Sodexo’s food waste strategy is a key part of its net zero roadmap and with the absence of food waste from last year’s COP26 agenda the global services company wanted to highlight the link between food waste and carbon emissions.
Sodexo’s Appetite for Action campaign aims to create strategies for reducing food waste and carbon emissions in food services. Research by Sodexo revealed the pressure on supply chains has led to a 60% increase in food waste.
Sodexo is the first food services company with a carbon emission reduction objective in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a 34% reduction by 2025 compared to 2017.
Claire Atkins Morris, director of corporate responsibility for Sodexo UK & Ireland, said: “For us it was clear more action was needed. We wanted to do more, we wanted to galvanise UK industry and political stakeholders.
“Using our leadership in this area, and our scale, we wanted to create a campaign that not only tackles food waste in our business, but one that encourages collaboration with others to help raise awareness of the challenges and together create strategies for reducing food waste and carbon emissions in the broader food services industry and beyond.
“A key takeaway from our campaign is the need for greater industry collaboration from large organisations and with Government and we were pleased to see Defra issue its consultation on food waste reporting for large businesses and on public sector food and catering policy for England earlier this year.”