Mexican based social organisation, Promesa has won Nestlé’s 2021 Creating Shared Value (CVS) Prize. Nestlé will now partner with Promesa to improve its coffee capsule collection strategy and amplify its capsule recycling campaign through Promesa’s web portal.
For over 10 years, the CSV Prize has been identifying initiatives that are combating critical environmental and social issues from across the globe. The 2021 CVS Prize focused on the question ‘How do we create a waste-free future?”, conducted in partnership with Ashoka, a social and environmental not for profit organisation.
The competition aims to identify and award innovative solutions with the potential for growth. Systems that are changing approaches to issues and whose model can be replicated across social, cultural, and geographic settings are also considered.
Promesa focuses on educating youth as part of solving the global waste challenge and has recycled more than 3000 tonnes of waste over the last two years. With a network of more than 168, 000 active student across 500 schools, Promesa has also prevented over 5.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide production that would’ve occurred from landfills.
Rob Cameron, Global Head of Public Affairs at Nestlé says, “Nestlé announced last year that it would intensify its sustainable packaging journey. Since then, we have rolled out many new recyclable materials, scaled up reuse and refill options and sought out ways to raise awareness of and support consumers in the appropriate handling of waste.
“Promesa is a great example of how educating consumers and providing them with simple ways to recycle can have a big impact on reducing waste.”
Nestlé states that by promoting these initiatives, it hopes its vision of a waste-free future will be accelerated, closing the packaging loop and exploring alternate packaging solutions.
Julio Alvarez, Co-Founder of Promesa says, “Education is the engine to solve the environmental challenges of today and of the future. The CSV Prize is a great way for responsible companies and global changemakers to co-create.”
The 2021 competition saw nearly 200 initiatives from more than 60 countries enter. These entries were judged by Nestlé employees and Ashoka representatives who narrowed it down to the 10 finalists.
These finalists have access to Ashoka’s online resources, mentoring programs, and workshops, with new opportunities to collaborate and co-create with Nestlé’s employees.
The top five winners were selected by the Nestlé CSV Council, based on the initiative’s degree of innovation and potential to make a positive impact. These winners also received a cash prize to help them amplify their impact and to scale up operations.
These winners included:
• DreamRider of Canada: A digital education platform that teaches children about protecting the environment through superheros.
• Kudoti of South Africa: A digital network where stakeholders facilitate profitable and traceable buying and selling of recycled waste resources.
• RecyGlo of Singapore: A business-to-business closed loop platform which encourages refill stations, door-to-door delivery and waste collection services.
• Ricron of India: A manufacturing initiative that converts hard-to-recycle plastic waste into sustainable building materials.
For more information on the projects, please click here.
