Sodexo to Reduce Carbon Emissions One Third by 2020

On World Environment Day Sodexo, global leader in Quality of Life services, announced plans to amplify its efforts to reduce its operations' environmental impact, as well as that of its supply chain. This action follows a long-term engagement of 5 years, during which Sodexo has been working with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to develop an industry-leading methodology to calculate carbon emissions within the group’s entire supply chain.

The company’s strengthened plan will enable Sodexo to reduce emissions 34% by 2020 though:

• Reducing food waste,

• Increasing deployment of its energy efficiency interventions,

• Integrating low-carbon renewable energy sources into the company’s energy management offers.
  

This program is based on measurements done last year in 14 countries and pilot programs at 5,000 client sites.

The plan includes:

• Working with our more than 10,000 suppliers around the world to reach the marketplace with more environmentally responsible products. Almost half of all emissions related to Sodexo’s business are in our supply chain (our suppliers, their suppliers and often our supplier's suppliers).

• Reducing carbon emissions as part of their benefits that the company is deploying on its more than 33,000 client sites, through four scalable best practices that reduce carbon emissions, such as a program that cuts food waste and technologies that cut energy use between 12 and 45 percent.

• Strengthening energy efficiency and focusing on renewable and 'clean' energy through an "energy management program".

"The individual approach provides incremental improvements; in order to have a real impact we need to engage our entire value chain to generate systemic reductions. We combined the best local initiatives that are being implemented by Sodexo operations around the world and used them, in combination with a science-based understanding of our carbon emissions to determine a 'baseline.' We then developed a plan of action with all of our supply chain partners - and with more and more of our clients for all of the countries where we operate," said Neil Barrett, Sodexo Group Vice President for Sustainable Development.

Sodexo's commitment to reduce emissions beyond its own operations – from customer locations to its supply chain - will help protect our planet from climate change and conserve nature’s dwindling resources. By pursuing these emissions cuts, Sodexo is demonstrating leadership that can impact the entire consumer services sector, and we hope other companies replicate and build on their efforts," said Suzanne Apple, Senior Vice President of Private Sector Engagement, World Wildlife Fund (WWF). "Our work with Sodexo is a great example of how WWF is working together with companies to curb climate change by seizing market opportunities."

Sodexo’s corporate responsibility efforts have been recognized for years.

• The company has been recognized as best-in-class for social, environmental and economic responsibility by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) for 10 years in a row and has been a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World since 2005. In 2014 the company was also named Industry Group Leader for Consumer Services.

• For the last eight years, Sodexo has been ranked as the best-performing company for Economic, Social, and Environmental Performance in the benchmark RobecoSAM Sustainability Yearbook, named as Industry Leader and Gold Class in 2014.

For more information on Sodexo’s corporate responsibility, including its targets, actions and results, visit: Sodexo’s corporate responsibility.