Corporate Responsibility Like the ripple effect, small changes can make a big difference.
Supporting employee fundraising launched in April 2015; it s the home of our charitable and fundraising activity, both internally and externally. Our aim is to help our employees, and our customers, make a difference across the UK, at a local level. We choose projects and charities where our impact will be greatest. Until recently, like many businesses, most of our fundraising efforts revolved around a charity of the year. Our employees voted, and we usually ended up donating to one of the same three national charities. While this worked, our employees wanted to support smaller, local projects. And, truthfully, our contributions were relatively small in comparison to national charity donations. We felt that by restructuring our charitable giving, we could help every one of our employees support their chosen charity, and have greater impact. When the Ocado Foundation launched, we began offering employees matched funding. No matter how our employees choose to fundraise in their own time, whether that s marathons, triathlons, 24 hours in a bath of baked beans, or bungee jumps, we match each fundraising effort up to 500 per person, every year. 2 3
Employee stories Ocado Foundation fundraising This year, I decided to fundraise for Magic Me, an arts charity which runs intergenerational projects to build stronger, safer communities. One of their projects is Cocktails in Care Homes, where people like me can volunteer an hour or two, sitting and having a drink with an elderly person. These people might have no family who visit, so it s a wonderful opportunity to combat loneliness and help generations understand each other better. I did the Three Peaks challenge, and raised just over 500 myself. matched this, so I was able to donate 1,116, which I know Magic Me will be able to put to such good use. A couple of years ago my Nana died after a long fight with cancer, so I raised 1,000 for Cancer Research UK. It feels really good to be able to raise money for lots of different charities which are important to me. Naomi Bowler, Ocado employee Some of our employees choose to give back in other ways, and for those who choose to volunteer in their own time for a school, charity or community group, we fund up to 250 per year. I m the Chair of the PTA at Reed First School, my children s primary school. It s a tiny village school, only 42 children attend there. They re desperately in need of a library, which will cost 35,000. This year, Ocado gave me a donation of 250 for my time. They also donated a 100 Ocado gift voucher for our raffle, and when I raised 720 at the school s annual quiz, they match funded 500. This makes such a difference to our school, and I m so pleased they re able to provide this support. Charlotte Eeles, Ocado employee When our employees fundraise during normal working hours, for example by running a cake sale, raffle, or a special jumper day, this money goes into the Ocado Foundation pot. At the end of each year, all money in the pot is divided according to headcount and distributed to our different sites. That way, each site can autonomously choose to donate money to local or national charities which mean the most to their local team. Delivered to date Donations totalling 112,550 through the Ocado Foundation. 47,000 of match funding donated to date. 5,850 employee volunteering hours matched. 45,000 distributed across Ocado sites to donate to local charities in 2016/17. 59,700 donated to employees and charities in Ocado vouchers. Future goals Continue to support and reward our employees charitable efforts. Continue to distribute charity funding at a local level. 4 5
Carrier bag funds We ve been asking our customers to hand back plastic carrier bags since 2007, when we first began recycling them. We recycle these (and any other carrier bags handed back to us) into new Ocado bags. In 2015, the Single Use Carrier Bag Charge legislation aimed to reduce bag littering and resulting damage to wildlife. At the time, we launched our Bag Buy Back scheme; for every plastic bag our customers hand back to us for recycling, they receive 5p. (That includes any plastic bag, not just Ocado ones.) We believe our Bag Buy Back scheme operates within the spirit of the legislation to incentivise recycling, and reduce littering. In our 2016/17 reporting period, 128,388,732 plastic bags were issued to customers, generating net proceeds of 5,349,532 from the charge. Happily, 97% of plastic bags were handed back for recycling by our customers. We use the remainder of the funds to support waste, litter and recycling charities across the UK. This further supports the desire of the legislation to see some of the money raised go to environmental causes, such as supporting work to help tackle littering. Here are some of the projects we ve invested in to date. 5.34m in proceeds from plastic bag charge in 2016/17 97% of bags handed back for recycling WRAP partnership In 2016, we partnered with the Waste and Resources Action Programme charity (WRAP) which works with governments, communities and organisations to improve resource efficiency. We ve pledged 500,000 taken from the proceeds of the Carrier Bag Charge, for recycling education projects to be spent over a five year period. Last year, primary schools across the UK were invited to take part in the Recycle Now campaign. Participating schools gave pupils recycling challenge sheets to fill in with their families at home. Schools with the highest percentage of pupils taking part won a range of prizes; the winning school received 1,000 cash, plus an exciting assembly with Cbeebies presenter Maddie Moate and Captain Busta, the character fronting the national Wastebuster education programme for primary schools in England. Although schools represent a small percentage of the overall waste generated in the UK, they house 100% of tomorrow s population. Our hope is that by educating and inspiring children to recycle today we are helping to secure a more sustainable future. Katy Newnham, Wastebuster 6 7
Recycle Week UK In addition to our partnership with WRAP working with UK primary schools, last September we supported Recycle Week. 2017 s theme Recycling It s Worth It, helped people discover what happens to household items we recycle, such as how shampoo bottles can be transformed into football shirts. We tied in with the activity by sponsoring communications for the food waste day during Recycle Week. This campaign helped families learn how much energy can be generated by recycling food waste, such as banana peels and eggshells, through a video shared on social media channels. Wednesday s activity reached more than 370,000 people, and the competition run alongside had over 560 entrants. In total, Recycle Week reached more than 3.5 million people. Cool vans As you may have read in Pillar 4: Eating Well, we ve partnered with a number of food banks and food charities around our spokes and CFCs. This forms part of our goal to make sure that no edible food goes to waste on our watch. We have a responsibility to make sure that the fresh food we donate stays safe to eat, so this year, we set about donating refrigerated transport to our charity partners who needed it most. We call this our cool vans project. We pay for the leasing, maintenance, tax and insurance on our charity partners behalf, they just have to pay for their fuel. We also give cool van drivers our Driver Risk Management training (read more about that in Pillar 1: Education), to help keep them safe on the road. In 2017, we ve donated five cool vans, to the delight of our charity partners. It s helped them to help more people, and increased our volume of food donations. As the Single Use Carrier Bag levy is focused on reducing waste and increasing sustainability, we think this is an appropriate use of the funds we ve collected. We partnered with Ocado over a decade ago and in this time they have helped to ensure we have ample produce to distribute across the community. We are extremely grateful to Ocado for the donation of a refrigerated food van and we know just how much of a difference it will make for our new outreach programme, ensuring we can distribute fresh food to those who need it most. Wendy Lewington, CEO of DENS CleanupUK This charity helps people combat litter in their local area. The majority of CleanupUK s projects focus on deprived areas; through helping people restore a sense of community and pride in their surroundings, there are often holistic benefits. People report that their communities feel safer, more welcoming, and friendlier after engaging with the projects. We got in touch after we heard about their Beautiful Boroughs project, which focused on deprived areas in 10 boroughs in east and north London. We decided to partner with them for five years, and donated money from the Single Use Carrier Bag charge to help them reach their funding target. The money we ve donated has enabled them to launch 40 additional litter picking groups, and extend the Beautiful Boroughs project to include Islington. 8 9
Cleanup UK continued... CleanupUK have just recruited a Project Coordinator to start work on the Beautiful Birmingham Project. She will focus on three of the most deprived areas in Birmingham, setting up and coordinating litter-picking groups. They have also newly appointed a Project Manager, who oversees two existing Project Coordinator roles in London, and litter-picking projects across CleanupUK. Funding for these new roles comes in part from our donations. We re excited to continue to support their projects. Next year we hope to involve Ocado employees in setting up litter-picking groups around our sites. There are plans for a local clean up around our delivery spoke in Dagenham in March, in line with the Great British Spring Clean. Delivered to date 200,000 donated to WRAP. 65,000 donated to CleanupUK. 30,000 donated to Recycle Week. 150,000 spent on the cool vans. Future goals Work with CleanupUK to target grot-spots nationwide. Invest a further 300,000 in our partnership with WRAP. Continue to explore ways to invest Carrier Bag Funds in waste and recycling projects. Ocado s generous financial support has enabled CleanupUK to continue to develop its work in the deprived areas of London and to expand to the deprived areas of Birmingham. We are now able to work with more people and achieve much greater impact. We know that our work makes a difference because we have been evaluating the Beautiful Boroughs Project for three years and our evaluations consistently show that the practical results of our work are stronger, cleaner and more connected communities in which people feel empowered and active. Ocado is CleanupUK s first significant corporate supporter and occupies a very special position in CleanupUK s family. I am looking forward to achieving great things in partnership with our wonderful new friends at Ocado. George Monck, Chief Executive, CleanupUK 10 11
Corporate Responsibility