Nestlé will be the first food and drink company to pilot Airbus’s Pléiades Neo satellites to monitor its reforestation projects.
Starting on 1 May, the company will implement the technology at its farms in the Ranong and Chumphon provinces of Southern Thailand, where it kicked off a reforestation project last year.
The satellites will monitor more than 150,000 shade trees in farms from where Nestlé sources its coffee, over a 20-year period.
Shade trees help prevent coffee’s over-exposure to the sun, increasing yield and productivity in the long term, while also removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Based on this trial, Nestlé will determine whether to implement the technology in other locations.
It has been using the Airbus & Earthworm Starling solution since 2016 to check for the risk of deforestation near its sourcing locations.
The Pléiades Neo satellites will upscale this monitoring service “applying a similar approach to the restoration and regeneration of landscapes”.
“Growing trees close to our sourcing locations is an essential part of our climate roadmap alongside decarbonizing our operations and supply chain,” said Nestlé head of operations Magdi Batato.
“Through our Global Reforestation Program, we aim to plant and grow 200 million trees in our supply chains and sourcing landscapes by 2030. Our goal is to remove two million tonnes of CO2 emissions through these projects,” Batato added.
Karen Florschütz, Airbus executive VP and head of connected intelligence, said Pléiades Neo was “perfectly suited to follow replanting projects over large and remote areas”.
“We are proud of this new co-operation with Nestlé and want to keep pioneering the development of innovative solutions to address climate change.”
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