SustainabilityOnline recently published its inaugural ‘Ambition Into Action’ report, featuring interviews with senior leaders about how they are turning sustainability vision into business reality at the mid-point of the decade.
Florence Henry has held the role of Head of Sustainability, Zone Americas at Nestlé since May 2025, leading the implementation of the food giant’s sustainability agenda across North and Latin America, and working with regional market teams on regenerative agriculture, climate action, packaging circularity and responsible sourcing.
She previously served as Global Head of Sustainability Nutrition at Nestlé, among other roles with the company, and prior to joining Nestle, she held leadership positions at Danone, Novartis and Associated British Foods.
How has Nestlé moved from ‘ambition to action’ in terms of turning sustainability into a core value driver – in other words, how have you made sustainability ‘good for business’?
In the case of farming, we now have extensive evidence demonstrating the impact of regenerative agriculture. In coffee, for example, we’re seeing greenhouse gas emissions reduced by around 20%, alongside increases in productivity, yields and farmer profitability. Similar results are emerging in dairy and cocoa.
In Côte d’Ivoire, through pruning initiatives and our Cocoa Income Accelerator Programme, thousands of farming families are better off. These improvements also help address social issues, such as reducing child labour and enabling children to attend school. All of this gives us real confidence that transformation is under way – and that it can be both sustainable and beneficial.
We’re now at the mid point of the decade. What do you see as the single biggest barrier for businesses in moving from ambition to measurable action – and how can it be overcome?
We know that there are challenges remaining. For instance, we’ve worked really hard on packaging – reducing our packaging footprint, reducing the imprint on virgin plastics, and making our packaging more recyclable. But in many parts of the world, we lack good recycling facilities and infrastructure. That’s an issue.
In over 70 countries, there are EPR schemes, but in others, there’s not. And they’re not coming. So, what do we do? We have a number of voluntary waste management programs and initiatives in many countries – many in Latin America – where we help collect and recycle packaging.
Our vision is really that none of our packaging should end up in landfills or on beaches, so we’re really acting proactively in this respect.
Also, helping farmers to transform is really hard work. It’s not going to happen overnight. This is where we need to funnel action, and also financing, to help these farmers become more resilient.
What role can (and should) leadership play in ensuring sustainability commitments actually deliver results, rather than remaining aspirational?
I think our role as sustainability leaders is to help boards and management clearly recognise and understand the risks within their supply chains.
We do quite a lot of risk assessment, and we’ve become much more granular at understanding where climate risks exist, or where there is water scarcity. And then, once you understand this, you go from thinking ‘I need to act because there’s a commitment, or a net-zero pledge, that I need to adhere to’, to ‘I need to act because there are things that need to be addressed in my own supply chain’.
That level of supply-chain insight is critical to triggering action from business leaders.
Learn more about Nestlé’s sustainability initiatives at www.nestle.com/sustainability.
