Ambitious sustainability programme awarded Platinum rating
Here at CIRFOOD, we were pleasantly surprised by a very special message just before the end of 2022. While the whole organisation had been working hard to achieve the EcoVadis Gold rating by 2023, it turned out that we had already achieved a Platinum score. This is the highest rating awarded by EcoVadis, which assesses companies across the themes of environment, ethics, labour and human rights and sustainable procurement.
We know how urgent it is to work towards sustainability and are taking the lead.
The timing couldn’t have been better. The end of the year is always a moment for drawing up lists. What were the most sustainable companies over the year? Who did well on corporate social responsibility? For us, a Platinum rating is recognition that our organisation is among the top 1% of sustainable companies with an EcoVadis rating in the world. The fact that we skipped Gold and immediately scored Platinum is a great surprise, even though we had been making a huge effort. We are proud to say we have made significant strides in sustainability over the past year.
International sustainability ratings
First, we asked EcoVadis to assess our organisation according to their methodology: a 360° approach, in which concrete actions and results are analysed along each of the four themes. What are we already doing in the areas of the environment, ethics, labour and human rights? Is our procurement already sustainable? The methodology used is based on international standards and intensive collaboration with external, trusted third parties such as NGOs and international sustainability initiatives, such as the United Nations Global Compact. There are four levels of recognition: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. We deliberately chose an independent international rating as this allows us to validate our environmental, social and governance approach. And it means we can prove our sustainability efforts.
Ambitious sustainability programme
We worked with consulting firm Nexio Projects to draw up an ambitious sustainability programme. We made a robust step-by-step plan and set up all our processes in a way that makes it easy to continue becoming more sustainable. This is reflected, for example, in our procurement strategy. It is now explicitly based on five pillars: organic, local, sustainably produced, fair price and vegan/vegetarian. Many of our products already fall under one of these pillars. Step by step, we are moving to a fully sustainable range of product purchases.
