The report, which follows last week’s launch of the government’s Levelling Up white paper, identifies where Sodexo is already making a positive impact but also makes recommendations of how to improve.
Launched in 2021, the Levelling Up Goals provide a framework for organisations to identify gaps in access to opportunity, as well as solutions to remove those barriers.
Rt. Hon Justine Greening said: “Large organisations play a key role in levelling up communities and Sodexo is a great example of where they can make significant progress by having a community focus. The scale of the business and its reach into local communities, means that Sodexo has the opportunity to make a real difference.
“Sodexo’s report shows that through its social value strategy it is clearly leading the way in many areas to deliver activities with wider impact. Importantly, it also has ambitions to go further and increase its impact on a number of the Goals.
“The Levelling Up White Paper launched last week was a step in the right direction, but progress can only truly be achieved by purposeful leaders and organisations. The work highlighted in this report should inspire other organisations to do more and make a real change.”
Sodexo employs 29,000 people in the UK as well as providing a range of services including food & hospitality, cleaning, security and property management. The report highlights key strengths which see Sodexo leading the way on levelling up agenda. These include:
- Goal 3: Positive destinations post 16+ and open recruitment: Sodexo is committed to creating employment opportunities and enabling colleagues to thrive through local career pathways, apprenticeships and kickstarting careers for students.
- Goal 8: Good health and wellbeing: The organisation has also recently enhanced its health and wellbeing programmes with such offers as a free will writing service and a health and wellbeing app which allows access to a 24-hour GP service.
- Goal 9: Extending enterprise: More than half of the organisations which make up Sodexo’s supply chain are Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
- Goal 13: Harness the energy transition: Food waste reduction plays a key role in the business’ roadmap to net zero and decarbonisation by 2045, which has so far been validated as far as 2030 by the Science Based Targets initiative.
- Goal 14: Achieve equality, through diversity and inclusion: Sodexo was the first organisation within the FM and hospitality sectors to voluntarily publish an ethnicity pay gap report.
The report recommended Sodexo needs to put further work into socio-economic background reporting and re-integrating those with Long Covid back into the workforce.
Sean Haley, region chair of Sodexo UK & Ireland, added: "Sodexo’s purpose, throughout its more than 50-year history, has always been to contribute positively to the communities in which we live and work. This, combined with the scale of our operational footprint, puts us in the fortunate position of being able to support driving this extremely important agenda forward.”
You can read the full report here.