Nestle to up sustainability spending at Nescafe brand

Switzerland

NESTLE is boosting sustainability spending at its flagship Nescafe coffee brand as consumers increasingly want to know where their food and drink comes from and how it is made.

The food giant plans to invest more than 700 million Swiss francs (S$1.04 billion) in the next decade on a programme that includes responsibly sourcing all of Nescafe's coffee, tracing supplies back to groups of farmers by 2025 and helping Nestle reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That is more than double its sustainability spending in the past 10 years.

Like much of the food and drink sector, coffee companies are under pressure to be more transparent about their supply chains and step up efforts to help fight climate change.

A recent Coffee Barometer report from non-governmental organisations said many major traders and roasters aren't doing enough to contribute to United Nations targets for tackling environmental and social challenges in the sector.

The programme "means a doubling down of our efforts focusing on the three priorities of improving farmer incomes, cutting carbon emissions and moving to recyclable or reusable packaging," Philipp Navratil, head of the beverages strategic business unit at Nestle, said.

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Nestle's planned spending includes four areas: allowing tracing supplies back to farmer groups that meet certain standards on deforestation and human rights; paying bigger premiums to growers who produce sustainable beans; increased monitoring of green and ethical standards, including third-party audits of the company's sustainability metrics; and cutting carbon emissions at the farming level and its own operations, and making packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. BLOOMBERG