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Nestlé Partners With the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative

The move is critical to Nestlé’s goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, since the vast majority of its emissions stem from its supply chain.

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NestlĂ© USA and the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy have announced Trinkler Dairy Farm, a Carnation supplier, is the first partner farm of the Dairy Scale for Good pilot within the Net Zero Initiative, a first-of-its-kind industry effort helping U.S. dairy farms of all sizes and geographies adopt new technologies and economically viable practices.

This initiative is a key milestone in Nestlé’s $10 million investment and multi-year partnership with the U.S. Dairy Net Zero Initiative. It aims to scale access to environmental practices and resources on farms, as well as to develop markets for new products and ecosystem services, helping farmers diversify revenue and enabling a self-sustaining model. It is also a critical component of the U.S. dairy industry’s goals to achieve carbon neutrality, optimize water usage, and improve water quality by 2050. 

Nestlé’s investment in dairy is critical to its goal to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, because the vast majority of Nestlé’s emissions stem from its supply chain. Dairy accounts for approximately 16% of Nestlé’s overall U.S. carbon footprint, and about 3% comes from fresh milk sourced from 13 dairy farms in Modesto, Calif.

With an initial $1.5 million dollar investment from NestlĂ©, Trinkler Dairy Farm will install technology and incorporate practices that significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of achieving a reduction of 30% by 2023 and net zero emissions within the next five years.  


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Dairy farms can incorporate various practices and on-farm technologies to drastically reduce emissions—particularly methane, a GHG emitted from cows' digestive system and long-term manure storages. One of the most impactful ways to do this is to upgrade infrastructure and better manage manure. By installing anaerobic digesters and advanced nutrient recovery technologies, farms can convert manure into usable by-products such as energy, solids for cow bedding, and fresh water. More emissions are saved by adding ingredients to cows’ diets that reduce the amount of methane they produce and by using energy from renewable sources like solar, wind, or biogas created on the farm. Farms can capture carbon from the atmosphere while producing cow feed by using regenerative practices that protect and restore one of their greatest assets—their soil.

The impact will be assessed using science-based measurement tools, and the data will be analyzed by scientists at the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy starting in 2022. NestlĂ© will scale the solutions implemented at Trinkler Dairy Farm to additional dairy farms in the coming years, as it partners with the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy to help farms of all sizes and geographies reduce emissions.

Trinkler Dairy Farm is the second NestlĂ© dairy farm globally to pursue net zero emissions. In December 2020, the company announced that its dairy farm in George, South Africa, had committed to becoming carbon net zero by 2023 as part of the Skimmelkrans Net Zero Carbon Emissions Project.  


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