BETTER Living
Make sustainable eating the preferred choice
By influencing how our products are used, we can reduce food waste, promote resource efficient food choices and nutrition, as well as enhance sustainable eating experiences.
Our promise
We will promote sustainable eating by helping consumers reduce food waste, adopt more plant-based eating, minimize nutrition loss in cooking, and enhance sustainable eating experiences.
Read more about our progress on this Promise
Roadmap 2020 to 2030
- Launch enhanced food preservation solutions that help reduce food waste and ensure food quality.
- Provide consumers with functionalities that help them make more efficient use of food resources during cooking.
- Launch product solutions that help to enhance the experience of eating sustainably and inspire better eating habits through providing practical support and advice.
- Partner with food experts on food and food waste to advance knowledge and inspire people around the world.
- Support people in need through the Electrolux Food Foundation – including educating 300,000 people on sustainable eating by 2030.
The case for action
The food sector currently consumes around a third of global energy consumption and around 15% of greenhouse gas emissions are produced from animal agriculture. At the same time, up to 30% of all food produced is wasted and hunger remains a challenge with more than one in nine people in the world not getting enough to eat.
According to our consumer research summarized in the 2019 Better Living Report, over half of our consumers try to reduce their food waste, but one third say they throw away food because it goes bad too quickly or passes its best before date. This highlights the need to help people find better ways of storing and preparing food, as well as changing their relationship with food.
The report found that 45% of consumers reduce their meat intake or choose not to eat meat at all. However, they are concerned about nutrition or that they would miss meat. There is therefore a consumer demand for help with changing attitudes for more sustainable eating and plant-based diets.
Read more in the Electrolux Better Living Report.
Our approach
Eliminate food waste in every way we can
At Electrolux, we are in a position to drive real change in homes when it comes to food waste. We focus on developing smart and more efficient solutions for storing, preparing and preserving food. We also share practical knowledge on how consumers can reduce food waste in their own kitchens, by showing ways to best store food and to make use of ingredients and leftovers. By forming partnerships with organizations passionate about food waste, we increase awareness and impact.
Better eating for you and the planet
Our aim is to make healthy eating more desirable, more accessible and easier. We will continue to develop preservation solutions and cooking methods that decrease nutrition loss, and we will join forces with global culinary experts who can further our mission to inspire more healthy eating. We will also continue with our community investment efforts to inspire sustainable eating and cooking, in addition to helping people in need through our Electrolux Food Foundation and its global partners.
Improved experiences for sustainable cooking
We aim to promote a future where more people consciously choose plant-based eating – and view this as a more enriching taste experience. To do this, we develop solutions and functionalities that facilitate alternatives to unhealthy or carbon-intensive meal choices, including recipes that introduce new and exciting tastes. Through connected kitchen and intuitive user interfaces, we will help enhance the consumer’s taste experience by supporting sustainable cooking choices and highlighting how enjoyable plant-based food is to create. We will take this even further by partnering with chefs and experts.
Read more about the Better Living Program.
The Electrolux Food Foundation
Since 2016, the Foundation has worked together with AIESEC and Worldchefs to inspire sustainable eating and cooking, and support people in need in local communities. Its purpose is to inspire sustainable eating and cooking habits among consumers, and to support people in need through education and emergency relief efforts.
Read more about the Electrolux Food Foundation.
Challenges
- Changing the well-established cooking and eating habits of consumers.
- Although we have a presence in many markets, we lack the reach in many geographies to help those in need.
The progress on our promise
How we measure progress
We are in the process of developing this new promise and how we measure our progress in terms of new products, solutions and partnerships to promote more sustainable eating.
Products and solutions that promote sustainable food habits
We are constantly developing new products that aim to promote more sustainable habits in managing and eating food. Recent examples include:
- My AEG Kitchen app – the app for mobile devices provides useful tools to help consumers get the most out of their connected appliances. It allows consumers to personalize their daily cooking experience, receive advice on how to keep appliances clean and efficient, as well as troubleshooting.
- Electrolux Steam ovens – cooking with steam saves time while providing better tasting food with more nutrients. Steam ovens also help reduce food waste by easily reheating leftovers without drying them out.
- Electrolux Ultrafresh+ fridge-freezer (with TwinTech technology) – includes a sealed drawer with a humidity membrane that automatically regulates moisture levels to keep vegetables crisp, while the antioxidant filter preserves taste and colors, keeping food fresh and retaining nutrients.
- NutriFresh inverter refrigerator – keeps the temperature stable, minimizes water loss and provides higher humidity so that fruit and vegetables stay fresh for longer. It also uses a third less energy than other refrigerators on the market.
- CustomFlex & SpinView – refrigerator solutions that are designed to help consumers maintain visibility of their fresh produce, ultimately reducing the amount of produce that goes to waste.
Raising consumer awareness on sustainable food habits
Our communication campaigns positively influence consumer behavior to promote more sustainable habits in managing and eating food. Ongoing campaigns include:
- Website food storage advice – our websites include information about how consumers can best store their food to make it last longer. This includes Q&A interviews with tips from food experts.
- Sustainable Guide app – an app for mobile devices that features more plant-based and sustainable alternatives to traditional recipes.
Partnering for more sustainable food habits
We establish long-term partnerships with various food expert organizations to promote more sustainable habits in managing and eating food. Examples include:
- The Karma partnership – Electrolux and Karma have commercialized their partnership to install a custom-made refrigerator in Swedish supermarkets to store unsold food for consumers to buy at the end of a working day for a lower price via the Karma app. The partnership helps to reduce food waste and has increased revenues for supermarkets through sales of food that would otherwise go to waste.
- Misfits Market – we support the Misfits Market subscription box service, which sells food to U.S. consumers that would be otherwise unnecessarily thrown away.
The Electrolux Food Foundation
The foundation continues to be an important part of our community investment work. The Electrolux Group has secured annual funding for the Electrolux Food Foundation until 2030, with an expected total of SEK 100 million.
Electrolux Food Foundation targets
- Educate 300,000 people on sustainable eating by 2030 – including 290,000 participants and 10,000 people trained.
- Raise awareness through 300 million views.
- Support 3 million people in need.
Read more about our Community Investment progress.
Next steps
| Roadmap 2020 to 2030 | Next steps | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Launch enhanced food preservation solutions that help reduce food waste and ensure food quality. | We will continue to innovate and develop new products and solutions that help consumers reduce food waste and ensure food quality. | dot2 |
| Provide consumers with functionalities that help them make more efficient use of food resources during cooking. | Intuitive functionality for consumers is a key R&D innovation area going forward. | dot2 |
| Launch product solutions that help to enhance the experience of eating sustainably and inspire better eating habits through providing practical support and advice. | We are continuously launching new solutions that help consumer experience in the area of sustainable eating. | dot2 |
| Partnerships with food experts on food and food waste to advance knowledge and inspire people around the world. | We will continue to develop our existing partnerships and investigate new partnering opportunities. | dot2 |
Inspire people to eat more sustainably through the Electrolux Food Foundation – including educating 300,000 people on sustainable eating by 2030. | Continue our work with the Electrolux Food Foundation until 2030. | dot2 |
On track
Additional effort is required
Off track
Work has not yet begun
Electrolux
Electrolux is a leading global appliance company that has shaped living for the better for more than 100 years. We reinvent taste, care and wellbeing experiences for millions of people around the world, always striving to be at the forefront of sustainability in society through our solutions and operations. Under our brands, including Electrolux, AEG and Frigidaire, we sell approximately 60 million household products in approximately 120 markets every year. In 2019 Electrolux had sales of SEK 119 billion and employed 49,000 people around the world.
S:t Göransgatan 143
SE-105 45 Stockholm, Sweden