Our Sustainability Story

The Melitta Group strongly believes that sustainability is an essential key to our future - not only as a company, but as a society. With over 110 years of tradition as a family business, we are convinced that operation in the medium and long-term of sustainable development is solely to help better the lives of our earth and community. Sustainability is an expression of our attiude, in which we have taken a very clear stance: we either do it sustainably or we don´t do it at all.

Our work is guided by some of the most stringent international sustainability standards, and we have numerous certifications from organizations around the world. 

To date, we have set up a group-wide structure for strategic sustainability communication through our global sustainability report, systematically integrated sustainability into our professional development activities with the aim of "Living Sustainability Every Day" and have firmly embedded our understanding of sustainability in our business processes and structures by means of several voluntary commitments.

Guiding Standards

  • The principles of the UN global compact the UN universal declaration of human rights
  • The core labor standards of the ILO
  • The UN guiding principles on business and human rights

  • The Rio declaration on development and environment, 1992
  • The UN resolution "agenda 2030" of 2015 and the associated sustainable development goals
  • The Paris agreement (2015) to avoid dangerous climate change
  • The Rio convention on biodiversity, 1992

Certifications

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Better Coffee, Better Planet

The Melitta Group sees sustainability not only as a duty, but also as an opportunity: More and more people are intensively interested in the products they buy, in the origin, the components, the manufacturing process and the disposal of the product. We are responding to these requirements with our commitment to sustainability through:

Product & Supply Chain Responsibility

  • Sustainability product development
  • Sustainability sourcing of raw elements
  • Social and environmental effects in the supply chain

Social Responsibility

  • Product safety and quality
  • Product transparency
  • Corporate Citizenship

Environmental Responsibility

  • Waste prevention and reduction
  • Reduce energy consumption, emissions, and water consumption

Responsibility for Employees

  • Diversity and equal opportunities
  • Health and safety at work
  • Employer atrractiveness

Innovation Pipeline

Global Projects

Back to the Roots - Brazil

Together with the Hanns R. Neumann Foundation, the Melitta Group gave the go-ahead for the "Back to the Roots" project in summer 2020. The three-year project aims to convert the organic waste produced during coffee production into a valuable raw material first of all and then return it to a productive recorvery cycle. The project takes a holistic and systemic approach which aims to benefit the entire coffee sector. This means that the research results will also be made available to other stakeholders in Brazil and around the world. 

Fair Recycled Plastic - India

The social business "Fair Recycled Plastic" was launched in 2020 in Bangalore, India. Cofresco and the organization Yunus Social Business set up the related company Vishuddh Recycle Pvt. Ltd. with the aim of cleaning and recycling plastic waste and then returning it to a production process. Vishuddh Recycle obtains plastic waste from selected companies whose aim is to etablish a better waste management infrastructure in Bangalore and, in the process, to integrate so-called waste pickers with better working conditions into the value creation chain. The collected waste is processed into recyclate, which ideally then flows into the production of bin liners under the Swirl® an handy bag® brands.