Why it all starts with regen agri

Nescafé, Nestle’s largest coffee brand, has outperformed its 2025 regenerative agriculture goal. The coffee giant set the goal of sourcing 20% of its coffee from farmers implementing regenerative agriculture practices. It was revealed in Nescafé’s 2030 Progress Report that 32% of coffee sourced by Nescafé in 2024 was from regen agri farms. 

Nescafé is supporting coffee farmers in their transition towards practices such as optimised fertilisation, soil cover and compositing with the aim of improving productivity, lowering their costs and building climate resilience. In 2024, participants of the Nescafé plan reduced greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, per kilogramme of coffee. 

The Consumer Goods Forum has launched a new tool designed to promote alignment on the collection and reporting of emissions and deforestation data in supply chains. The CGF says that different metrics, formats and methodologies among retailers result in inefficiencies at best, and inaccurate and incomplete data at worst. To reduce the reporting burden on suppliers and enhance data quality, the new common data framework provides retailers common standards on scope 3 emissions and deforestation and conversion free sourcing. 

The framework has a transitional roadmap designed for users that have made different levels of progress, with guidance on the most common use cases for emissions and deforestation data, the level of granularity in reporting required, validating data and the KPIs that companies should measure. The framework was developed in partnership with Boston Consulting and will, the CGF hopes, help retailers provide more consistent data, scale up supplier engagement and improve traceability. 

 

UK NGO City to Sea celebrated World Refill Day in June by asking people to participate in a five-day challenge, swapping from single-use plastic to reusables. The aim of the challenge was to persuade consumers that the new “reuse” economy isn’t a distant future but in fact a reality. The campaign urged everyone to make five simple swaps over five consecutive days, including using a reusable water bottle or coffee cup, and shopping at zero waste shops. 

The NGO’s latest annual polling survey revealed that around 80% of people in the UK are actively cutting single-use plastic and want to do more. However, barriers remain: 67% of respondents find there are a lack of options preventing them from reducing single-use plastic. 

Big corporations are also getting involved. L'Oréal Group is coinciding the launch of its first global refill campaign with World Refill Day. The campaign encourages consumers to adopt more sustainable beauty habits by highlighting the environmental benefits of using refills. For example, a 100ml perfume refill can reduce packaging waste by up to 73% in glass, 66% in plastic and 61% in cardboard compared to buying two smaller bottles. World Refill Day, first launched by City to Sea in 2018, now has global backing with ambassadors in over 60 countries. 

The French senate has approved a revised law aimed at regulating fast fashion, particularly targeting e-commerce giants such as Shein and Temu. This legislation seeks to mitigate the environmental impact of the textile industry by distinguishing between “ultra” fast fashion and “classic” fast fashion, imposing stricter rules on the former while easing restrictions on European brands such as Zara. Critics of fast fashion argue that it promotes excessive consumption and waste. Under the new law, companies that fail to meet specific environmental standards could face penalties, including fines of up to €10 per item by 2030 or 50% of the product's price. 

 

A new study from the University of Maryland Centre for Global Sustainability finds that rolling back clean energy policies could reduce US GDP by $1.1 trillion by 2035, and cause over 22,000 premature deaths due to increased air pollution. These economic and public health costs would far outweigh the limited savings projected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which estimates an $1.2bn uptick from cutting regulations on power plants.

The EPA’s data points to $130bn in public health costs, including rising cases of heart and lung disease. A new study also forecasts that households could face an average increase of $206 in annual energy bills by 2035, along with a projected $160bn loss in income over the next ten years.

Fossil fuel-producing states in the US such as West Virginia and North Dakota are expected to suffer the worst health and economic consequences. In contrast, states with strong clean energy policies such as California, Washington and Oregon will be less impacted.