Nestlé in society Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments 2015

Nestlé in society:
Creating Shared Value
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and wellness Rural development Water
Environmental
sustainability
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and compliance
Our
people
G4-EN2, G4-EN28, Supplier environmental assessment G4-DMA
Nestlé Waters boosts recycled
content in bottles in California
In October 2015, Nestlé Waters North America announced
plans to significantly increase recycled content in the most
popular sizes of its Arrowhead bottled water in California to
demonstrate Arrowhead’s commitment to recycling.
Arrowhead is partnering with Los Angeles-based
CarbonLITE Industries LLC, one of the largest producers of
food-grade, post-consumer rPET in the world, to deliver the
programme. By the end of 2016, about 3.6 billion bottles of
Arrowhead will be recycled.
Thanks to California’s strong commitment to recycling – the
70% recycling rate for PET bottles far exceeds the national
average of 31% – there is high-quality rPET available, enabling
the company to increase its use of recycled material. rPET has
been used in half-litre Arrowhead bottles for three years but
Nestlé Waters North America will increase the use of recycled
content by 38%, and ensure that most bottle sizes contain up
to 50% recycled material.
This move will result in the reuse of about 18 million
pounds of plastic bottles a year, reducing landfill waste and
conserving natural resources.
Nespresso: aluminium recycling
On the first anniversary of the launch of its sustainability
strategy The Positive Cup, Nespresso has reported significant
progress towards achieving its 2020 sustainability goals. As
part of this strategy, which also spans sustainable coffee
sourcing and carbon-efficient operations, the brand aims to:
• Source 100% of virgin aluminium in compliance with the
Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) Performance
Standard by 2020;
• Have the capacity to collect 100% of used aluminium
capsules, wherever the company does business; and
• Recycle the capsules collected in key European markets
(Austria, Benelux, France, Italy and Switzerland) into
new capsules.
Aluminium is highly recyclable, and recycling it uses 95% less
energy than primary production, and produces only 5% of the
GHG emissions. Nonetheless, in some markets, household
aluminium packaging items below 70 mm in diameter aren’t
recycled because sorting centres lack the equipment able to
process small packages.
We are working with numerous industries and
governmental stakeholders to develop country-specific
systems for the collection and recycling of used Nespresso
capsules and other small aluminium packages. To make
recycling as easy as possible for consumers, we have set up
thousands of collection points across 34 countries. Thanks to
this, our global collection capacity has reached about 85% in
2015, supported by doorstep collections of used capsules in
15 countries (meaning that 85% of our capsules are sold in the
vicinity of a collection point).
The ASI standard was only announced at the end of 2014,
which means verification systems have yet to be put in place.
As a result, it is unlikely that certified ASI aluminium will be
available before 2017.
In France, Nespresso has helped increase the infrastructure
for recycling small-scale aluminium and steel packaging, like
Nespresso capsules, bottle caps and aluminium foil, by:
• Co-founding a cross-sector organisation, the CELAA (the
Club for Aluminium and Steel Light Packaging) gathering
packaging companies, food processing groups, recycling
companies and political stakeholders;
• Setting up an agreement with Eco-Emballages and the
association of French cities’ mayors to include used
Nespresso capsules and other small aluminium packaging
in its collection system; and
• Launching ‘Project Metal’, offering up to EUR 300 per tonne
to incentivise packaging sorting centres to invest in
equipment for separating small aluminium packages. The
initiative helped Nespresso France to win the Best
Environmental Initiative at the ‘Trophées Défis RSE’ in 2015.
Partnerships, collaboration and research
Nestlé actively collaborates with academic and industry
partners to develop a better understanding of the key issues
affecting the environmental sustainability performance of
renewably sourced materials.
• Nestlé continues to be an active member of the WWF
Bioplastic Feedstock Alliance (BFA) and has contributed to a
white paper on the responsible sourcing of bioplastics, as
well as to the BFA’s position on biobased claims;
• We have collaborated with the CIRAIG/Polytechnique
Montréal on a white paper entitled Circular Economy: A
Critical Review of Concepts. This paper compares different
approaches to measure sustainability, such as LCAs,
industrial ecology, ecodesign, cradle-to-cradle and the
circular economy. Differences and similarities between
these concepts are studied, and their applicability assessed;
• Nestlé Waters is a founding member of the Biobased
Chemistry Outlook Community, a group of industrial
companies that support the French strategic consulting
group BIPE in assessing the potential of biobased
chemistry; and
• Nestlé Waters North America is partnering with the
University of Florida, Keep Tampa Bay Beautiful and the
US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make the
Hillsborough River a Trash Free Waterway in the United
States. This work involves community engagement, goals
establishment and metric development, and aims to reduce
the impact of unmanaged waste on the environment.
Nestlé also supports innovative research by Imperial College
London, exploring the development of catalysts that support
the manufacture of CO 2 -based plastics.
Nestlé in society – Creating Shared Value and meeting our commitments 2015 191