Sodexo’s WasteLESS Week a success

Sodexo's global campaign WasteLESS Week raised awareness of what sites can do to reduce their carbon footprint and be more responsible when it comes to waste.

In the UK and Ireland, Sodexo’s 2,300 sites were invited to take part, having already made great strides in reducing waste by working in partnership with clients, and through implementing the Better Tomorrow Plan – Sodexo’s sustainability strategy to 2020.

By channeling all efforts across the company, WasteLESS Week gave Sodexo the opportunity to actively engage with its clients and onsite teams, to further reduce waste and highlight the on-going importance of the campaign.

Sodexo’s team at Allenby/Connaught – the Ministry of Defence’s largest infrastructure project – where the team provides catering, retail, leisure facilities and cleaning services to over 18,700 soldiers, concentrated its efforts across all garrisons within the project, incorporating 39 kitchens from Larkhill, Warminster, Tidworth, Bulford and Aldershot. With all site managers and chefs focusing their attention on ensuring reduced over-production and plate wastage at all three meal times, the team successfully reduced their food waste in just one week.

Meanwhile, in London, the Sodexo team at Emmanuel School worked with pupils, highlighting WasteLESS week in their assemblies and encouraging the students to clear their plates at lunchtime. In doing so, the site saved 53.6kg of their usual 91.5kg of waste in one week.

Other initiatives adopted by Sodexo UK and Ireland included car sharing, implementing a self recycling scheme which saw an 86% pick-up rate, and re-using materials on site, which would otherwise have been wasted.

Head of waste management, Claire Atkins Morris said: “WasteLESS Week has been a fantastic initiative and very well received by the business. Sodexo serves more than 75 million consumers a day worldwide so we play a crucial role in helping to reduce waste globally.”

Claire, alongside Paul Bracegirdle, environmental manager, Sodexo UK and Ireland, also recently provided evidence to a House of Lords sub-committee advising the European Union on draft legislation to reduce food waste.