Culture Shock

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0611green_sodexo

Sodexo sees a change in culture as the first step in changing the world.

F&H: WHEN DID YOUR COMPANY MAKE THE DECISION TO GIVE GREEN INITIATIVES A HIGHER PROFILE? WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS FOR THIS DECISION?

CHRIS ROBERTS, DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP, SODEXO CANADA: We began to give a higher profile to green initiatives in 2006. It was driven by the coming together of three collective circumstances. Our remote site business was flourishing and we were doing a great deal of work with clients at these sites to find solutions around waste management and community development. Our clients across our corporate, campus, healthcare and remote sites were becoming more aware of sustainability issues and were looking to us for help implementing and educating on ‘green’ initiatives. We realized that due to our volume, scope of business and employee base, we could have a substantial impact wherever we focused our efforts. We wanted to take a proactive approach, and after some in-depth consultation with key stakeholders, supply management, marketing and operational teams, we introduced PLANit, a company-wide sustainability initiative intended to help employees, clients and customers become more environmentally conscious and energy-efficient. In 2009, responding  to the changing needs and trends, we expanded the PLANit initiative to include a more measureable approach to sustainability and corporate citizenship that resulted in our current Better Tomorrow Plan.

F&H: WHAT IS THE FOCUS OF YOUR GREEN PROGRAM; WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO CREATE AND WHY?

ROBERTS: The Better Tomorrow Plan is Sodexo’s plan for a better future. It’s a place where nutrition, health and wellness, local communities and the environment matter. The plan is a progressive journey, based on continuous improvement, which relies on engagement with our stakeholders. It applies to 80 countries and 33,900 sites and seeks to address the sustain ability issues we have identified as being material to our business and stakeholders.  The Better Tomorrow Plan is made up of three core pillars: WE ARE: The fundamentals that are the cornerstone of a responsible company and encompass our corporate fundamentals — our roots, our purpose, our values, our beliefs, and our ethical principles; essentially, our corporate DNA. WE DO: Action-oriented and operational focus regarding three priorities and 14 commitments. Our three priorities are the environment; nutrition, health and wellness; and local communities. Of the 14 commitments, eight focus on environmental issues, three on nutrition, health and wellness and three on supporting our local communities. WE ENGAGE: This is our commitment to work collaboratively with stakeholders, clients, customers, suppliers, communities and various organizations to support our commitment to the Better Tomorrow Plan.

F&H: WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE/BENEFIT SO FAR?

ROBERTS: [So far the] biggest challenges have been education and awareness, benchmarking and defining the terminology — green, sustainability, local, corporate citizenship — as well as educating stakeholders involved. There are many definitions and ways to interpret them; they differ from region to region and client to client. That was a big challenge, as was educating more than 11,000 decentralized employees. Another big challenge was determining quantifiable benchmarks for measuring progress and how to establish a baseline inventory for those benchmarks. The biggest benefit so far is seeing how a small, simple initiative can have an incredibly large impact when it’s implemented by 11,000 people.

F&H: WHERE DOES YOUR COMPANY WANT TO GO IN THIS AREA; HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO GET THERE?

ROBERTS: We will continue to engage our customers and clients in meaningful conversations around sustainability trends and concerns. The Better Tomorrow Plan is a 10-year vision to carry us through 2020 with key milestones in 2012, 2015 and 2020.

F&H: HOW HAVE YOU WORKED WITH STAKEHOLDERS TO IMPLEMENT THESE INITIATIVES; HOW WOULD YOU RATE THE PROCESS?

ROBERTS: We work with our supply chain partners in numerous ways. The first is through an ongoing dialogue about sustainability. This began prior to the Better Tomorrow Plan implementation when we met with suppliers to discuss the needs of all parties to create a corporate citizenship plan. Once we developed the plan, we met with suppliers to share the details. This dialogue continues today at our annual supplier summit. We also work with suppliers through our supply chain code of conduct. The supply chain code of conduct establishes the minimum requirements Sodexo expects its suppliers to follow with respect to the social, environmental and ethical principles of our business. The code is integrated in the terms and conditions of all contracts with suppliers, and supply management communicates with contracted vendors on a quarterly basis to ensure compliance with the code. By utilizing the code with our supply chain, we can increase the sustainable and ethical business practices above and beyond the millions of customers and clients that we serve globally each day. At an operational level we leverage our marketing materials and product offers to communicate with clients, customers and employees. To deliver a consistent message to all stakeholders, we developed a sustainability communications network that includes a quarterly corporate citizenship newsletter, marketing materials in our trimester marketing kits, press releases, weekly employee bulletins, Horizon magazine articles and e-learning tools.

F&H: HOW HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO INTEGRATE GREEN PROGRAMS WITHIN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITIES?

ROBERTS: All the initiatives we implement are within the local community, as each of our 750 sites are community based. For example, Sodexo has been working with aboriginal communities for more than 20 years and currently maintains 35 active partnerships with investments in training and development programs. Sodexo is also a proud supporter of The Foundation for the Advancement of Aboriginal Youth, a national scholarship and bursary program that responds to the critical need to assist Aboriginal high school and post-secondary students. We’re proud to have received our fourth consecutive gold Progressive Aboriginal Relations certification from the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. Our remote site employees are approximately 63-per-cent local aboriginals. What’s more, the Sodexo Foundation supports innovative programs that fight hunger in communities across Canada, with a particular focus on helping children and their families. The Sodexo Foundation has provided more than 700,000 meals to at-risk youth through its Feeding Our Future program and works closely with Food Banks Canada and Second Harvest to raise awareness and fight hunger across the country.

F&H: WHAT IS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT INITIATIVE YOUR COMPANY HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN AND WHY?

ROBERTS: Our ownership of the Better Tomorrow Plan is the most significant commitment we can ever make. But, one of our most significant individual initiatives this past year was the development of our Canadian Sustainable Seafood Policy. By committing to source sustainable seafood, we will actively contribute to reversing the decline of living marine resources; that’s significant. We’ve witnessed the environmental impacts on our fisheries first-hand in Canada, and we believe our policy has the ability to impact not only our sustainable seafood practices but also to educate and influence clients and consumers about the impact of their choices. The policy can make a positive impact on the health of the world’s oceans and fisheries as well as on consumers. This policy is a key part of our Better Tomorrow Plan and by incorporating industry leading best practices, we commit to having 100 per cent of contracted seafood sustainably sourced by 2015 and to eliminating “at-risk” species from menus by December 2011.

F&H: WHAT HAS BEEN THE ECONOMIC IMPACT AND COST SAVINGS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR GREEN PRACTICES?

ROBERTS: It’s difficult to put a total dollar figure to it, but below is one case study from our Acadia University account to use as an example. • Refurbished a two-way radio system for a savings of $9,000. • “Re-tubing” resulted in savings of $17,700. • Reuse of 245 Homasote panels from Yarmouth Arena to replace Acadia’s ice surface panels saved $12,000. • The December shutdown this year saved 40,760 litres of oil and 81,538 kWh of electricity at a cost savings of $27,489. • Sodexo entered into a joint venture to introduce a waste compactor and recyclable sorting system to reduce tipping fees by $10,000 per year. The revenue from recyclables is approximately $11,000/year plus a 71-per-cent diversion from landfill. • Installation of water-free urinals on campus saves approximately 4,000 litres of water per urinal annually. • Installation of soot blowers to the central heating plant have reduced energy use by four per cent. • Installation of a “green” elevator that uses no oils or fluids and uses 60 per cent less energy to operate.• Load shedding reduced energy consumption throughout and resulted in savings of approximately $48,000 annually.

F&H: WHAT IS THE FUTURE GOAL OF THIS PROGRAM? HOW DO YOU ENVISION THE FURTHER EVOLUTION OF YOUR PROGRAM? HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE THE PROGRAM FURTHER DEVELOP?

ROBERTS: As the program evolves, we would like to be in the position to help our clients become better corporate citizens and be an example to other companies interested in charting a corporate citizenship course. We’re also currently piloting new projects within the program. One of them is our internal Sustainability Management and Reporting Tool. This tool will allow us the opportunity to perform detailed sustainability assessments for our clients and managers as well as to provide recommendations for improving progress. We see this as a natural progression in our service offerings that will allow us to enable others to have a greater impact.

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