Regenerative Agriculture, Bolstered by Coffee Innovation: the Next Step in Blue Bottle’s Climate Action
At Blue Bottle, our commitment to sustainability has always been rooted in action. Today, we are proud to share the next step in our carbon reduction journey: a sharpened focus on supporting coffee producers as they transition to regenerative agriculture alongside an extended commitment to advancing innovation in coffee production.
After achieving carbon neutrality for 2024—by reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity 18.4 percent compared to 2018[1] and compensating for remaining emissions with high-quality carbon credits—we are more determined than ever to drive meaningful change where it matters most.
“The changing landscape of coffee production due to climate change demands urgent attention but also concerted optimism,” said Karl Strovink, CEO of Blue Bottle.
The stakes are high. Climate forecasts predict much of the land suitable for coffee cultivation in 2020 could be lost by 2050.[2] But coffee also holds immense potential. As a perennial crop that flourishes in agroforestry systems, it can sequester more carbon than it emits—while enhancing biodiversity, replenishing groundwater, and enriching soil health.
“At Blue Bottle, we are working with partners inside and beyond the value chain to understand the opportunities for enabling coffee to meet its fullest potential,” said Strovink. “We’re not just focused on averting climate consequences—we’re reimagining coffee production as a system that generates vitality, benefits communities, and fuels innovation. These are the origins of delicious coffee experiences.”
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE ROOTED IN RELATIONSHIPS
To turn that vision into reality, Blue Bottle partnered with a consultant and four of our largest suppliers—who collectively represent more than a third of our coffee supply and origins responsible for more than half of Blue Bottle’s green coffee emissions—to co-develop multiyear transition strategies tailored to each region’s unique needs and opportunities. We will launch with a single producer group in 2026.
The strategies target three outcomes:
Reducing emissions and removing them from the atmosphere
Enhancing soil health for resilient coffee production systems and landscapes
Improving livelihoods with a path toward living income for producers and living wages for farmworkers
We believe in making coffee farming a viable, hopeful future for the next generation.
ADVANCING THE SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY
Supporting just transitions to regenerative agriculture alongside the commercial development of new varieties and species beyond Arabica advances Blue Bottle's three-pillar sustainability strategy: sourcing sustainably, caring for communities, and reducing waste and emissions.
Blue Bottle's key aim of sustainable sourcing is to contribute toward a more secure future for coffee. We support industry initiatives like those of World Coffee Research, which develops high-performing, climate-adaptive coffee varieties designed to benefit farmers across a wide range of production contexts. Within Blue Bottle's own value chain we implement a responsible sourcing program, commissioning third-party audits of sustainability risk within our green coffee supply. We share learnings with producers and mitigate critical risks through targeted investment in farmer support projects.
In this context, co-developing regenerative agriculture transition plans with producers goes beyond reducing harm to helping set conditions for climate and community resilience. Nesting farm practice changes within origin-level interventions such as infrastructure improvement projects contributes to Blue Bottle's second sustainability strategy pillar, caring for communities.
Our dual focus on promoting the commercial development of both new varieties and species beyond Arabica further helps to preserve coffee’s genetic diversity and promote resilience against supply shocks.
On the third pillar, waste and emissions reductions, regenerative agriculture generally aims to harness nature's own power to restore itself, reducing reliance on emissions-intensive products and practices. Furthermore, improving soil health and limiting soil disturbance through practices such as cover cropping, compost application, and erosion control, as well as adopting an ecosystem approach to growing coffee by planting diverse shade trees and intercropping, can all help sequester carbon.
Emissions reductions incorporated into regenerative agriculture transition plans will build on a track record at Blue Bottle of climate leadership.
BUILDING ON A TRACK RECORD OF CLIMATE LEADERSHIP
In declaring 2024 carbon neutrality, we achieved an 18.4 percent reduction in our emissions intensity—or carbon footprint per kilogram of product sold, compared to our 2018 baseline year, as measured on the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) scope.[3]
With three years to our goal after committing to the journey in 2021, we targeted reductions across our leading emissions categories then measured the results:
1. Green Coffee
Blue Bottle achieved a 25 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of our green coffee supply. Green coffee is the largest single contributor to Blue Bottle’s GHG emissions, accounting for one-third of overall emissions. Land use change (LUC) and on-farm activities are primary drivers.
When we published our roadmap to carbon neutrality, we announced an effort to reduce the risk of deforestation measured in our coffee supply relative to the 2018 baseline. We implemented a responsible sourcing program and familiarized producers with our climate goals. Most notably, Blue Bottle achieved a 93 percent reduction in LUC intensity in one of our highest-volume and most emissions-intensive origins, Ethiopia, which drove the category reduction.
Green coffee’s steady rank as the single largest contributor to brand emissions underscores the importance of Blue Bottle’s future focus to support farmers adopting lower-emissions activities, including through regenerative agriculture practices such as agroforestry, applying natural inputs, and others.
2. Dairy
Blue Bottle achieved a 16 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of our milk consumption. This largely is attributed to the introduction of oat milk in Blue Bottle Asia cafes beginning 2019 and the oat milk default program in Blue Bottle US cafes, which launched in 2021 and scaled throughout 2022. Compared to 2018, when plant milk consumption was roughly one-third dairy milk levels in our US cafes, by 2023, plant milk consumption peaked at double dairy milk levels in US cafes, and global cafe milk consumption was majority plant milk.
3. Electricity
Blue Bottle achieved a 67 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of our purchased electricity. In 2018, electricity was the largest contributor to cafe operations emissions and represented 8.2 percent of Blue Bottle’s overall GHG emissions.
In 2024, Blue Bottle utilized renewable electricity for all US and Greater China operations through the purchase of unbundled energy attribute certificates. This reduced the company's consumed electricity emissions by 74 percent for the year and drove the baseline intensity reduction.
In Japan, Blue Bottle continued using renewable electricity in 2024 at four cafes and the roastery serving Japan and Hong Kong. Blue Bottle Japan was an internal leader as an early participant in the government auction system, starting in 2021 to receive renewable electricity tracked through government-issued non-fossil fuel energy certificates.
4. Overheads
Blue Bottle achieved an 11 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of employee commuting. Overheads, including commuting and business travel among other expenditures, represented the third largest emissions category in Blue Bottle’s 2018 baseline. Blue Bottle established hybrid and remote work models for US office employees after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, reducing emissions-intensive car travel.
5. Waste
Blue Bottle avoided more emissions than it emitted from waste generation in 2024 due to processing infrastructure supporting energy and material recovery. Specifically, waste-to-energy systems in Asia and recycling in all markets contributed to waste reducing Blue Bottle's overall brand emissions for 2024 by 3 percent.
Closing With Carbon Removals
For the emissions Blue Bottle still emitted in 2024, we offset the impact by supporting carbon removals projects focused on nature-based solutions to climate change. This included a multiyear commitment to buying the first registry-certified agricultural carbon credits generated at scale. Blue Bottle supported farmers introducing regenerative agriculture practices such as cover cropping to their land for improved soil health. We also supported a project restoring degraded grasslands in the coffee producing country of Tanzania.
WHAT’S NEXT
Supporting coffee producers as they transition to regenerative agriculture is a long-term commitment. We will begin regenerative agriculture transitions with a single producer group in 2026 in southern Peru and seek additional stakeholders for investment and collaboration to achieve scale within the group, across our sourcing network, and potentially beyond.
Selecting four distinct Origins to design regenerative agriculture production models helped us establish a process for identifying the local community’s vision, aligning multiple stakeholders, and generating a phased transition plan.
In origin innovation, we will continue supporting industry initiatives designed to improve farmer access to high-performing coffee varieties with climate-adaptive traits. We also will help establish a role for species beyond Arabica within the specialty coffee category.
Following the release of our first Robusta blend in 2023, we welcomed specialty coffee’s growing embrace of species beyond Arabica and have continued to chart new territory. In 2025, Blue Bottle Studio is touring Asia on a menu exclusively of Liberica, Excelsa, and Robusta.
The future of coffee depends on new paradigms for managing climate risk, beginning with envisioning a world in which resourced communities and vibrant ecosystems evolve to adapt to future needs. Through this reimagining, Blue Bottle aims to experiment alongside producers, verifying transformational ways of working with nature to strengthen outcomes for coffee and the communities it supports and serves.
[1] 2018 and 2024 LCA Executive Summaries
[2] Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, 2019. There is no association between Columbia University and Blue Bottle Coffee.
[3] https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/files/SBTi-criteria.pdf