In 2021, Edenred Romania signed a partnership with Clever Eat, an online platform where food stores, supermarkets and other companies can sell surplus food at a discounted price and where, thanks to integration with Edenred Direct Payment Services, employee users can pay for their meals with their Ticket Restaurant vouchers.
Similarly in the Czech Republic, Edenred has partnered with an organization fighting food waste, Nesnězeno.cz, affiliating it with its merchant network and integrating anti-waste offers into its app to help connect employee users and committed merchants.
Initiatives for partner restaurants
In late 2018, Edenred France and its partner Framheim defined eligibility criteria for the 2019 Restaurants Engagés Anti-Gaspi label, awarded to restaurants committed to combating food waste. Framheim, a startup specialized in the fight against food waste, sent a questionnaire to some 180,000 Edenred partner restaurant owners in France to find out more about their anti-food waste practices and commitments. and 400 establishments have adopted the label since 2018.
Edenred supports its partners and raises their awareness of the fight against food waste. In Italy, the subsidiary offers its network of restaurants anti-waste kits including free doggy bags for their customers to use during their lunch breaks. In 2021, 168 kg of food was saved thanks to this solution.
In Bulgaria, Blagichka Zero Waste, the first zero waste restaurant in Bulgaria, was affiliated with the Edenred merchant network.
In Turkey, as part of its collaboration with Fazla Gıda, a technology firm focused on food waste prevention solutions, Edenred plans to organize awareness-raising sessions with the Istanbul trade body of caterers to raise awareness of food waste among merchants.
Promoting organic waste composting in Chile
For the third year in a row, Edenred Chile partnered with Karübag, a company that uses vermicomposting to treat and recover organic waste from offices, homes, restaurants and others. All the fertilizer recovered from composting waste is either sent back to customers or given to a reforestation organization. Edenred communicates with its network of corporate clients, partner merchants and employee users to encourage them to use this novel solution, offering discounted prices for the first months of service. Since its launch, over 36 of Edenred’s corporate clients have joined the Karübag initiative.
Other initiatives
Partnership with the food bank in the Czech Republic
In the Czech Republic, Edenred worked for the fourth consecutive year with Potravinová Banka, a non-profit that has been taking action to prevent waste for the past nine years. This food bank collects unsold and unsellable food from producers, which it stores and then distributes to those in need. It helped to feed 22,000 people each month through 150 different associations (hostels, shelters, and other organizations). As a major player in the meal voucher market in the Czech Republic, Edenred has a responsibility in the fight against food waste. For this reason, it decided to collect expired meal vouchers from users and donate the corresponding amount to the food bank. The total amount of donations in 2021 was CZK 67,100 (€2,600).
5.3.2.3 Key progress indicators
Calculation method
Edenred’s progress on this commitment is measured annually based on the number of eco-services developed Group-wide to address the issues of mobility and food waste.
Performance monitoring
The figure stood at 25 in 2021. Having reached the target of 20 set for 2022, the aim is for at least one per country by 2030.
5.3.3 Managing the impact of solutions during their lifetime
Most of Edenred’s impacts on the environment stem from the production of paper vouchers and plastic cards. Edenred has made it a priority to migrate existing paper solutions and cards toward sustainable formats.
5.3.3.1 Priority issue: eco-design
Edenred increasingly develops paperless formats for its payment solutions available to employee users. Taking an eco-design approach to these solutions, whether physical or digital, is one of the key priorities of Edenred’s environmental policy.
Using eco-friendly materials
As part of the Group’s commitment to eco-design, subsidiaries are encouraged to use recycled paper or paper certified to the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), both for voucher production and everyday office use. In 2021, 20 subsidiaries – representing 92% of business volume of subsidiaries that produce paper vouchers – used recycled or FSC-certified paper for voucher production. This limited the Group’s contribution to logging.
The Group has a preference for environmentally friendly materials such as FSC-certified and/or recycled paper and vegetable-based inks without jeopardizing voucher security. In addition, environmental criteria were included in the call for tenders for material for smart cards in 2020, resulting in the marketing of 320,000 eco-designed cards and related orders from 11 subsidiaries in 2021.
