Earth Day 2024: how are we achieving our sustainability goals?

Why is World Earth Day important to M&B?

Earth Day is celebrated around the world to raise awareness about environmental issues and the increasingly urgent threat of climate change. It gives us an opportunity to stop and reflect on what we can do differently to contribute to the conservation of nature for future generations. 

How are we helping to support better environmental protection?

As an organisation we are working hard to reduce our environmental impact. We have a clear plan to reduce emissions, and we were delighted that our Net Zero plan was recently validated by the Science Based Target initiatives, giving external validation of the credibility of our plans. 

We are also tackling waste through our supply chain and are helping our teams to recycle more with greater on-site segregation supported by our fabulous network of sustainability ambassadors. Biodiversity is critical to the future health of the planet and we are developing our plans to enhance the biodiversity of our own estate whilst also addressing biodiversity impact in our supply chain.    

What are our sustainability priorities / goals?

We have three goals which we prioritise as we believe these are the most important issues to our stakeholders;

• Net Zero by 2040
• Zero operational waste to landfill by 2030
• Halve food waste by 2030

Meanwhile we are also working on addressing other key environmental and social issues.

How are we working with our suppliers to make a real impact / change?

Collaboration with our suppliers is critical to succeeding in our sustainability aims and is happening in all areas of the business. Some examples of where supplier collaboration has had a real impact is:

• Working in partnership with Britvic we have installed London Essence draft tonic into our premium division sites.  A single bag in box products holds the equivalent of 660 glass bottles and therefore takes away the need to have to produce and then recycle these bottles.
• By working with Brakes we ensure that any food which would otherwise go to waste in our supply chain is donated to Fareshare and redistributed to charities and community groups who will make sure it goes to good use. So far we have donated over 250,000 meals through this partnership.
• In a project with Driscoll’s to reduce the environmental impact of packaging, new berry packaging was developed using card. The new packaging will save 7.8 tonnes of plastic being delivered into our sites every year.

How can M&B employees contribute to our sustainability goals?

With sustainability, it really is true that small changes add up to a big impact. There are currently two areas that we are tackling where you can play an active part – recycling and energy. 

If all of our teams, across all of our brands and the RSC recycled all of the items which can be recycled we would dramatically reduce the environmental impact of our business. 

Another area of focus is energy usage. We have made great progress in this area but there is still more we can do to reduce the amount of energy we use and the emissions we generate as a business. Think about the impact that over 45,000 people working together to make small changes to our everyday lives could have!      

What’s next? Are we going to continue to do more to be better….

We have a lot of very exciting projects underway; from solar panel installations to all electric kitchens, to employing people through our Social Bite Jobs First programme and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon! 

Here at M&B, we are committed to finding solutions to reduce the environmental impact of our business and will keep looking for new impact areas to address. Interested in coming on the journey? Check our our sustainability section to learn more and keep up to date with our achievements!