Nestlé pilots AI-driven green-products plants

21st January 2022

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

Font size: - +

Food and beverage manufacturer Nestlé East and Southern Africa Region (ESAR) has piloted an industrial-scale, artificial intelligence- (AI-) driven plant that reduces carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, recycles wastewater and creates sustainable green products from production processes at its Babelegi Industrial Park, in Hammanskraal.

The industry-first pilot project leveraged partner Emissions Capture Company’s (ECCO’s) WhiteBox technology, a machine learning-based system that captures CO2 from flue gas emissions.

The green products can be sold directly for animal feed, human food, consumer goods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals or used to eliminate sulphur dioxide emissions without the need for water.

Data collected from the industrial-scale pilot to date, which has been in successful operation for over 8 000 hours, combined with machine learning techniques, demonstrates that WhiteBox can capture between 25% and 70% of Scope 1 CO2 emissions, mostly through direct air capture and energy-efficient gas processing, using low-fuel consumption methods.

“Our global commitment to reduce our impact on the environment influences every part of our business today. “This partnership with ECCO demonstrates a significant evolution of our production processes to embrace circular principles at every step,” says Nestlé ESAR corporate communications and public affairs director Saint-Francis Tohlang.

“We are extremely proud to be pioneering this industry-first technology on the African continent. This success takes us to the next phase, where we will be looking to scale this operation to other factories to deliver significant reductions in Scope 1 emissions in ESAR.”

“ECCO uses green chemistry and AI to extract CO2 from emissions, using it as an ingredient in everyday products,” adds ECCO CEO Thomas Darden.

“This partnership helps pave the way for a green economy. Our approach was holistic, ensuring that pollution remediation was key, along with other considerations such as water recycling and low fuel consumption. “By design, the shift from legacy technologies to low-carbon emission processes also improves livelihoods through employment creation, training and upskilling,” he continues.

The pilot directly upskilled and employed 15 people from the local community, with the potential to create more when scaled.

“Part of the operation has also included skills development for the rest of our staff at the facility to ensure a just transition to low emission operations, with no one left behind,” says Tohlang.

ECCO’s WhiteBox forms part of several ongoing long-term projects under Nestle’s RE Sustainability Programme, based on the pillars of rethink, reduce and repurpose, which was launched in South Africa in October 2020 to help mitigate sustainability challenges and strengthen its contribution to a waste-free future.

Nestle has a global commitment of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 25% by 2025, 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION