Recognising our suppliers.

Elior: winners of our 2011 Making a Difference awards

Since 2006 Legal & General has been holding an annual awards programme  to recognise the achievement of our suppliers who ‘Make a Difference’ to their communities or the environment.  Beyond trading with suppliers in line with our Sustainable Procurement policy we feel that its important that we recognise suppliers who are leading the way in their sustainable business practices.

We seek to recognise any suppliers, who have made a significant improvement in their Corporate Social Responsibility impacts during the year. We are delighted to announce that the winner of our 2011 Making a Difference awards is Elior for their comprehensive programme of environmental sustainability and their outstanding reduction of 600,000 food miles with a consequent estimate saving of 600 tonnes of carbon dioxide over three financial years.

We received over 15 nominations in 2011 and short listed suppliers included the Mastek Foundation, Crown Records Management, Kinnarps UK and CSC, A panel of sustainability professionals including Lee Fisher from Business in the Community, Helen Alder from CIPS,  Alex Wolny,  Group Procurement Director of Legal & General and Graham Precey Head of CSR for Legal & General Group Plc considered the suppliers who has been put forward and made a decision on the winners.

David Lale Chairman of People unlimited spoke at the awards ceremony on 5 December which was held at our head office in Coleman Street.

Elior have provided the following details of their ‘Wheel power project’

 “At Elior are committed to growing our business both profitably and sustainably”

We believe our success depends on acting responsibly and ethically towards all our stakeholders. Recognising the impact of food services on society, we have made sustainable development an integral part of our business strategy and the management of our operations.

We aim to enhance and reinforce our relationships with our stakeholders by:

• providing nutritionally balanced menus that contribute to a healthy lifestyle;
• becoming an employer of choice, offering opportunities for all;
• developing partnerships with suppliers that share our values and principles;
• adopting environmentally friendly practices;
• contributing to the community.

 As a contract caterer with over 650 sites, the relationship with our distributor 3663 is pivotal to the delivery of quality and timely services; this working relationship generated synergies and has significantly contributed to the reduction of the negative environmental impact of our operations.

Given the nature of our business, by far the biggest environmental impact is related to the delivery of food and non-food items to the sites where we provide our services, followed by waste induced by our operations. Our relationship with 3663 has allowed our two companies to work in partnership towards the common goal of reducing the carbon emissions of our activities.

The reduction and consolidation of number of deliveries to site has been a major objective of our partnership with 3663, together with improving the environmental credential of our site services. The decision to switch from a previous cooking oil waste contractor to Convert to Green (C2G), that converts oil into biofuel to power 3663 delivery vehicles, was part of this strategy.

3663 was one of the first food distributors to introduce multi temperature vans to deliver frozen, chilled and ambient products. This means that together with an increase in the minimum order per site by the end of September 2010 Elior was able to reduce deliveries to site by 40%.

In April 2011, in partnership with 3663, we embarked on an incentive scheme to drive delivery reductions further by incentivizing sites to plan their ordering more effectively with rewards for better performance. This further effort generated more carbon savings and by the end of September 2011 we had reduced our deliveries by a total 50%.

From the collection of waste cooking oil in 2010 we have diverted from landfill 200,830 litres of oil. Via the ISO 14064 implemented by 3663, we have been certified to have saved 103.8 tonnes of CO2. The oil is converted into bio fuel which is in turn used to power 3663 delivery vehicles.

Last year, Elior’s procurement team worked jointly with 3663 to produce a brochure listing all available disposable items identifying the environmentally friendly options with symbols corresponding to recycled material, being recyclable, compostable or biodegradable. This initiative has significantly helped site managers in ordering disposables by providing them with a clear environmentally friendly alternative. Over one financial year there has been a 42% increase in the purchase of compostable and biodegradable disposables.