Mercadona intends to invest more than €140m over the next five years to reduce plastic through its 6.25 Strategy
Members who make up the Mercadona 6.25 Strategy work team. (Credit: Mercadona S.A.)
We are continuing to demonstrate with actions our commitment to reducing plastic. In October our 6.25 Strategy was present in 72 of our stores, converted into 6.25 Stores that raise awareness of the 6 actions of this strategy. A greener Mercadona project that is for everyone and that can only be achieved with your help.
As part of its commitment to “Say Yes to Taking Better Care of the Planet”, Mercadona intends to invest more than 140 million euros over the next five years to reduce plastic through its 6.25 Strategy.
The chain began its work on this strategy in 2019 by involving all company workers in the challenge of Continuing to Take Care of the Planet, by making various processes in the assembly line more sustainable.
The 6.25 Strategy, which has the triple objective for 2025 of reducing plastic by 25%, making all packaging recyclable and recycling all plastic waste, is being implemented through 6 actions that involve changes being made to various company processes, from defining the packaging of the future, to coordinating with suppliers, adapting Stores, managing waste, logistics, etc.
The company has a work team that coordinates all the areas of action of the 6.25 Strategy and this team is made up of workers from the different departments of the company, such as Stores and Perishables Prescription, Construction and Expansion, Dry Products Prescription and IT, Logistics, Purchases, Finance and External Relations.
Over the last two months, Mercadona has adapted 72 stores from the chain to convert them into 6.25 Stores, in which advances in the Strategy can already be observed and the aim is to listen to the opinion of “Bosses” (customers) and workers regarding all the actions that the company is carrying out in the context of the 6.25 Strategy. In fact, during this period, we have already received more than 1300 suggestions and opinions, both from customers and from workers, which are contributing to improving the various actions that Mercadona is putting into practice.
The 6.25 Stores are distributed throughout all the provinces in Spain and in the city of Matosinhos, in the district of Porto, Portugal, and this Store model will be extrapolated to the entire chain over the next year.
Strategy 6.25 for plastic reduction: a greener Mercadona
The first and second actions of this strategy are focused 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 is that the company is committed to reducing the use of plastic in its packaging by 25% by 2025, eliminating any that does not add value, replacing it with other materials and incorporating recycled plastic. In addition, the fourth measure is the company’s commitment to making all of its plastic packaging recyclable by 2025
The fifth action of the 6.25 Strategy commits Mercadona to recycling 100% of the plastic waste from physical Stores, Home Delivery Service and Online Service. And in sixth place, Mercadona will help “Bosses” recycle by providing them with useful information on recycling both in the store and with the packaging, through instructional pictograms.
To implement this Strategy, the company will train the 90,000 employees who work for Mercadona in Spain and Portugal. In addition, it has transmitted the objectives of the Strategy to its suppliers, who are already working on developing them together with the Purchasing and Prescription departments.
Mercadona will be providing more information about the 6.25 Strategy in the ‘Let’s Take Care of the Planet’ section of its corporate website, where “The Boss” 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 give back to society, Mercadona has created a Social Responsibility Plan, which addresses social and ethical issues through various sustainable lines of action that reinforce its commitment to grow together with society. As part of this policy, Mercadona works with more than 280 soup kitchens and 60 food banks, as well as other welfare organisations throughout Spain and Portugal, to which it donates food on a daily basis. It also participates in food collection initiatives organised by these bodies.
Mercadona also works in close collaboration with 32 foundations and occupational centres to decorate its stores with mosaic murals made by more than 1,000 people with varying degrees of disability.
Environmental sustainability is another strategic pillar of Mercadona’s Social Responsibility Plan, dedicating greater efforts every day to Continuing to Take Care of the Planet; hence the reinforcement of its commitment with the investment of 44 million euros in 2019 into environmental protection measures.
To do this, Mercadona has its own Environmental Management System, which is based on the principles of the Circular Economy and is focused on the optimisation of logistics, energy efficiency, waste management, sustainable production and reducing plastic. Mercadona is also working on the Sustainable Urban Distribution Project and improving air quality in our cities by using lorries and vans driven by cleaner and more efficient technologies.
These working areas are nothing new for Mercadona; it has numerous examples such as the Logifruit reusable containers pool, which has been running for 25 years. Or its waste management model, thanks to which Mercadona grants a second life to over 220,000 tonnes of cardboard and plastic per year (100% of the packaging used by the company and which it subsequently recycles). Or the elimination of the single-use plastic bag in the line of boxes that Mercadona implemented in 2019, offering “Bosses” a recyclable paper bag, a plastic bag made with recycled plastic and the reusable raffia basket also made with recycled material that was introduced years ago throughout the chain.
Additionally, since 2011 Mercadona has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact for defending fundamental values in areas of Human Rights, Employment Standards, Environment and the Fight Against Corruption.
Source: Company Press Release