ExaminingESG: Nespresso vs. Keurig
Can single-serve coffee ever be sustainable? It depends on the audience.
I’m addicted to coffee. All I need is one cup a day, but if it’s 10am and that cup has not materialized, a headache certainly will.
For years, I dutifully spent 20 minutes a morning grinding fresh coffee beans, heating a kettle, and slowly brewing pour-over coffee with my Chemex.
But — I have given up. At least for weekdays, I rely on a Nespresso machine. As single-use coffee goes, I consider them to be a sustainable option, so this month I am comparing them to Keurig.
I’m surprised it took me this long to write about coffee because while in grad school I focused an entire semester on researching whether El Niño affected coffee production in Colombia based on Google Earth Engine mapping, typical rain patterns, and tree cover.
Short answer — it does.
Coffee is an incredibly picky crop, it can only grow in latitudes 25 degrees North and 30 degrees South, and in temperatures of about 64 to 70 degrees, meaning that mountain climates work best.
Growing coffee is fragile and I believe the expense of a cup of coffee is valid if it truly goes to encouraging ethical farming practices — a topic too deep for me to dedicate much time to here.
I don’t think you should be shelling out $10 for a specialty drink at Starbucks, but spending about $1 for a Nespresso pod is not something I think is outrageous, especially because of their commitment to sustainability.
There is a lot to cover this month, so this post will be filled with some new topics, like B Corps, and a slight interlude into plastic recycling. First up: the Nespresso Progress Report.
The Nespresso 2022 Progress Report
I should note that Nespresso is owned by Nestlé, a company not exactly known for being the most ethical. This newsletter’s scope is not to dig into unethical business practices, but I am aware that they exist.
For now, here is what I find compelling from their ESG Report
What stood out:
Nespresso makes their coffee pods out of aluminum, which can be recycled forever, and it supposedly keeps the coffee fresh.
Nespresso is piloting paper pods in France and Switzerland that can be composted by consumers — I am curious to see if this product ever makes it over to the U.S. since I would happily add these paper pods to my compost.
Nespresso sends consumers a pre-paid package to fill with used pods. These packages can then be dropped at UPS, and they are shipped to Nespresso for recycling of the aluminum and composting of the coffee grounds.
An important thing to note is that if you have an original Nespresso machine, those types of pods have now reached their patent time limit meaning you can buy those pods at various stores instead of just from Nespresso, making recycling these pods a challenge.
Nespresso offers refurbished machines under the RELOVE brand as a way to provide more cost-effective options and enhance their circularity initiatives.
Nespresso also understands that healthy agriculture is vital to ensure coffee can continue to be grown. Investing in regenerative agriculture is part of Nespresso’s Net Zero goals.
Nespresso is Moving away from carbon offsets and toward carbon removal strategies following SBTI guidelines.
This topic could be an entire newsletter - but essentially, a company can “offset” their carbon emissions by purchasing carbon credits in the form of paying to keep a forest intact. I’ve written before about the issues with this.
Carbon removal means taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it. It is possible, from storing CO2 in seaweed to rocks, but much of the technology is still new.
Nespresso is one of the first companies that I have researched that is B Corp certified, more on what that means below.
What could be improved:
Nespresso is behind on their capsule recycling goal - at 32% of the 50% goal - but these types of programs are inherently a challenge since they rely on the consumer.
Nespresso created their own AAA Farmers seal to track sustainable farming practices. This could make metrics easily attainable since Nespresso is setting them, but they did create this seal with the Rainforest Alliance, a trusted third-party source.
B Corp certification
I don’t know much about B Corp certification, run by the non-profit, B Lab, other than that the certification badge is becoming more recognizable and is showing up on more brands' websites – think Allbirds shoes and Patagonia, and yes, Nespresso.
To learn more I met with a grad school colleague, Casey Plasker. She is the founder of Circularly, an impact consulting firm that empowers organizations to shift to regenerative, community-focused, and radically kind & equitable practices. She often uses the B Corp Certification framework as an entry point to impact strategy with clients — you can find her here!
I was curious about whether the rise of ESG reporting goes hand in hand with B Corp certifications. And, it does, but often just reporting on ESG metrics does not mean a company is actively pursuing sustainability best practices.
But to be B Corp certified, it does.
For a company to gain B Corp certification, they must earn at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment (BIA)— which has over 200 questions — and make a legal commitment that operating the business sustainably is as important as monetary gain.
To write this B Corp section, all I was seeking was information. But I actually got something better — the inside scoop.
B Lab has consistently updated its standards every few years to reflect our collective learning on what it means to have a truly impactful business. Today, earning the 80 points needed to certify on the B Impact Assessment can be achieved by scoring highly within various sections of the BIA.
As the bar for what it means to have an impactful business continues to get higher, it’s become clear that this scoring methodology no longer suits the B Corp community.
Some would say that Nespresso is an example of this. How, opponents argue, could a company that specializes in single-use disposable pods be a B Corp?
With the new standards set to launch in 2025, existing B Corps will have to meet the new benchmarks that require all Certified B’s to meet specific impact criteria dependent on company size and industry—which is much different from the current scoring methodology of meeting 80 points on the assessment any which way.
TBD if after this overhaul Nespresso remains a B Corp. But for now, I can promise you that its sustainability metrics are of a higher caliber than Keurig.
Keurig Dr. Pepper 2022 Corporate Responsibility Report
It’s true, that this won’t be an exact one-to-one comparison because Keurig Dr. Pepper (Keurig) not only manufactures single-use coffee pods and Keurig machines, but they also manufacture things like Motts Apple Juice and Dr. Pepper.
It is also important to note that many companies make coffee pods that can fit in a Keurig, like Starbucks — so the true sustainability impact of coffee brewed from a Keurig can never be truly assessed.
What stood out:
Supposedly, 100% of their coffee is responsibly sourced as verified by third-party sources but the * in the chart says that even though it is claimed 100%, this was not the case.
74% of the company’s electricity use was generated from renewable resources.
Keurig does replenish its water sources for the water used in its products. This is an area I know next to nothing about and was hoping to have time for a deeper dive into what this entails…maybe next time.
What could be improved:
Keurig uses a lot of jargon and sets low goals, like reducing Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 30% by 2030, of which they are 13% there.
Keurig does include information for consumers to recycle products at home but acknowledges that recycling might not be available in many communities.
Keurig is engaging in policy work to enhance recycling, but plastic recycling has its own issues. More on that below.
What is a challenge for Keurig is that they are not considering the emissions or sustainable practices of the many other companies that produce pods, like Starbucks, that can be used in a Keurig. These are likely Scope 3 emissions that are not being accounted for.
Plastic Recycling - K-Cup’s biggest challenge
Sometimes you might see a bench made of recycled plastic or a reusable shopping bag with quotes that say “I used to be a plastic bottle.” Neat.
Plastic degrades each time it is recycled, which is why it will either always end up in a landfill or it will be a plastic bench for years to come.
Also, plastic is made from oil and gas. [one reason plastic production is being so heavily invested in is that the oil industry knows its days are numbered and they need a new use for their product.]
And for 30 years we have been told that it can be recycled easily. But, there are at least 7 types of plastic, each made with different chemicals, and of which, cannot be melted down and recycled together.
Having to separate and clean plastic for recycling is more expensive than just creating new plastic. So instead, we continue to drag our plastic to the curb to be recycled but it is usually just shipped somewhere else, crushed, and stored for eternity. Or it ends up in the ocean.
It is possible to peel, empty, and recycle K-Cups, and I would be extremely curious to see if consumers actually do this.
If you must go single-use, go with Nespresso
As I said in the intro, for single-serve coffee to be sustainable, it depends on the audience. The argument could be made that coffee is an unsustainable choice if you live in the global north. It cannot be grown here and needs to be shipped to customers in the Northern Latitudes.
For me, Nespresso is a fairly sustainable choice. For B Labs, maybe not.
It is more sustainable to buy your coffee in bulk than it is to use single-serve coffee pods. But, if I’m honest, I don’t know of any options for me to recycle the plastic/metal/paper bag my bulk coffee beans come in. So is it better to contribute more emissions to ship pods back for recycling or throw out a bulk bag?
That is probably a question that carbon accounting can answer — something I hope to learn soon.
I did say in my last newsletter not to buy anything new, but in this case, if you want an upgrade, replacing your Keurig with a refurbished Keurig might be a good choice.
Important to note: there will likely not be a March edition. I am away for two weekends, so I’m not making any promises.
I hope you stick around for April!
Ana
ESG reports