Better Health for All

In 2024, 62% of Nestlé's net sales (excluding pet care and non-food products) came from products with a health star rating below 3.5, indicating a significant portion of the company's portfolio has negative health effects or lacks substantial health benefits.

ShareAction criticized Nestlé for incorrectly classifying coffee as a healthy product, contributing to misleading health benefit claims. Furthermore, the Global Access to Nutrition Index found that the product portfolio's healthiness was lowest in low-income countries. However, Nestlé is improving transparency by providing a breakdown of the healthiness of its sales, aligned with ATNi guidelines, which suggests an effort towards better information disclosure.

Fair Money & Economic Opportunity

Nestlé, as a food and beverage company, does not operate as a financial institution. Consequently, most KPIs related to financial services, such as underserved client share, pricing fairness, exploitative fee exposure, inclusion initiatives, data accessibility, fair lending compliance, profit reinvestment, financial literacy initiatives, debt burden ratio, geographic inclusion, and product simplicity, are omitted due to a lack of specific evidence matching the rubric's financial service definitions. However, Nestlé's Cocoa Plan has demonstrated a direct impact on wealth building for cocoa farmers, with a 38% increase in income for participating farmers

. The program also led to a 52% increase in women's participation in Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) and an increase in small business investment ranging from 21% to 55% .

Fair Pay & Worker Respect

Nestlé USA achieved 1:1 gender pay equity in 2019 and extended this to underrepresented minority employee salaries in 2021.

The company has been listed on Bloomberg's Gender Equality Index for five consecutive years. Additionally, Nestlé USA employees rate their happiness at 78/100 , with 67% feeling they are paid fairly and 86% satisfied with their benefits.

Honest & Fair Business

For Speak Up reports, the investigation process typically takes around 90 days, and there is no explicit evidence of independent investigation processes for these reports.

Nestlé has a "Speak Up" system for reporting concerns, accessible to employees and external stakeholders, and prohibits retaliation against those who report in good faith. In 2024, this system received 3218 messages, substantiated 644 cases, and closed 2420 messages. Nestlé states it does not have material errors from prior periods and has made no corrections for prior years’ errors. The company maintains a Code of Business Conduct with a zero-tolerance policy against bribery and corruption, strictly prohibiting facilitation payments, requiring due diligence for business partners, mandating documentation and approval for gifts and hospitality, and applying globally even where local laws are less stringent. Nestlé participates in the UN Global Compact.

Kind to Animals

Nestlé sourced 72.9% cage-free eggs globally by the end of 2023.

The company has a public Animal Testing Policy since February 2017, which prohibits animal testing for conventional human foods and drinks, as well as cosmetic products. Any animal testing must be approved by an authorized internal Nestlé committee for ethical treatment of animals. Nestlé has partnered with Compassion in World Farming and other food companies to advocate for EU policymakers to phase out the use of cages in animal farming, starting with laying hens.

Planet-Friendly Business

Nestlé reported net Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions of 73.05 million tCO2e in 2024

, representing a 20.38% net reduction from its 2018 baseline. The company has SBTi-validated near- and long-term science-based emissions reduction targets, including specific Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) sector objectives for 2030 and 2050 , aligned with a 1.5°C pathway, and met its 2025 target of reducing absolute GHG emissions by 20% one year ahead of schedule with published progress. In 2024, 37.2% of Nestlé's total energy consumption was from renewable sources. Recycled content in plastic packaging was 14.7% in 2024. In 2024, 93.5% of Nestlé's primary supply chains for key commodities were assessed as deforestation-free, utilizing satellite-based monitoring and supplier remediation. Nestlé's report includes a TCFD Index and discusses alignment with TCFD recommendations , and the company conducts comprehensive climate scenario analysis, employing three Paris Agreement-consistent mitigation scenarios (1.5°C, 2-3°C, and 4-5°C) to evaluate transition risks. In 2024, 44.8% of water withdrawal was sourced from regions with High or Extremely High Baseline Water Stress.

Respect for Cultures & Communities

The provided articles outline Nestlé's human rights action plans and frameworks, which broadly address issues such as indigenous peoples' land rights and community engagement

. However, they do not contain specific quantitative data or percentages required by the rubric for any of the KPIs related to Respect for Cultures & Communities. For example, while a grievance mechanism is mentioned , its coverage across operational sites is not specified. Similarly, an instance of water extraction on expired permits affecting the Six Nations community is noted , but this does not provide a company-wide percentage for social license to operate. Therefore, no KPIs can be scored based on the available evidence.

Safe & Smart Tech

Nestle experienced a data leak of 4,409 employee records in Brazil in May 2024.

This follows a data leak in April 2022 and a claimed breach by threat actor R00TK1T in April 2024, which exposed sensitive internal information and customer data. Furthermore, there are multiple reports of unauthorized data access and use, including the sale of access to sensitive data on hacker forums.