World’s Biggest Coffee Brand Puts Everything on the Table with Big Sustainability Goals
Canadian Packaging
As the world’s largest coffee brand accounting for about 10 per cent of all the coffee produced worldwide each year, NESCAFÉ coffee has tremendous influence and clout to help make the world a better place, which is precisely the point of the far-reaching new Cup of Respect sustainability platform unveiled by its brand-owner Nestlé last month.
Hailed as the most ambitious coffee sustainability plan in the world, the initiative explicitly acknowledges the key role played by the company’s Nestlé Canada subsidiary—operating in this country since 1887—in reducing its global carbon footprint even somewhat ahead of schedule.
Whereas the Cup of Respect plan aims to have all of its global operations sourcing 100-percent sustainable coffee by 2025, NESCAFÉ expects its Canadian business to NEWSPACK achieve this milestone by the end of next year.
“Canadians want to feel good knowing that the coffee they enjoy today contributes to a better tomorrow, and this has been a guiding principle of NESCAFÉ’s work in sustainability innovation for over 10 years,” says Nestlé Canada’s vice-president of marketing Carm DaSilva.
“We’ve come a long way, but the work is far from over and through continuous initiatives under the Cup of Respect, we are making considerable progress building one of the largest and most comprehensive coffee sustainability programs in the world.”
As DaSilva points out, earlier this year NESCAFÉ relaunched its Sweet and Creamy Instant Coffee product line into recyclable glass jars and cartons—designed by Mississauga, Ont.-based branding agency Bridgemark—adding that many Canadian consumers surveyed in focus groups keep the attractive signature jars for other storage inside their homes after use.
DaSilva says the reusability attributes of the glass jars are a key component in the brand’s quest to reach its 2025 target of using 100-percent recyclable or reusable packaging.
“NESCAFÉ in Canada is very excited to report the company is on track to achieve 100-percent responsibly sourced coffee by the end of 2022,” says DaSilva, adding that all of the brand’s global plants are working to transition to provide responsibly sourced coffee through the support of the company’s NESCAFÉ Agronomist team, as highlighted in the company’s NESCAFÉ Plan sustainability strategy launched back in 2010.
As part of NESCAFÉ’s sustainability efforts, the company’s agronomists have worked with generations of farmers to teach them how to diversify their income, gain new business skills and support NESCAFÉ’S global sustainability targets.
Partnering with community organizations around the world to secure fair and equitable practices for the future, the NESCAFÉ Plan is based on a variety of unified and actioned commitments to sustainable coffee farming, production and consumption, according to Nestlé.
“While NESCAFÉ is still in the process of making these changes globally,” says DaSilva, “it is proud that nearly all the coffee brought to Canada comes from plants that have completed this transition, with the last sourcing manufacturing site planned to transition mid next year.
To mark the Cup of Respect program launch, NESCAFÉ partnered with Canadian designer Jesson Moen to construct a one-of-a-kind Coffee Coffee Table—made from 30 pounds of NESCAFÉ repurposed coffee grounds—to exemplify sustainable production. (see picture)
“The creation of the Coffee Coffee Table was a unique project that to me had special meaning, because it uses the waste produced by one of the world’s most popular beverages and turns it into a long-lasting conversation piece,” says Moen, co-owner of the Crux Design+Build boutique studio in Toronto.
“This table, inspired by the NESCAFÉ Cup of Respect platform, demonstrates that sustainable living is truly within our grasp,” Moen states.
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