Target 14:

Use our new community siting framework developed with BSR, train relevant teams, and develop mechanisms for ongoing review of the framework

Over the past decade, we experienced significant growth and undertook source siting projects in various North American communities. While some sites have been developed with little or no controversy, others have been more contentious. We knew it was imperative to learn and understand the reasons behind certain concerns, identify how we could improve, and create a more consistent process to help us meet community expectations.

In 2008, we committed to working with stakeholders on a framework to more proactively manage our siting process and make our siting efforts more transparent. Read more about this goal.

We asked BSR to help us develop this new framework, drawing on its community engagement experience. BSR led us through a four-step process to evaluate our current approach, gather stakeholder feedback, and develop a framework to help us guide future siting projects. They conducted more than 60 interviews with internal and external stakeholders and visited key NWNA sites. As a result of this input, we established a new framework, which includes:

National engagement to help us address regional and/or national issues often raised during conversations with potential host communities
A set of articulated principles and specific commitments to help guide our conduct in local communities during the siting process
An enhanced community assessment process to better understand the community at early stages of siting
Tools to help our siting teams communicate effectively, including plans for outreach and dialogue that can be customized to the specific needs and expectations of each community
A vision for how community engagement should be integrated into the siting process

Nestlé Waters North America and Nestlé Waters Canada operate in many different communities across the U.S. and in Canada, so it was challenging to develop a framework that would help ensure that communities are treated in a consistent manner, while also allowing for flexibility to help us determine the unique needs of each community. Every community will have differences, so we developed customizable tools as part of the framework. The form and frequency of community engagement will be determined with each community.

We will use the framework to guide engagement with every community where we seek to source spring water. We plan to incorporate the framework into training programs for appropriate employee groups and develop mechanisms for ongoing review of the framework.

Read more about the framework here.

Case Study – Ruby Mountain Springs, Chaffee County, Colorado

In 2007, we began looking for a local spring source in Colorado for our Arrowhead^® brand spring water. We identified Ruby Mountain Springs, in Chaffee County, as a potential source and began a three-year hydrogeologic and sustainability study. During this time, we met with businesses, community leaders, civic organizations, media, environmental groups, and the general public to get feedback on our siting project. Through this process, we learned that the community wanted us to keep trucks off rural county roads, maintain the rural character of the region, protect the springs, and contribute to the local economy and causes.

We made modifications to our project in response to input from community members. A longer pipeline route was obtained and the load station was located in a business area on a major highway. At the load station itself, the water storage silo was modified, the building design was changed, and the exterior of the building was modified. Around the springs site, which is preserved as open space, NWNA installed wildlife-friendly fencing. Construction of the Chaffee County facility was completed and operations began in July 2010.

Letter From Our CEO

Dear Stakeholders,

Beginning in 1976, when our company first introduced Americans to bottled water through the Perrier^® brand, we have grown to be the largest bottled water company in the U.S. and Canada, with 15 unique brands, 28 facilities, and 7,500 employees. We built our company on the premise that success lies in being a responsible leader by creating value for consumers, communities, employees, and other key stakeholders.

Creating Shared Value

At Nestlé, we describe this as Creating Shared Value – a fundamental part of our way of doing business. I believe this report reflects how we go beyond incremental steps and think bigger about ways we can be a strong advocate for water, minimize our environmental impact, and make a positive impact on our communities.

Transparency and Collaboration

We continually seek ways to improve how we operate, as well as how we engage with – and learn from – our neighbors and stakeholders. Reporting on our sustainability and corporate citizenship is one avenue, which we will continue doing every two years. Equally important is collaboration with others to create 21st-century solutions to address the broader societal issues, especially improved recycling in North America.

The Road Ahead

I invite you to review this website to learn more about what the road ahead entails.

On behalf of everyone at Nestlé Waters North America, thank you for your interest in our company.

Sincerely,

Kim Jeffery
President and Chief Executive Officer
Nestlé Waters North America

Progress on 2008 Goals

About This Report

The Nestlé Waters North America 2010 Citizenship Report

Creating Shared Value

Nestlé Waters North America is part of the Nestlé Company. At Nestlé, Creating Shared Value is a fundamental part of our way of doing business that focuses on specific areas of the company's core business activities – namely water, nutrition, and rural development – where value can best be created both for society and stakeholders. For more information, please go to www.nestle.com/csv. At Nestlé Waters North America, we are aligned with the Creating Shared Value approach through our principles of "Water Advocacy, Sustainability Leadership, and Community Partnership."

The Nestlé Waters North America 2010 Corporate Citizenship Report

This is the second corporate citizenship report issued by Nestlé Waters North America. The first report was published after 2008 results. The 2010 report describes the company’s commitment to corporate citizenship and sustainability. The data and case studies contained in this report pertain to fiscal years 2008 through 2010 (January 1 through December 31). All references to currency are in U.S. dollars, unless otherwise noted. The boundaries of this report cover the entire enterprise of Nestlé Waters North America and the Nestlé Waters Canada division of Nestlé Canada, Inc., including their respective sourcing operations and manufacturing, administrative, and distribution facilities in the United States and Canada.

The content in our 2010 report is organized around three overarching corporate citizenship and sustainability principles, 9 supporting goals, and 17 related performance targets, all of which are aimed at addressing our most material issues. The report also includes a progress update on the goals we established in 2008, most of which have been met or are on the road to being fulfilled.

We used the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G3 Guidelines as a reference (www.globalreporting.org) for best practices in reporting, but did not adhere to the requirements of the GRI in developing this report.

Our next report will be published in 2013 covering the period through 2012.