As part of its commitment to “Say Yes to Caring More for the Planet”, Mercadona plans to invest more than 140 million euros over the next five years to reduce plastic through Strategy 6.25.
The company began working on this strategy in 2019, involving all employees in the challenge of Continuing to Care for the Planet by making the different processes in the assembly chain more sustainable.
Strategy 6.25, which has the triple objective by 2025 of reducing plastic by 25 per cent, making all plastic packaging recyclable and recycling all plastic waste, is being implemented through 6 actions involving changes in different company processes, from defining the packaging of the future, coordinating with suppliers, adapting shops, waste management, logistics, etc…..
The company has a work team that coordinates all the areas of action of Strategy 6.25, made up of workers from different departments of the company, such as Stores and Perishable Prescription, Works and Expansion, Dry Prescription and IT, Logistics, Finance and External Relations.
In the last two months, Mercadona has adapted 72 shops and transformed them into 6.25 Stores, where it is already possible to see progress in the strategy and whose aim is to hear the opinion of the “Bosses” (customers) and employees regarding all the actions that the company is carrying out within the scope of Strategy 6.25. In fact, during this period, more than 1,300 suggestions and opinions have been received from both customers and workers, which are helping to improve the different actions that Mercadona is implementing.
Strategy 6.25 for reducing plastic: a greener Mercadona
The first two actions of this strategy centre on the fact that, throughout 2020, Mercadona will eliminate single-use plastic bags in all sections, as well as single-use plastic disposables. The third action, to be carried out by 2025, involves the company’s commitment to reduce the use of plastic in its packaging by 25 per cent, eliminating what doesn’t add value, replacing it with other materials and incorporating recycled plastic. In addition, the fourth measure demonstrates the company’s commitment to making all its plastic packaging recyclable by 2025.
In the fifth action of Strategy 6.25, Mercadona commits to recycling 100 per cent of plastic waste from its physical shops. And sixthly, Mercadona will help “Chefs” to recycle by providing them with useful information on recycling both in-store and on packaging, through indicative pictograms.
To realise this strategy, the company will train the 90,000 employees who make up Mercadona in Spain and Portugal. It has also passed on the strategy’s objectives to its suppliers, who are already working on implementing it together with the Purchasing and Prescription departments.
Mercadona will be providing information on Strategy 6.25 in the “Let’s take care of the planet” section of its website, where “The Chef” will also find content on recycling, environmental issues and Mercadona’s sustainability facts.
A sustainable social action policy integrated into Mercadona’s CSR strategy
As part of its commitment to sharing part of what it receives with society, Mercadona has developed its Social Responsibility Plan, which addresses the social and ethical component through different sustainable lines of action that reinforce its commitment to shared growth. As part of this policy, Mercadona collaborates with more than 280 social canteens and 60 food banks and other social organisations in Spain and Portugal, to which it donates food on a daily basis.
Mercadona also collaborates intensively with 32 foundations and occupational centres in decorating their shops with murals of trencadís, made by more than 1,000 people with varying degrees of disability.
Another strategic line of Mercadona’s Social Responsibility Plan is environmental sustainability, dedicating increasing efforts to Continuing to Care for the Planet; hence the reinforcement of the commitment to invest 44 million euros in 2019 in environmental protection measures.
To this end, Mercadona has its own Environmental Management System, based on the principles of the Circular Economy and focused on logistics optimisation, energy efficiency, waste management, sustainable production and plastic reduction.
These areas of work are nothing new for Mercadona, which has numerous examples of action, such as the Logifruit reusable packaging pool, implemented 25 years ago. Or its waste management model, thanks to which Mercadona gives a second life to more than 220,000 tonnes of cardboard and plastic every year (100% of the packaging used by the company is subsequently recycled). Or the elimination of single-use plastic bags in the checkout line that Mercadona implemented in 2019, offering “Chefs” a recyclable paper bag, a reusable plastic bag made from recycled material and the reusable raffia bag made from recycled material that was introduced several years ago throughout the chain.
In addition, since 2011 Mercadona has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact for the defence of fundamental values in the areas of Human Rights, Labour Standards, the Environment and Anti-Corruption.
In Portugal, Mercadona is a member of the Portuguese Plastics Pact, a collaborative platform that aims to promote the Circular Economy of plastics in Portugal and prevent them from becoming waste, an initiative led by Smart Waste Portugal, of which Mercadona is also a member.
If you would like to find out more about Mercadona’s environmental measures, visit: https://info.mercadona.es/en/lets-protect-the-planet
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