Nestlé’s chief executive allegedly blames President Donald Trump for the brand’s public silence on sustainability, telling employees that he remains committed to net zero emissions.
The Financial Times has reportedly seen video footage of Philipp Navratil speaking at an event for Nestlé staff members.
“If you think about it in hindsight, five years ago or three years ago, if you go and meet investors, you would get plenty of questions about sustainability,” Navratil said, as quoted by the Financial Times.
“Somehow in the US it has totally gone off the agenda. In all of the investor meetings I have done, nobody asks, not one has asked — I think one maybe — about sustainability.”
While he apparently took partial responsibility for the outcome, he went on to say that it is “also President Trump’s fault” – adding that it would be a “huge mistake” not to focus on sustainability.
During his second term in the White House, President Trump has rescinded Secretary’s Order 3407 (SO 3407) – introduced by his predecessor Joe Biden in an effort to phase out single-use plastics on federal lands – and withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement.
After describing the concepts of global warming and carbon footprints as a ‘hoax’, Trump has also pulled the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
This hardline stance has led some corporations to be less forthcoming about their sustainability efforts. Companies like Walmart have faced ideological and financial pressure from conservative shareholders to abandon certain initiatives.
However, the Governance & Accountability Institute stated in October that, despite the Trump administration’s stance, corporate reporting on climate and nature risks continues to increase.
Nestlé itself is still committed to its net zero emissions targets, according to Navratil: “We have not stepped back from it, but we have to talk about it more.”
As a member of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, it was also one of multiple household names to show its support for a legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution ahead of last year’s INC-5.2 negotiations.
Yet the brand has also withdrawn from initiatives like the Dairy Methane Alliance, which aspires to tackle the environmental impact of methane emissions across the dairy supply chain. It was also one of several big brands to leave the US Plastics Pact, which sets its sights on a circular economy for plastics.
Packaging Europe brand director Tim Sykes has reflected on this outcome, considering whether a brand remaining committed to a coalition after missing its initial deadlines is dedicated to the cause or ‘greenwashing’ for reputational gain.
Smurfit WestRock CEO Tony Smurfit has also spoken out about the potential impacts of Donald Trump’s import tariffs. Describing them as “economic suicide for America”, he spoke to the The Irish Times’ Inside Business podcast about their potentially “damaging” impact on the paper packaging trade and Ireland’s economic relations with the US.
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