When environment and space science come together to improve our lives

Decarbonisation projects by international companies producing goods or services, which have signed up to the commitment to offset the emissions of CO2, are often built in areas that are not always easily accessible, or far from the companies responsible for the projects.

Indeed, the planting of large areas of land can not only be on paper, heralded as a marketing key to convince customers and consumers of good intentions about decarbonising corporate carbon impacts.

Reforestation must be initiated, through the planting of the correct tree species, in the quantities established to create the carbon balance, but it must also be followed, step by step being a medium-long term project.

For these needs, satellite technology helps us, it simplifies our work, as it is possible to create extremely close-up images of the area , up to 30 cm. and collect the correct information on the progress of the project and on the state of health of the planted area.

This technology, through satellites Pléiades Neo of Airbus, has allowed Nestlé to be able to create effective control over the supply areas of its coffee, located in the provinces of Ranong and Chumphon in southern Thailand.

This approach will help Nestlé certify the amount of carbon it is removing from the atmosphere through its Global Reforestation Program, a key pillar of its project to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

Magdi Batato, executive vice president and head of operations of Nestlé, said: "Forests are often active solutions based only on nature, because we use nature as a solution to help reduce our emissions.

Growing trees near our coffee sourcing locations is an essential part of our climate agenda, as well as decarbonising our operations by starting with outsourced suppliers.

Through our global reforestation program, we aim to plant and grow 200 million trees at our supply points by 2030. Our goal is to remove 2 million tonnes of CO2e through these projects.”

Airbus' Pléiades Neo satellite technology, used in two Thai provinces, will monitor around 150,000 shade trees on the farms from which Nestlé sources supplies coffee, for a period of 20 years.

Shade trees help prevent coffee overexposure to the sun, increase yield and long-term productivity, while also removing carbon from the atmosphere. Based on this experience, Nestlé will determine whether to expand the approach to other locations around the world.

The use of these satellites, also used to control rampant deforestation in many countries in Latin America and Southeast Asia, now find another profitable application to monitor the reforestation of areas of major bioclimatic interest.

Machine translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.

Source Nestlé