Doing Well by Doing Good
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 act for the benefit of everyone. To benefit our employees who show up every day. Our clients and suppliers who seek relationships based on shared values. Our shareholders, who want sustained long-term growth. And to benefit the millions of people we serve who hold us accountable to having 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-sustainable. 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 we unveiled our corporate responsibility roadmap, Better Tomorrow Plan, leveraging our global expertise and aligning our actions.
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 so we can use our unique position to make a difference.
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.
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 client site and country level helps to track our actions and progress towards our commitments. Beyond our Better Tomorrow 2025 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 corporate responsibility, 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
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.
Embedding Responsibility into Our Approach to Sourcing
We incorporate sustainability and corporate responsibility into our purchasing strategies according to the issues relevant to each category. Our balanced approach takes environmental, social and economic impacts into account as we set our goals, select products and services, and engage with suppliers.
In addition to offering a variety of sustainable products for clients to choose from, depending on the solutions they require, Sodexo has also actively pursued specific standards and commitments where we can use our purchasing scale to make a significant impact.
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.
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
- Sodexo Animal Welfare Position Paper
- Sodexo Animal Welfare Frequently Asked Questions
- Sodexo Supplier Code of Conduct
- Sodexo Supplier Code of Conduct - Supplier Guide
- Sodexo Sustainable Seafood Strategy
- Sodexo North America Single Use Plastics Reduction Plan
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.
.jpg)