In 1966, we were among the first few companies in the world to place a social element at the core of its mission. Why? Because we have always wanted our growth to make sense. To make sense for our employees who show up every day. For our clients and suppliers who seek relationships based on shared values. For our shareholders, who want sustained long-term growth. And for the millions of people we serve who holds us accountable to have a positive impact every day.
Better Tomorrow 2025
Today, growing responsibly is about pursuing and tracking what we can do better, safer, healthier and more environmentally-friendly. It’s about improving the way we care for our employees, the food and services we provide, and the way we behave as a corporate citizen.
In 2009 when the time came to find a name for our corporate responsibility roadmap, one naturally stood out: Better Tomorrow Plan.
Because everything we do should add up to a better tomorrow. Better for the individuals we employ and serve. Better for our communities. Better for the world around us and the resources we all share.
Fast forward to today, Better Tomorrow 2025 now propels our action and frames our progress on the most material issues that are either impacting what we do, or inversely, on which we can have an impact.
As you can see in the below chart -- also known as our materiality matrix, we identified and ranked the issues according to their impacts through interviews with employees, clients and consumers with the support of global nonprofit organization Business for Social Responsibility.
From this assessment, we identified nine commitments and clear objectives for 2025 to guide our roadmap, in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
These nine commitments are our north star for which we hold ourselves responsible.
In Australia, our four key focus areas for Better Tomorrow 2025 are:
- Improving the quality of life of our employees, clients and consumers every day;
- Fighting hunger and malnutrition;
- Reducing food waste; and
- Boosting Indigenous community engagement and employment.
We always aim to improve the quality of life of our employees, ensure diversity and inclusion, provide quality initiatives on nutrition, health and wellness, and aim to create positive local community impacts. We have a special focus on gender equality throughout the organisation, with more than 52% of our workforce and 40% of their management team in Australia being female. Mental health is another priority, with our internal I Hear You and All of Me programs, and ongoing training and events.
We are also particularly proud of our work with Indigenous Australians. We always approach traditional land owners with respect before working in any new areas of the country, and aim to engage and support Indigenous businesses wherever possible. We also have ambitious Indigenous employment targets and specialised training programs, and released our fifth Reconciliation Action Plan through Reconciliation Australia, recognised at the highest possible level of Elevate.
Measuring our progress
Being committed is one thing, delivering and measuring performance is another. That’s why we take measurement very seriously.
Our reporting system – composed of 58 indicators -- at the site and country level helps to track our actions and progress towards our commitments. Beyond our commitments, we also track our progress on over 20 topics – from employee engagement and working conditions, diversity and gender balance, sustainable and responsible sourcing and our environmental footprint to our impact on communities.
And each year, our Internal Audit team and our Third Party Statutory Auditors review all the data collected to ensure its accuracy.
This process helps us identify risks, weak signals, market trends and client and consumer expectations to better embed sustainability practices in our activities.
Our progress towards 2025
We’re humble in our quest towards sustainability, because we know your expectations regarding what we do are high, but at the same time, we’re proud of the progress we’ve made and we’re realistic about our areas for improvement.
Key 2018 highlights
Some of our recent achievements in Australia include:
- Throughout May and June every year, we host the Stop Hunger Servathon, an annual volunteering and fundraising marathon. In 2018, we had 43 sites engaged, giving 386 volunteer hours, 1,435kg of food and fundraised over $50,000 raised for local NGOs including Foodbank and Sacred Heart Mission
- Attendance at the 2018 Global Summit of Women, conducted 2018 Gender Balance Study and formed a formal partnership with AMMA
- Established a relationship with Yume, an online wholesale surplus food marketplace, to save tonnes of perfectly good food from going to waste
- Source 100% cage-free eggs and egg pulp for our foodservice sites across the country
- Implemented two training programs to advance gender diversity; Spirit of Inclusion training and the SoTogether program; and implementing a salary bonus initiative which links 10% of salary bonuses to achieving gender diversity goals
Want to know more about our progress on other key issues related to our activities? We invite you to consult our Non-Financial Key Figures to see our progress across Sodexo on issues that go beyond our nine commitments.
Living by our commitments
We hold ourselves accountable to behave responsibly in the way each of us does business with our clients, partners and suppliers to diminish adverse impacts that may result from our activities.
This is why we put in place policies and codes to frame our practices and expected behaviors around key issues such as respect for human rights, animal welfare and sourcing policies.
To learn more, we invite you to consult the following documents:
- Statement of Respect for Human Rights
- Statement of Business Integrity
- Modern Slavery Policy Statement 2020
- Sodexo Animal Welfare Position Paper
- Sodexo Animal Welfare Frequently Asked Questions
- Sodexo Supplier Code of Conduct - Supplier Guide
- Press Release on Cage Free Eggs
Awards & Recognitions
Doing business in responsible way is part of our mission and at the core of everything we do. We don’t do it for awards and recognition. We’re very humbled and honored when we receive awards and international recognitions for our work, but for us, these are like pats on the back, encouraging us to keep thinking proactively about our long term impact and ensure our operations are more and more sustainable.
Good business in a good way
We know we can only meaningfully improve lives if we make good decisions. And that means thinking about the needs of tomorrow as well as today. That is why we monitor our progress through our corporate responsibility roadmap, Better Tomorrow 2025. Check out the latest corporate social responsibility factsheet of Sodexo in Australia.