Six Companies Graduate from the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator Ready to Scale Their Sustainable Cup Solutions
The NextGen Consortium, a pre-competitive collaboration managed by Closed Loop Partners in partnership with Starbucks and McDonald’s, accelerates towards a more circular cup system.
Contact: [email protected]
September 25 – NextGen Consortium Partners, investors, and other stakeholders convened during Climate Week in New York City for a Demo Day in which six participants in the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator showcased their manufacture-ready prototypes and pitch-ready business plans for growing their sustainable cup solutions.
The Accelerator follows Closed Loop Partners’ announcement of 12 NextGen Cup Challenge winners in February 2019. Six winning teams entered the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator, launched in partnership with global design firm IDEO to help companies further refine their cup solutions through rapid learning and iteration. The diverse solutions include cutting-edge plant-based materials, new innovative liners for cups, and reusable cup systems that redesign the fiber to-go cup so that it is more widely recoverable or remains in circulation for multiple uses. The six teams participating in the Accelerator are Colombier, CupClub, Footprint, Muuse, RECUP, and SoluBlue.
During the rigorous, six-month Accelerator program, companies accelerated their learnings through live in-context prototyping across four distinct Google campus locations, each housing multiple cafes. Progress for each cup solution was measured across four key categories: customer experience, server experience, performance, and disposal. Companies were able to see first-hand how customers and servers interact with their cups in a restaurant-like environment, capturing real-time feedback in a low-risk setting and identifying areas for refinement.
Companies also visited materials recovery facilities and explored the recovery side of the cup value chain, learning about the systems and infrastructure in place to ensure that their solutions are in alignment. Additionally, companies studied the value of materials recovered post-processing of their cups in order to make the economic case for more circular approaches.
Throughout the Accelerator, companies gained invaluable feedback through direct engagement with NextGen Consortium Partners, including founding partners Starbucks and McDonald’s, supporting partners The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Nestlé, and Wendy’s, advisory partner WWF, and innovation partner IDEO. Feedback included insight into what it would take to roll out their solutions at a large scale.
“We are proud of the NextGen collaboration underway with so many companies championing greener cup technologies. We applaud Closed Loop Partners’ continued, on-track progress to determine what’s most viable, and we are excited for our own customers to try greener cups in our stores in the near future.”
John Kelly, senior vice president, Global Public Affairs & Social Impact at Starbucks
The companies were also welcomed behind the scenes of a McDonald’s restaurant to better understand how cups work within a store’s layout and staff operations.
“We were thrilled to have participants in the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator experience. Having these next gen solutions in our restaurants to see first-hand how our crew members manage through our restaurant operations is an important step. Compatibility with the fast pace of a QSR setting is critical, and it was great to see Accelerator teams jump at the opportunity to better understand these in-restaurant conditions. These cup solutions are helping shape the future of packaging, and we want to set them up for success while keeping valuable materials in circulation and, importantly, out of landfills and our oceans.”
Marion Gross, Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, McDonald’s USA
“Seeing how far participants in the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator have come is truly rewarding. The NextGen Consortium will continue to work with winning teams to ensure that when their solutions do enter market at scale they’re set up for success and recoverability.“
Kate Daly, Managing Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners
The other six winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge, which are later-stage in their development, are working with the NextGen Consortium to identify in-market piloting opportunities in regions across the globe. Some participants in the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator are also expected to announce in-store pilots as early as 2020.
The Cup Challenge and the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator are just one part of the NextGen Consortium’s efforts to address single-use food packaging waste globally by advancing the design, commercialization, and recovery of food packaging alternatives. The Consortium is also focused on infrastructure and consumer engagement, supported by stakeholder collaboration across the value chain.
“Watching the aggregation of innovative ideas turn into real progress has been exciting to watch. Now we’ll look to the members of the NextGen Consortium to take these solutions into the marketplace and watch real change happen.”
Erin Simon, Director, Sustainability R&D, World Wildlife Fund
About NextGen
Each year, an estimated 250 billion fiber to-go cups are distributed worldwide. Most of these are not recyclable or compostable. The NextGen Consortium and Cup Challenge launched in 2018 to bring together entrepreneurs, industry, and recyclers to identify and commercialize the next generation of recyclable and/or compostable cups. Closed Loop Partners, Starbucks, McDonald’s, The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Nestlé and Wendy’s invite the industry to join this effort to identify a global solution to this shared challenge.
About Closed Loop Partners
Closed Loop Partners is an investment firm that invests in sustainable consumer goods, recycling, and the development of the circular economy. Investors include many of the world’s largest consumer goods companies and family offices interested in investments that provide strong financial returns and tangible social impact. In 2018, Closed Loop Partners launched the Center for the Circular Economy, a New York City-based collaboration center for innovators to commercialize products, services, and technologies that are leading the transition from a linear take, make, waste economy to a restorative one in which materials are shared, re-used, and continuously cycled. Learn more at www.closedlooppartners.com.
About McDonald’s
McDonald’s is the world’s leading global foodservice retailer with over 37,000 locations in over 100 countries. Over 90 percent of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business men and women. This year McDonald’s announced a series of commitments demonstrating how it will use its Scale for Good to positively impact the planet and the communities it serves. You can read more about McDonald’s Scale for Good initiatives here.
About Starbucks
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting high-quality arabica coffee. Today, with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for every customer through every cup. To share in the experience, please visit us in our stores or online at http://news.starbucks.com or www.starbucks.com.
NextGen Consortium Partners
Sustainable Packaging Coalition and Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners Announce Winner of the FlexPack Recovery Challenge
Start-ups from across the globe showcased their recovery technologies for a fast-growing category of hard-to-recycle flexible plastic packaging, and one winner was selected to join a mentorship program with the Sustainable Packaging Coalition & Closed Loop Partners.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA and NEW YORK, NY — the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) have announced the winner of the FlexPack Recovery Challenge: ReNew ELP.
In October 2018, the SPC and the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners launched the FlexPack Recovery Challenge, an open competition for innovators, entrepreneurs, and start-ups to submit new ideas for reprocessing technologies capable of beneficially recovering multi-material flexible packaging waste.
Five finalists were selected by a panel of judges from the SPC and the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners staff, as well as with input from industry advisors. Each finalist participated in the SPC’s spring conference SPC Impact and presented to an audience of major brands, plastic manufacturers, and packaging suppliers, including members of the SPC’s Industry Leadership Committee on Multi-Material Flexible Recovery, on how their technologies can beneficially recover the embodied environmental investment within multi-material flexible packaging waste and can be scaled to provide meaningful solutions. These finalists included Cadel De-Inking, ReNewELP, Renewlogy, Synova-BioBTX, and Ekopolimer. Read more about all of our finalists.
Among the five finalists, ReNewELP was selected as the final Challenge winner. RenewELP will receive a free year of membership to the SPC and enter into a mentorship program jointly run by the SPC and Closed Loop Partners.
“RenewELP submitted a detailed, transparent process description and market analysis. We were impressed with the processing capacity scale (up to 80,000 -100,000 tons per year in their initial facility) and the fact that their unique CAT-HTR technology allows for mixed waste feedstocks, including paper, PET and organics. Their modular approach considers variable material costs in different markets and their end markets for diverse hydrocarbon products like oils, waxes, and chemicals represent large market potential. RenewELP is a great fit to participate in a mentorship program run by our organizations,”
said representatives from the SPC and Closed Loop Partners in a joint statement.
The SPC & The Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners team followed up with Richard Daley, Managing Director of RenewELP, for a post challenge interview.
Read the Q&A with Richard here
The SPC and CLP believe that all of technologies presented by the Finalists represent the kinds of diverse solutions needed for recovery of flexible packaging. We look forward to staying in touch with all the finalists and tracking and promoting their progress.
Learn more about the FlexPack Recovery Challenge.
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY AT CLOSED LOOP PARTNERS
The Center for the Circular Economy brings together industry experts, academic researchers, and entrepreneurs who are solving for today’s most pressing challenges in design and reuse, providing a collaboration center for innovators to commercialize products, services and technologies that are leading the transition from a linear take, make, waste economy to a restorative one in which materials are shared, re-used, and continuously cycled.
ABOUT THE SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING COALITION
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition is a membership-based collaborative led by an independent non-profit that believes in the power of industry to make packaging more sustainable. Using an objective life-cycle-based approach, we work in a constructive atmosphere to provide thought leadership and bring our members together to strengthen and advocate the business case for more sustainable packaging.
Closed Loop Partners Announces 12 Winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge to Reimagine the Future of the Fiber To-Go Cup
February 27, 2019
Starbucks, McDonald’s and other industry leaders partner in pre-competitive collaboration to push the boundaries of sustainable design and find innovative cup solutions
NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — The NextGen Consortium, convened by Closed Loop Partners, announced today the winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge – an open-sourced, global innovation challenge to redesign the fiber to-go cup and create a widely recyclable and/or compostable cup.
After a rigorous four-month review process by an esteemed group of judges including NextGen Consortium business leaders, as well as experts in recycling, composting and packaging, the Challenge narrowed the nearly 500 submissions from over 50 countries down to 12 winners.
These 12 winning solutions — broadly categorized into innovative cup liners, new materials, and reusable cup service models — have the potential to turn the 250 billion fiber to-go cups used annually from waste into a valuable material in the recycling system.
“This is a notable milestone to achieve our aspiration of sustainable coffee, served sustainably which is a particular passion for our over 350,000 Starbucks partners,” said John Kelly, Senior Vice President of Global Public Affairs and Social Impact at Starbucks. “We’re a founding partner of the NextGen Consortium because we believe it will take the scale and influence of many global companies to make recyclable, compostable to-go cups an industry standard rather than the exception.”
Many of the largest players in the food and beverage industry have united within the NextGen Consortium, making it a unique pre-competitive collaboration. Starbucks and McDonald’s were early investors and founding partners of the NextGen Consortium, with The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Nestlé and Wendy’s joining as supporting partners. The World Wildlife Fund acts as an advisory member of the Consortium, and OpenIDEO is an innovation partner. Collectively representing a significant portion of the cups market, these brands are not only demonstrating their commitment to ending cup waste and driving innovation in packaging, but also accelerating the paths to global scale.
“McDonald’s is proud to work with such an unprecedented number of brands to address the issue of fiber to-go cups,” said Marion Gross, Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, McDonald’s USA. “Collaboration is what we need to truly move the needle, amplify impact and bring solutions to scale quickly.”
The NextGen Challenge winner solutions are advancing the transition to a more circular economy where materials are continuously cycled and reliance on raw materials is reduced. “By working across the entire value chain and engaging key stakeholders, winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge are tackling a complex problem in a holistic way, sending valuable material back into the supply chain – benefiting people, the planet, and businesses,” said Erin Simon, Director, Sustainability R&D, World Wildlife Fund.
Up to six winners will enter the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator, where they’ll gain access to a network of experts, business and technical resources and testing opportunities to ensure these innovations can successfully scale to serve the needs of the industry and maintain the performance standards we know and trust.
The Challenge is just the first stage of the NextGen Consortium’s three-year effort. Next, the NextGen Circular Business Accelerator, with testing and piloting opportunities, will help solutions get onto the shelf. Further, the Consortium is working with suppliers, recyclers and composters to ensure that the winning solutions can get successfully recovered for the highest value. The Consortium will work together to support the needs of the recycling and composting system and identify ways to make it easy for consumers to choose the right bin.
“The level of interest we saw in the Challenge demonstrates a real appetite for long-lasting sustainable packaging solutions,” said Kate Daly, Executive Director of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners. “This level of industry collaboration in support of the NextGen Cup Challenge is really exciting, and we look forward to building on this momentum to encourage more innovative solutions. Fully recoverable fiber to-go cups are just the beginning.”
For more information on the winners, the Challenge and the NextGen Consortium, visit www.nextgenconsortium.com.
The 12 Winners of the Challenge
Category One: Innovative Cup Liners
These companies are rethinking the polyethylene plastic liners in cups that can currently make to-go cups difficult to recycle.
- C.E.E.R. SCHISLER, France, creates a 100% paper cup that is home compostable and recyclable.
- Colombier Group, Netherlands, Finland, creates a recyclable and compostable barrier for paperboard cups.
- Footprint US, USA, creates cups, lids and straws that are fully formed fiber-based solutions, with an aqueous-based coating that is recyclable and compostable.
- Kotkamills Oy, Finland, creates plastic-free, recyclable and compostable cupstock material that can be processed into cups at existing cup making machines.
- PTT MCC Biochem Company Limited, Thailand, creates a coated paper cup that is recyclable and home compostable.
- Solenis LLC, USA, Belgium, creates a barrier coating that is recyclable and compostable.
- Sun Chemical Corporation, USA, creates inks and coatings that are recyclable and compostable.
- WestRock Corporation, USA, creates a recyclable and compostable paperboard solution to cups.
Category Two: New Materials
These companies are using cutting edge, plant-based materials in their cups so that they are compostable.
- Solublue Ltd., UK, creates plant-based, food grade and non-toxic products that biodegrade after use.
Category Three: Reusable Cup Service Models
The cups made by these companies aren’t single-use, they just keep cycling – remaining in service by harnessing the power of technology and design.
- CupClub, UK, operates a returnable cup ecosystem, providing a service for drinks. Think bike sharing, but for cups.
- reCup GmbH, Germany, operates a deposit system for reusable cups. Rent their cup and return it to any participating partner shop. No cleaning of the cup or carrying around required.
- Revolv, Indonesia, Hong Kong (China), operates a deposit-based platform for smart, reusable beverage packaging, connecting their cups–and third party products–to Internet of Things technologies.
About NextGen
Each year, an estimated 250 billion fiber to-go cups are distributed worldwide. Most of these are not recyclable or compostable. The NextGen Cup Consortium and Challenge launched in 2018 to bring together entrepreneurs, industry, and recyclers to identify and commercialize the next generation of recyclable and/or compostable cups. Closed Loop Partners, Starbucks, McDonald’s, The Coca-Cola Company, Yum! Brands, Nestlé and Wendy’s invite the industry to join this effort to identify a global solution to this shared challenge.
About Closed Loop Partners
Closed Loop Partners is an investment platform that invests in sustainable consumer goods, recycling and the development of the circular economy. Investors include many of the world’s largest consumer goods companies and family offices interested in investments that provide strong financial returns and tangible social impact. In 2018, Closed Loop Partners launched the Center for the Circular Economy, a New York City-based collaboration center for innovators to commercialize products, services and technologies that are leading the transition from a linear take, make, waste economy to a restorative one in which materials are shared, re-used, and continuously cycled. Learn more at www.closedlooppartners.com.
About McDonald’s
McDonald’s is the world’s leading global foodservice retailer with over 37,000 locations in over 100 countries. Over 90 percent of McDonald’s restaurants worldwide are owned and operated by independent local business men and women. This year McDonald’s announced a series of commitments demonstrating how it will use its Scale for Good to positively impact the planet and the communities it serves. You can read more about McDonald’s Scale for Good initiatives here.
About Starbucks
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting high-quality arabica coffee. Today, with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks Experience to life for every customer through every cup. To share in the experience, please visit us in our stores or online at http://news.starbucks.com or www.starbucks.com.
Additional Quotes
“Solving the issue of plastic waste requires collaboration among many different stakeholders,” said Stefan Palzer, Nestlé Chief Technology Officer. “We are excited to join the NextGen Consortium and Cup Challenge as it brings together start-ups, industry partners and suppliers to find an industry wide, global packaging solution for sustainable to-go cups.”
“Yum! Brands would like to congratulate all of the Challenge winners for bringing forward incredible innovation that will help find food packaging solutions for our industry and beyond,” said Jon Hixson, VP Global Government Affairs and Sustainability, Yum! Brands. “The NextGen Consortium provides an amazing platform for collaboration and we look forward to seeing the continued progress that comes from the partnership to drive positive change in the value chain.”
“At Wendy’s, we know that our customers are increasingly aware of packaging waste and its impact on the environment,” said Liliana Esposito, Wendy’s Chief Communications Officer. “We embrace our role as being part of the solution, and one way we do that is to engage in partnerships that help us arrive at smart solutions, like our partnership with the NextGen Consortium. We congratulate the winners in this phase of the NextGen Cup Challenge, and look forward to seeing their ideas come to life and make a difference.”
“It’s encouraging to see such a diverse range of innovative solutions that represent milestones in the journey toward more comprehensive recyclability and compostability of cups across the board,” said Nina Goodrich, Executive Director, GreenBlue and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. (Nina Goodrich is a judge for the NextGen Cup Challenge)
“It’s great to see the momentum behind the NextGen Cup Challenge coming from a number of large brands,” said Abe Minkara, Managing Director, Mark Cuban Companies. “Together with the innovative winning ideas, the combination is truly powerful. Scaling a sustainable solution to the to-go cup ecosystem becomes not only attainable but inevitable.” (Abe Minkara is a judge for the NextGen Cup Challenge)
“The winners of the NextGen Cup Challenge represent an inventive spectrum of creative chemistry, design and manufacturing technology demonstrating real progress toward the recyclability and compostability of post-consumer cups and containers,” said Scott Seydel, Board Chair and CEO, The Seydel Companies and Board Trustee of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation US. (Scott Seydel is a judge for the NextGen Cup Challenge)
Contact: [email protected]
SOURCE Closed Loop Partners