Danone’s social innovation initiatives reflect our commitment to use our business as a force for good, supporting people in local communities in the UK, and worldwide, to live healthier lives.
Through partnerships with charities such as Foodcycle, FoodCloud and FareShare, we are supporting people across the UK and Ireland, providing information and advice on healthy and sustainable living and supporting the delivery of over 1.9 million meals in 2023.
Contributing our expertise and specialist skills, we work closely with our local partners to make a difference. We know we achieve more together, so we work with partners like Carers UK and Fareshare to reach vulnerable groups in our communities, industry experts like WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) to find pioneering sustainability solutions, and social platforms like Neighbourly to deliver support to those that need it.
SOCIAL INNOVATION IN PRACTICE
Here are some examples of our local and global social innovation initiatives across four areas: supporting local communities; promoting healthy eating choices; co-building sustainability solutions and our social innovation funds.
VOLUNTEERING
We encourage everyone at Danone to contribute their working time and skills to support the community. Volunteering and engaging with our local communities has been embedded in Danone's DNA for many years.
Danone employees have been given unlimited volunteering time to give back to the community. We bring this to life in our volunteering programme with Neighbourly where we match colleagues to charities in need.
Through our charity partnerships with FoodCycle, FoodCloud and FareShare, our employees have the opportunity to support their local communities.
Danone employees volunteered over 2700 hours across 48 causes in 2023, through our various partnerships and programmes.
REDUCING FOOD POVERTY
Today over one third of all food produced globally is wasted each year. Yet, profound food poverty sees millions of people around the world struggling to access food when they need it. According to WRAP, as of January 2023, 17.7% of households in the UK were 'food insecure', meaning they ate less or went a day without eating because they couldn't access or afford food. We believe we have a role to play in tackling food poverty.
By redistributing food that would have gone to waste to food banks we are supporting those in need within our communities. In 2023, we donated over 1.9 million meals (792 tonnes) to charities, through partnerships with Fareshare and Company Shop in the UK.
FOOD WASTE
As a leading food and drink company, we believe we have a role to play in tackling food waste. Food loss and waste happens when edible food is lost throughout the food value chain: at farm level, during processing and production, and at the end of the chain from shops or in consumers' hands.
Reducing food waste in our operations
In the UK and Ireland, we have committed, in line with The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Target Measure Act Food Waste Reduction Roadmap, to reduce our food waste by 50% across our operations by 2030 (based on a 2019 baseline). We are raising employee awareness of the impact of food waste through internal food waste campaigns.
Reducing food waste in the home
To help reduce food waste in the home, we are moving from 'Use by' to 'Best before' dates on our fresh yogurts, as they are still safe to eat beyond this date. We are working with social impact company, Too Good to Go, to increase consumer knowledge and confidence about the difference between these consumption dates.
A PARTNERSHIP APPROACH TO INCREASE RECYCLING RATES
By 2030, our goal is to make our packaging 100% recyclable, reusable and compostable. This means eliminating the packaging we don’t need; innovating so all the packaging we do need is designed to be safely reused, recycled or composted; and ensuring the material we produce stays in the economy and never becomes waste or pollution.
Continuing our journey towards circularity, at the Wimbledon 2023 Championships our evian brand showcased the first ever on-court refillable solution for players. The new refillable system aims to encourage refill behaviour on court, whilst continuing to deliver evian natural mineral water from its pristine mountain source, as the brand has done at The Championships for the last 15 years.
The innovative new solution saw players provided with their own reusable bottles, as well as on-court dispensers. Working closely with Wimbledon we were able to join forces to showcase a refill and reuse model on a global platform.