Environment
Sodexo recognises its responsibility to the environment and strives to achieve environmental best practice. This is a global, national and local issue for Sodexo as we seek toe exceed our clients' and customers' expectation and support them in their own sustainability objectives. We are committed to continuous improvement of our environmental performance in partnership with all our stakeholders.
As set out in our environmental policy, Sodexo is committed to actively identifying those elements of the business that impact on the environment and, where possible, eliminating or reducing these through the development of management practices and procedures involving systematic planning, operational control, monitoring and review.
We approach our responsibility to reduce our environmental impact through four areas:
Sustainable supplies, including sustainable fish and seafood
Environmental improvement programme
An environmental strategy and improvement programme for 2010-2013 is in place to deliver a comprehensive set of objectives, with annual targets in to provide interim milestones. The programme is helping us address what we consider to be our most significant environmental impacts, such as energy and fuel consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and waste management, enabling us to demonstrate the effects our initiatives have on environmental performance with growing confidence.
Our 2010-2013 strategy key objectives are:
- Standardise waste management practices across our business by August 2012
- 50% increase in food waste recovery at clients' sites against the 2009/10 baseline data by August 2012
- 20% reduction in average packaging weight per SKU below 2007 baseline by December 2012
- 10% reduction in Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per million turnover against 2008/09 baseline by August 2013
- 8% reduction in average fuel consumption per vehicle below 2006/07 baseline by August 2012
- More than 80% of controlled sites reducing electricity consumption year on year by August 2012
- More than 80% of controlled sites reducing water consumption year on year by August 2012
Environmental management systems and standards
As an organisation, Sodexo does not have a single accredited environmental management system (EMS) due to the size and complexity of the business, but we do have informal systems for addressing areas such as environmental legislation, training, objectives and monitoring and measuring as a central function.
Sodexo's approach to the implementation of environmental management systems is undertaken on a contract by contract basis where the likely environmental and cost benefits of implementing such systems are compared with the expected resources and financial implications required to ensure the right system is developed and maintained. As a result of Sodexo's experience in the implementation and management of our current accredited systems, we are in a strong position to ensure the correct approach and strategy is taken with our clients and at clients' sites to ensure the desired results are attained.
We have a simple environmental management system (EMS), which is in use at a number of sites and has been successfully used to monitor our environmental footprint at unit level.
ISO 14001
ISO 14001 is a certification standard for environmental management systems. The accreditation certifies the process of continuous improvement in environmental performance, including strategy, implementation, measuring and monitoring, corrective action programmes
Sodexo holds a number of ISO14001 accreditations covering over 230 UK sites. The scopes of these accreditations are varied and include mechanical and electrical maintenance, catering, cleaning, ground maintenance, facilities management and waste management.
Sodexo's involvement in implementing ISO14001 management systems goes back to 2004 and, since 2007, we have added to out list of accreditations on an annual basis with further accreditations planned for the future
Carbon Trust
The Carbon Trust Standard is a marque of excellence that requires organisations to demonstrate they are measuring, managing and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through quantifiable year-on-year reductions. The Carbon Trust standard requires reassessment every two years.
Tillery Valley, our part of the business which produces meals for the education and healthcare sectors, has become the first food manufacturing facility in Wales to achieve the Carbon Trust Standard in 2010. Its comprehensive environmental management programme, including a new computer-based loading and routing system to minimise food delivery miles, a new plant layout and a move to 'just-in-time' production, helped to improve its carbon intensity by over 19.5% per tonne of product manufactured over three years.
Green Hospitality Award
The Green Hospitality Award programme is the only Irish developed environmental certification standard for the hospitality sector and is recognised both nationally and internationally.
The award consists of a set of mandatory requirements which sites are required to implement to allow them to demonstrate environmental best practices. These criteria are focused mainly on the sites implementing an Environmental Management System (EMS) and then measuring and assessing where the site stands in relation to waste, water, energy, biodiversity, social responsibility and green purchasing.
Sodexo Ireland joined the programme in September 2009 and in so doing committed to establishing a formal EMS and improving the environmental performance of its catering operation. In 2010, sixteen Sodexo sites received an Eco-label silver medal in the Green Hospitality Award for Excellence in Environmental Management and there are currently another twenty Sodexo sites both in Ireland and Northern Ireland scheduled to attain the award in 2011.
