«Very active on the sustainability front, the Nestlé Group has demonstrated great capacity for innovation, responding to ethical obligations associated with environmental themes and adapting to circumstances with planning and organizational dynamism.
Fundamental choices have been made by the Group in relation to this context. We have been committed to the eco-design of packaging for some years, with the objective of making 100% of packages recyclable or reusable.
In Italy, we are implementing a packaging strategy that is based on 4 pillars – research, reduction, reuse and recycling – and we are also promoting various collaborations with entities outside the company and the raising of the awareness of stakeholders and consumers.

In Italy, specifically, 97% of the packs produced by Nestlé are already recyclable.
We are very proud of the results achieved so far, but there’s still a long way to go. It’s a journey that we can’t make on our own. We are convinced, in fact, that the effort and collaboration of everyone is needed – institutions, companies, research bodies, consumers – in order to reach new objectives that have a truly significant impact on people and on our planet.

The development and experimentation of new innovative packaging solutions is an essential part of Nestlé’s strategy at Global level which, to this end, has founded the Nestlé Institute of Packaging Sciences, the first of its kind in the food sector.
The institute has around 50 scientists that carry out research on the use of new materials and their safety, as well as on cutting-edge packaging solutions. The results of these studies include new rechargeable or reusable systems, simplified materials, high-performance barrier papers and the use of recycled material in packaging.

The institute collaborates with over 180 packaging experts integrated in the Group’s Research and Development global network, as well as with research institutes, start-ups and suppliers.
We are always ready to receive new stimuli and collaborate with external parties with the aim of designing, producing and using packaging that is responsible, safe and of quality, so as to offer the market products that are able to combine protection of the environment and the requirements of consumers.

Among the actions undertaken towards in the direction of improved packaging ethics, the development and experimentation of more virtuous packaging systems play a central role in the Group’s sustainability strategy.
Our goal is to obtain, through eco-design, an increasingly functional and sustainable, but also “responsible” and “balanced” packaging (in line with the Ethical Packaging Charter), maintaining a high level of food safety as a cornerstone.
Working on eco-design means, in fact, experimenting new materials, new technologies in production processes and in the design phase of packaging solutions, but also reducing empty spaces and the oversizing of packages and, as a result, the raw materials used in the production phase.
As a matter of fact, besides being functional, safe and offering protection and providing information to the consumer, a responsible packaging must also be balanced, that is, conceived and designed with a correct relationship with the contents. In this sense, it’s essential for us to work also to reduce overpackaging, avoiding, therefore, oversizing, with the aim of obtaining transparent and functional packages using less material. (PHOTO Smarties Festive Friends)

Collaboration and the sharing of expertise and skills remains a fundamental element for Nestlé’s research strategy.
This approach has enabled us to develop highly valuable circular economy projects for the Group. In the last few years, Nestlé in Italy has, in fact, received various awards from a number of important national institutions and associations for its commitment to packaging circularity.
Among the most important, I would like to mention “KM0 Cardboard”, developed thanks to the involvement of the packaging producer, SADA (member of the network of companies for Sustainable Packaging: 100% Campania) and Hera. The project arose out of the wish of enterprises in the Campania territory to develop new production models characterised by the circular economy and to set up a virtuous network between local companies. It’s a programme developed with the objective of reducing the environmental impact of the corrugated cardboard packaging used by Nestlé in its Buitoni factory in Benevento, dedicated to the production of frozen pizzas.
Thanks to this initiative, Nestlé Italiana has managed to set up an important “closed circuit” packaging production cycle, which involves the withdrawal of paper and cardboard waste produced in the factory which are then transformed by Sada, through various phases that also involve other enterprises in the territory, into new packaging that Nestlé uses to transport its products.

Talking of the circular economy, another important project is “RECAP” (acronym of REcuperiamo insieme le CAPsule di plastica – Let’s REcover plastic CAPsules together), the aim of which is the creation of a collection and recycling system for plastic coffee capsules. The initiative is the fruit of an alliance between the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Nestlé Italiana, Illycaffè and three of the companies that manage the waste-cycle inside the region.
Plastic coffee capsules that are not empty after use do not currently enter the disposal and recycling process and are therefore disposed of as unsorted waste.
RECAP, set up in November 2021 as a pilot project, arises out of the desire to find alternative solutions to give new life to these capsules and the materials they are composed of, preventing them from ending up in landfills.
The key word of the initiative is “partnership”: in a regulatory context like the Italian one, particularly complex with regards to the waste management, such a project would have been impossible without the willingness of all the parties involved to work together towards an ambitious objective. Precisely for this reason, efforts are currently being made to extend the collaboration to other companies and organisations in the territory.

As the Ethical Packaging Charter specifies, packaging is a fundamental component as it performs different functions, including that of guaranteeing the safety and quality of products while seeking at the same time to make increasingly virtuous progress towards sustainability.
To enhance these functions, it has become more and more important for us to invest in research and for this reason, in January 2022, the Nestlé Group in Italy announced an investment of 5 million euros in the Eureka! Fund Italian venture capital fund, managed by Eureka! Venture SGR, specialised in the technological transfer to the market of projects generated by Universities and Italian research centres, also through collaboration with companies interested in the innovations produced.
The main objective is that of supporting the research and dissemination of innovative technologies and solutions in a number of crucial areas for the Group’s sustainability strategy, such as the use of recycled plastic in packaging that has contact with food, and the development of technologies that can make the sorting and the collection of materials more efficient, improving the quality and quantity of recycling processes.
At the same time, two other functions are important: information and education.
Good packaging, in fact, must also be able to communicate to the consumer, bearing all the information useful in order to know about both the contents of the packaging and the packaging itself, as well as useful information on its disposal. It follows that the packaging, in its daily contact with consumers, is an excellent educational tool, acting as a promoter of virtuous behaviour, increasing knowledge about issues considered from time to time as important, such as, for example, correct information on sorted collection or disposal systems. A practical example: before the environmental label became mandatory by law, our products already bore indications to help the consumer in the correct disposal of the packaging.

With this same objective, a few years ago we launched “Dove Lo Butto?” (“Where Do I Dispose It?”), that is, a digital platform that has the aim of helping people in a rapid and intuitive way on the correct disposal of waste, wherever they are in Italy, since the rules for sorted waste vary from one municipality to another due to the technical and operating requirements of different local municipal companies. (PHOTO Nesquik)
The platform performs two main functions: reading the barcode, through which the app recognises the scanned product and the materials of which the packaging is composed; and geolocalisation, identifying the place where the consumer is located and providing the relative sorted waste rules.
All Nestlé’s products are currently inserted on the platform, as well as those of other companies that produce Nestlé brand products (Lactalis, for example). We are, moreover, willing to collaborate with all companies that wish to come on board, whether food or non-food companies.
At a year from its launch, we have updated the platform, inserting also the “Too Good To Go” Awareness Label: once the product of interest has been selected or the barcode has been scanned, it provides information to interpret the best-by date shown on the packaging. Specifically, with this new tool, consumers will be able to check if the products are still consumable after the best-by date, using their senses (smell, sight and taste) and in this way combat food waste».