Nestle said in March 2020 that it would plant at least three million trees in sourcing locations across the Americas by 2021. Planting was scheduled to begin in Brazil and Mexico that March.
The work formed the first phase of a wider reforestation programme tied to the Swiss food company’s pledge to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Nestle partnered with One Tree Planted, a non-profit environmental charity. The World Resources Institute, One Tree Planted’s associated partner, was also involved. Their task was to select sites where commodities including palm, soya, paper, coffee or coconut were grown.
Restoring sourcing landscapes
The companies intended to target degraded land where forests, wetlands, peatlands or mangroves could be restored. Existing areas of high conservation value were to be protected during site selection.
Laurent Freixe, then chief executive of Nestle’s Zone Americas, linked the programme to changes in agricultural supply chains. He said restoring land with suppliers would improve supply-chain management and help the company manage greenhouse-gas emissions.
Magdi Batato, Nestle’s head of operations, stressed that the objective was not simply to compensate for emissions. He described tree planting as one of several nature-based measures that could capture carbon, rebuild forests and communities, conserve water and improve soil nutrients.
Batato also said the work complemented Nestle’s commitment to stop deforestation in its supply chains.
Mexico and Brazil
Reuters reported the next day that at least 3 million trees were planned for Mexico and Brazil over the following year and a half. One Tree Planted would help determine the species and locations, with Veracruz and Tabasco, in southeastern Mexico, among the possibilities.
Reuters put the cost between $1 and $15 per tree. At that range, planting alone in the initial phase could reach $45 million.
Batato said emissions from a Veracruz coffee-processing factory due to open in October would eventually be balanced by carbon absorbed through the first million trees.
The $154 million facility had an expected annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes of coffee and 250 direct jobs. Once fully operational, Batato said, its clean energy, automation and technology would make the plant an example for other Nestle factories.
A corporate emissions strategy
The announcement came as Microsoft, Amazon and other large companies faced customer and investor demands for stronger climate action. Nestle had signed a United Nations-backed pledge in September aimed at limiting global temperature rise.
Its stated response included renewable energy, alternative packaging and carbon absorption alongside agricultural changes.
The new planting effort built on a Nespresso agroforestry programme begun in 2014. That programme aimed to plant five million trees in Nespresso’s coffee supply chain by end 2020 and had already operated in Uganda, Nicaragua, Kenya, Indonesia, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Costa Rica, Colombia and Brazil.
Nestle planned to extend the broader reforestation work to Africa, Asia and Oceania, concentrating on sourcing locations vulnerable to climate change.
Sources
- Nestlé boosts reforestation to absorb more carbon | Nestlé
- Nestle vows to plant 3 million trees in Mexico, Brazil to help set off emissions – Stabroek News
