How does climate change impact Nespresso?

At Nespresso, we believe that coffee can be a force for good, positively impacting the lives of our customers, the farmers we work with, the planet and nature. We have a responsibility to protect the future of coffee, and the communities that depend on it. Because of this, sustainability has been at the heart of everything we do for over 30 years.

Coffee-growing regions are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. Extreme temperature fluctuations, heavy rainfall and droughts pose serious risks to coffee crop productivity and can exacerbate pests and disease. As a result, climate change reduces the suitability of existing regions to produce coffee, threatening the livelihoods of coffee farmers and communities across the world.

The higher-quality coffees with the Arabica plant that Nespresso mainly sources, is particularly vulnerable to weather shocks, as it is more climate inflexible, and more sensitive to coffee leaf rust and other diseases.

Globally 12.5 million coffee farmers may be potentially affected by these changes and need to build resilience against a changing climate, and especially against extreme weather events1.

Intensive agriculture (including conventional coffee production) is a contributor to climate change. Evidence shows that around 22% of global GHG emissions come from conventional agricultural practices including land use changes2. That is why for more than 20 years, we have promoted the adoption of sustainable farming practices through our coffee sourcing program, the Nespresso AAA™ Sustainable Quality Program.

There is an urgent need to transform the way coffee is cultivated, ensuring the environmental impact of coffee production is reduced whilst coffee-farming communities are supported to become more resilient against the impacts of climate change. Trees help to absorb carbon dioxide, enrich the soil, reduce erosion, regulate water use and increase biodiversity3.We started our specific work to increase coffee farmers’ resilience to climate change through agroforestry back in 2014. Since then, we have already planted 10million4 trees, out of which 9 million will contribute to insetting, securing annual carbon removals over their lifetimes. We continue to build on this work and today we want to go further.