Circular solutions for coffee capsules

Making our packaging more circular

We continue to increase the usage of recycled plastic and aluminum. We believe technology will only continue to evolve, and we will continue to evolve our approaches to using existing material.

In 2020 Nespresso launched coffee capsules using 80% recycled aluminum. This is part of the company's continued journey towards circularity, going further to minimize waste and maximize reuse of product materials.

Nescafé Dolce Gusto is constantly improving the design of its packaging to use less virgin plastic where it is possible, aiming to reduce its virgin plastic usage by 1 third by 2025. Already this year, as of March 2023, Nescafé Dolce Gusto will have reduced the amount of polypropylene in all capsules by 13%, resulting in saving around 8200 tons of plastic since 2018.

Investing in well-functioning sorting and recycling infrastructure

Both recycling and composting streams will play an important part in achieving a circular economy for our coffee capsules. Creating scaled and effective infrastructure takes time, investment, expertise, innovation, and importantly, collaboration.

Since 2014, Nestlé has invested more than 300 million CHF in recycling infrastructure across the world for its coffee capsule products, to give value to material that might otherwise have been wasted or lost. While there is more progress to come, recycling rates continue to rise and effective recycling remains a fundamental part of the solution to tackling packaging waste.

Nestlé coffee capsules recycling infrastructure overview

Piloting new materials to scale and making positive impact in the future

We are not just working to evolve, strengthen, and redesign existing packaging solutions - we are also investing in new ones. Scaling new solutions takes time, so our approach is to test and learn and then to make informed decisions on the solutions we believe can make the biggest positive impact.

One of the best ways to make progress towards circularity and sustainability is through complementary solutions that provide consumers the choice of system most convenient and accessible to them. Both composting and recycling can be effective solutions. We are working to encourage local authorities to expand access to collective composting and the acceptance of paper-based coffee capsules in such schemes as well as helping consumers to find the closest composting solution. We hope to support and enable a general systemic change and harmonization in collective industrial composting, just as we are doing in aluminum and plastic recycling.

Last year, we announced two innovations in paper-based, compostable capsules, both certified for home and industrial composting by TÜV Austria, that are accepted in the public bio waste bins in some countries like France and Italy:

• Nescafé Dolce Gusto Neo - Neo is Nescafé's next generation coffee machines and pods, that will be launched in France and Switzerland in September 2023. The pods are paper-based, certified home - and industrial compostable and use 70% less packaging (by weight) than current capsules. Watch Nescafé Dolce Gusto Neo presentation.

• Nespresso paper-based capsules, certified for both home and industrial composting - these breakthrough paper-based certified home - and industrial compostable capsules offer another way to enjoy sustainably sourced high-quality coffee. This new range, for those who prefer to compost, will sit alongside existing Nespresso capsules. These new capsules are launching in France and later in the year in Switzerland. Discover more on how we developed a new range of home compostable capsules for Nespresso.