We won in the categories of Data Quality and Collection (joint) and Community Engagement in a major boost to our credentials as a sustainable office caterer in London and Dublin.
This has been a turbulent couple of years for our business – we cater to offices and most of them are still closed or working with severely reduced capacities. This also meant, we sadly had to say goodbye to nearly 90 colleagues. While on one side it has been a struggle, on the other, we decided to take this time to strengthen our processes, establish a fairer supply chain, gain sustainability credentials and focus on what we could do for our community and build back better as a sustainable catering company. Winning two awards for our efforts is definitely a highlight for 2021!
The full list of award winners from 2021 can be seen here.
Data Collection and Transparency Award
Our approach to sustainability has always been one of continuous improvement. While we may not be perfect or achieve lofty targets, we have always been clear about one thing – that is to be completely transparent with all our efforts and to never over state what we have achieved. That’s why, we were thrilled to have won in the category of Data Quality and Collection – which is awarded to the organisation achieving the highest percentage data quality score, accounting for relevance of boundary, data completeness, transparency, accuracy and consistency in reporting. We were joint winners with a score of 95%
Community Engagement Award
The second award we won for the evening was for Community engagement -which recognises the best example of an initiative or project that the company has set up and run, or participated in, to help the local community.
We have always believed in giving back to the community we operate in. The first lockdown of 2020 highlighted issues of stark food poverty and isolation in our community in South London. As an organisation focused on bringing happiness through food, we really wanted to help with what we had at our disposal – a large kitchen and the ability to cook fresh, delicious meals. We worked with several organisations in the first lockdown to serve nearly 37,000 meals.
Our project with Pembroke House and Walworth Community Food Distribution Centre was a continuation of these efforts. We provided ready vegetarian meals every week from January to July 2021 (6300 in total). We raised funds via our just giving page, Southwark Winter Grants Fund and from Sodexo’s Stop Hunger Foundation. Volunteer employees on furlough were preparing these meals. They were part of food parcels distributed to members of the community, who were either shielding, unable to cook due to ill health, did not have access to cooking facilities or ingredients, or those who may have had financial hardships and couldn’t afford the costs of energy for cooking.
We’re still building back but these awards are recognition for hard work in the time of adversity. They are true motivation for the team to commit to stronger action. We’re looking forward to working with The Planet Mark in 2022 to commit to a robust reduction in our emissions on our path to NetZero.
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