Nestlé names five winners of its 2021 CSV Prize for creating waste-free future

06 / 07 / 2021

By Marwa Nassar - -

Nestlé has named the five winners of its 2021 Creating Shared Value (CSV) Prize which was entitled ‘How do we create a waste-free future?’

The five winners, who were selected by the Nestlé CSV Council based on their innovativeness and potential to make a positive impact, have additionally received a cash prize to help them amplify their impact and scale up their solutions.

Mexico’s Promesa was among the winners as it worked on solving the problem that over 53 million tons of waste is produced in Mexico annually, while the country is ill-equipped for recycling. This is compounded by lack of environmental education.

Through a comprehensive education program, Promesa is enabling companies, schools and households to develop self-sustaining community recycling schemes.

Promesa was established in 2009 in Mexico City. Today, the organization has established recycling schemes in 11 cities across Mexico, as well as communities in Peru and the Dominican Republic. Every month, it delivers its educational program to over 500 000 people and, between 2016 and 2021, implemented permanent recycling programs in over 3 000 schools, corporations and residential areas.

Promesa has mitigated over 5.5 million tons of CO2 emissions and recycled over 3 000 tons of waste in the last two years alone. By collaborating with Nestlé, Promesa will continue to raise awareness of the importance of recycling, as well as organizing permanent community collection and recycling programs for Nestlé packaging materials.

DreamRider of Canada, a digital education platform for kids to learn about protecting the environment from superheroes, was also among the winners.

The winners also included Kudoti of South Africa, a digital network of recycling stakeholders facilitating the profitable and traceable buying and selling of recovered waste resources.

RecyGlo of Singapore – a business-to-business closed loop platform that facilitates refill stations, door-to-door delivery and waste collection services – was also among the winners.

Ricron of India, a manufacturing start-up converting hard-to-recycle plastic waste into sustainable building materials, was also among the winners

About Nestlé’s 2021 CSV Prize:

The Nestlé CSV Prize 2020-2021, in partnership with Ashoka, was entitled ‘How do we create a waste-free future?’. It aims at identifying innovative solutions that contribute to Nestlé’s vision that none of its packaging, including plastics, ends up in landfill or as litter.

From reuse and refill systems, through recycling innovations, to behavior change initiatives, Nestlé welcomed entries from around the globe that aligned with its actions to tackle plastic waste.

The Nestlé CSV Prize 2020-2021 was launched in September 2020, receiving entries from 173 applicants. Over the next 10 months, each application was reviewed by Nestlé packaging experts.

Ten finalists have been selected based on their potential for positive impact for a waste-free future and for collaboration with Nestlé. From these, one winner was chosen by the Nestlé CSV Council, with a further four initiatives receiving special commendation.

All finalists benefit from Ashoka’s online resources and workshops, as well as a mentoring program, to explore potential for collaboration with Nestlé. Additionally, the winner received a cash prize of CHF 100 000. Each specially commended finalist also received CHF 40 000. Through this financial investment and technical resources, innovators can amplify their impact, scaling up solutions to achieve potentially global change.