Danone North America aims to achieve zero waste target by 2025

Danone is planning to achieve its ambitious goal by 2025

Danone North America has announced its goal to achieve Zero Waste to Landfill – a certification awarded by The Carbon Trust – across all North American company facilities by 2025.

The manufacturer stated that this goal, which has already been achieved by 15 percent of its manufacturing facilities, sets “a new company standard for recycling and waste reduction through updated processes and increased education”.

Zero Waste to Landfill is achieved when at least 99 percent of waste generated throughout the manufacturing process is diverted from landfills. As a result, waste produced throughout food and beverage production, including handling, storage, processing, packaging, and distribution, is reused, upcycled, recycled, composted, or sent for energy recovery.

“As one of the world’s largest Certified B Corporations and a market leader in yogurt, plant-based, premium dairy, and coffee creamers, embracing our responsibility to support a more sustainable world is pivotal,” said Sherri Livengood, Director of Environmental Affairs at Danone North America.

“The Zero Waste to Landfill goal creates a bridge to our company’s existing One Planet. One Health frame of action, which includes our commitment to reducing food loss and waste in our US operations by 50 percent by 2030 and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”

By working with third-party partners like Veolia ESS and with local organizations, including ShurGreen Farms and EBI Montreal, the company is creating solutions to divert waste from landfill, and instead be reused, recycled, or composted.

“When our plant achieved Zero Waste to Landfill in 2020, the full force of our facility and local community came together to support a culture of waste reduction and redistribution,” said Elizabeth Masteller, Environment Health & Safety Manager at Danone North America’s Ohio plant. “In 2021 alone, we sent more than 2,500 tons of waste to ShurGreen Farms to be transformed into renewable energy, crop nutrition, and animal feed, while repurposing product packaging. This is an eye-opening amount of waste diverted from landfills, and a further step in our company’s One Planet. One Health frame of action.”

In 2020, 4.8 percent of Danone North America’s waste was sent to landfills across its facilities, according to the company. It hopes that by 2025, just one percent or less will be sent to landfills instead.