From EV batteries to coffee: Ideas about recycling and nature are changing how firms do business

A hot cup of coffee is the perfect start to the day for millions of people around the world. But when taking that first sip, it’s easy to forget how much work goes into bringing it to the table.

From the farmers cultivating and harvesting coffee plants, to milling and roasting, many crucial and labor-intensive steps are involved in coffee production. Like all industrial processes, it often uses a lot of land, water and energy.

This means there’s an increasing amount of scrutiny surrounding the sustainability of the journey from bean to cup — something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the bosses of the some of the world’s biggest coffee companies.

“We need to change our development model,” Andrea Illy said at the World Economic Forum earlier this month, referencing the “extractive model” of the present and past.

Published by Anmar Frangoul in CNBC.