Hublot and Nespresso create a watch with recycled aluminium and coffee grounds

At a time when sustainability has become the guiding force behind so many creative decisions and pragmatic choices, two luxury and premium Swiss brands have come together to build an innovative product out of recycled and recyclable substances. The collaboration between Hublot, a luxury watches and chronographs brand, and Nespresso, a premium coffee brand, gave birth to Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin. The watch is made using recycled Nespresso aluminium capsules and coffee grounds. The watch design is one of the several products that are part of Second Life, an initiative by Nespresso, under which the brand has, over the past seven years, partnered with prestigious Swiss companies to create new products out of used aluminium capsules. Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin, developed as part of this initiative, encapsulates the values of innovation, excellence and sustainability, all three of which guide the decisions and actions of the two brands.

While Hublot is known for the art of fusion—in that it develops new alloys, materials and composites with the intent of experimenting with and testing the limits of different materials—Nespresso, with its portioned system that precisely blends coffee, is known for the art of melding ingredients for the perfect coffee. Both the brands were founded in the 1980s and have, since then, established themselves as easily recognisable names.

“Nespresso is proud to join forces with Hublot to create the Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin,” shares Guillaume Le Cunff, CEO, Nespresso. He adds, “As a B Corp certified business, this collaboration aligns with Nespresso’s commitment to continue its transition to a circular business model by giving a second life to coffee grounds and the aluminium of our capsules. The Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin is the perfect illustration of the harmonious coexistence between circularity and luxury. It demonstrates that circular products can be just as elegant and refined as conventional luxury products, proving that it is possible to combine environmental values and aesthetic requirements without compromise.”

In addition to developing a style and taste that was found agreeable by the larger populace, Nespresso enhanced its reputation and embraced circular design with the introduction of recycling bags in 1991, which enabled users to discard their Nespresso waste in a specially designed bag, and for officials to extricate them and separate the aluminium and ground coffee from the Nespresso capsules. This method allows the usage of each entity separately, hence enabling it as a key character in circular economy. It is this method of recycling that has, earlier, enabled the creation of products such as vegetable peeler, pen knives and pens. This time, the product created, with Hublot, is a watch, its case and the straps woven to help the device on one’s wrist.

"The Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin is a watch born out of a close collaboration between the product development teams of Nespresso and Hublot. It took the R&D teams a whole year to achieve the uniformity of colour of the watch's seven different materials, find the right balance of ingredients and perform the quality and durability testing on all the product components,” shares Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO, Hublot, delineating the various materials used to create the recycled product—anodised aluminium, the varnish on the dial and hands, the Hublot logo decal on the glass, the rubber of the strap, and the fabric, lining, and the hook and loop tape of the Velcro strap.

While the recycled aluminium is used to build the case, the bezel, the crown and the pusher, the coffee grounds, extracted from the Nespresso capsules, and recycled, are used to create the watch straps. In fact, the straps of the watch constitute 4.1 per cent recycled coffee grounds from the Nespresso capsules and 8.2 per cent recycled rubber. Alternatively, the watch comes with a Velcro strap made with Scafé, a fabric that contains five per cent recycled coffee grounds and 95 per cent recycled polyester. The two straps are interchangeable. Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin’s 42-mm case is made using recycled aluminium, of which 28 per cent is derived from Nespresso coffee capsules. Each case is also anodised in vibrant green and then polished to give off a satin finish. The crown and pusher of the watch, too, are polished in a similar fashion. In addition to this, the bottom of the case is made using recycled titanium.

"This is a symbolic watch: in creating the Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin, Hublot and Nespresso have demonstrated that it is possible to add value to recycled raw materials—and that circularity has no limits,” reads a statement from the official press release, extolling the product design.

For the Big Bang Unico Nespresso Origin, the makers have also designed the Hublot Greenbox case, made specially for this piece, and for continued usage for all future watch collections. The box is sculpted from oak, sourced and manufactured in a manner that promotes short supply chains. Its interiors, made using recycled fabrics, plastic yarns, PET, and eco-labelled recycled paper and cardboard, can be removed and recycled, hence, leaving the box ready for reuse. The Hublot Greenbox case is decorated with the logos of both the brands.