Nestle to Double Sustainability Spending at Nescafe Coffee Brand

(Bloomberg) -- Nestle SA 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’s made.

The food giant plans to invest more than 700 million Swiss francs ($787 million) in the next decade on a program that includes responsibly sourcing all Nescafe’s coffee, tracing supplies back to groups of farmers by 2025 and helping Nestle reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. That’s 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 organizations said that 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 program “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 in an interview. The company is still working on an exact investment amount, he said.

Nestle’s planned spending includes:

• 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.
• Cutting carbon emissions at the farming level and its own operations, and making packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025.