Nestlé will be the first food and beverage company to use Airbus’s new Pléiades Neo satellites to track its reforestation projects. This will allow the company to demonstrate the amount of carbon it is removing from the atmosphere through its Global Reforestation Program, a key pillar of its net zero emissions goal for 2050.

Nestlé will use the very high-resolution images from this cutting-edge technology to help ensure that the trees it has planted in sourcing regions continue to thrive in the long term.

“Forests are often referred to as nature-based solutions because we use nature as a solution to help reduce our emissions. Growing trees near our sourcing locations is an essential part of our climate roadmap, along with decarbonizing our operations and supply chain. Through our Global Reforestation Program, our goal is to plant and grow 200 million trees in our supply chains and sourcing landscapes by 2030. Our aim is to remove 2 million tons of CO2eq through these projects,” explains Magdi Batato, Nestlé’s Executive Vice President and Head of Operations.

The company will first apply the technology in the provinces of Ranong and Chumphon in southern Thailand, where a reforestation project has been underway since last year. The Pléiades Neo satellites will monitor more than 150,000 shade trees on the farms where Nestlé sources its coffee over a period of 20 years. The shade trees help prevent excessive sun exposure for the coffee, 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 worldwide.

Nestlé has been using the Airbus and Earthworm Starling solution since 2016 to verify the risk of deforestation near its sourcing locations. With Pléiades Neo, Nestlé is enhancing its monitoring service, applying a similar approach to landscape restoration and regeneration.