Nestlé Waters has begun constructing an agricultural biogas facility that will provide renewable energy for the Henniez bottling plant and the Swiss power grid, as well as natural fertilizer for local farms.
The company is building the Valbroye plant in the Canton of Vaud with renewable energy development firm Group E Greenwatt.
The biogas plant will process 28,000 tonnes of manure per year from 27 local farms, as well as coffee grounds from Nescafé and Nespresso production and recycling sites in Switzerland.
The facility will open at the end of this year, and generate enough green electricity to power more than 1,000 households annually.
This electricity will be fed into the Swiss national grid, while heat will be piped to the nearby Henniez bottling plant.
The build underlines Nestlé’s wider commitment to environmental sustainability, set out in its Creating Shared Value (CSV) pledges to provide climate change leadership and to preserve natural capital, including important water areas adjacent to factories.
