Better company
Community investment
As a world-leader in kitchen appliances, our community investment activities focus on healthy and sustainable cooking and eating – in cooperation with our employees and partners.
2021 Highlights
- The website Replate.com was developed by the Electrolux Food Foundation and its partners to inspire people to shift to healthier and more sustainable food habits.
- In 2021, 531 people graduated from "Like a Chef", our culinary training program for the unemployed.
- The equivalent of approximately 750,000 meals were donated in 2021 by the Electrolux Food Foundation and Electrolux local business units.
About our community investment work
Our work with community investment is part of our Goal Act ethically, lead in diversity and respect human rights. We aim to inspire sustainable cooking and eating habits among consumers and professionals, and to support people in need.
Read about our progress with community investment in 2021.
Our community investment roadmap
- Fully develop the Electrolux Food Foundation and a strong Group approach to community investment in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Engage and inspire 300,000 kids, consumers and professionals on more healthy and sustainable food habits and reach the viewership of 300 million - all by 2030.
- Educate and train 12,000 people by 2030: Train unemployed and underprivileged people in sustainable cooking with the aim of entering the labor market. Educate culinary professionals in sustainable practices.
- Support 3 million people through meals, employee engagement and the donation of food, equipment and money by 2030.
The case for action
Feeding the world's growing population sustainably is one of the greatest challenges of our time. About 17% of all food produced is lost or wasted1), near 750 million people face severe food insecurity2) while more than 1.9 billion adults worldwide are overweight.3). Worldwide obesity has nearly tripled since 19754). Some 24% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture5). Additionally, millions of people across the world are suffering from unemployment or struggling to put food on the table.
Our approach
As a world-leader in kitchen appliances, we believe Electrolux has both a responsibility and an opportunity to positively contribute to issues related to food consumption. For this reason, we focus our community support activities on the area of food.
Our approach aims to strengthen our corporate culture and employee pride in working for a socially responsible employer – while bringing about real community benefit. Electrolux encourages local business units to set up projects together with employees and key partners.
The Electrolux Food Foundation
Action is facilitated through the Electrolux Food Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by Electrolux in 2016. The foundation supports and funds local and global Electrolux projects that tackle food-related challenges. Its Board reviews applications from local project teams from around the Group and decides on funding. Electrolux has committed to continue funding the foundation at least until 2030. Electrolux Professional began funding the foundation in 2021.
The Feed the Planet partnership
For greater impact, Electrolux established a long-term global partnership called Feed the Planet with Worldchefs (the world association of chefs' societies) and AIESEC (the world's largest youth organization) in 2016 called Feed the Planet. This partnership supports projects with the combined expertise, skills and resources from all three organizations. Electrolux project teams plan and implement the projects together with Worldchefs and AIESEC members, and additional local partners.
The Electrolux Food Foundation and the Feed the Planet partnership support projects that do one or more of the following:
- Educate children, consumers and professionals on more healthy and sustainable cooking and eating habits, for example through our program "Food Heroes".
- Provide professional culinary training that helps people in need to secure work in a professional kitchen, through our program "Like a Chef".
- Provide sustainability education for chefs and students in culinary schools.
- Support people in need through the donation of meals and equipment, employee engagement and monetary donations.
Challenges
- Ensuring that our approach to community investment leverages our global presence and our partnerships, while at the same time allowing local adaption and delivering tangible societal benefit.
- Scaling up our positive impact to reach more people, both online and face-to-face.
References:
1) http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/
2) http://www.fao.org/3/ca9692en/online/ca9692en.html#chapter-executive_summary
3) https://obesity.procon.org/global-obesity-levels/
4) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
5) https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data#Sector
Our community investment progress
We measure our community investment progress with the following metrics:
- Number of people educated (trained and participated).
- Meals donated.
- Number of views (social media, website, printed media).
The Electrolux Food Foundation has a roadmap with visionary targets aligned with Agenda 2030. We provide long-term support to projects that build on the conviction that education is the key to make food habits more healthy and sustainable.
During 2021, we continued our work to raise awareness on more healthy and sustainable eating and cooking, both online and through face-to-face activities. We also donated meals to people impacted by the pandemic. Through the Red Cross, we supported families in Afghanistan and toddlers impacted by famine due to war and climate change.
In line with our commitment to support the activities of the Food Foundation, Electrolux donated SEK 10 million to the foundation in 2021. Additionally, in 2021, approximately SEK 1.4 million was spent on managing community programs around the company, SEK 4.8 million was provided in in-kind donations and SEK 14 million in monetary donations. Despite the pandemic reducing opportunities for volunteering, Electrolux employees volunteered over 8,000 hours of their time to support local activities in total.
Our targets and results achieved in 2021 are detailed below.
Awareness
Vision
More people are aware that healthy and sustainable eating is the best choice for people's health and the planet.
2030 target
Achieve a viewership of 300 million by 2030.
We define viewership as the number of impressions on social media, views on websites and the reach of digital and printed media for the content produced by Electrolux Food Foundation and partner initiatives.
Achieved in 2021
- We reached a viewership of 27 million around the world.
- The aggregated viewership since 2016 is thereby 144 million.
- Launched Replate.com together with our partners to inspire a shift to more healthy and sustainable food habits in society.
Education: Engagement
Vision
Make more healthy and sustainable eating the preferred choice.
2030 target
Engage and inspire 300,000 children, consumers and professionals on more healthy and sustainable cooking and eating habits by 2030.
Achieved in 2021
- Replate.com was launched, the website to educate the general public on more healthy and sustainable cooking and eating habits. The "Eat more plants" and "Waste less food" chapters were published during the year.
- More than 12,500 people participated in "Food Heroes" workshops delivered by AIESEC volunteers.
- In partnership with Worldchefs, 10 webcasts were delivered to culinary professionals with an aim to spread messages around food and sustainability with almost 2,000 online participants.
- Since 2016, over 75,000 kids, consumers and professionals have participated in activities aimed at engaging and inspiring more healthy and sustainable food habits.
Education: Professional training
Vision
Make more healthy and sustainable cooking the preferred choice.
2030 target
Educate and train over 12,000 people around the world by 2030.
Achieved in 2021
- In 2021, 531 people graduated in Brazil and Poland from "Like a Chef" (the Electrolux Food Foundation's culinary training program for the unemployed).
- Implemented a new online/offline version of the "Like a Chef" culinary training program in Curitiba, São Paulo and São Carlos, Brazil.
- Over 2,700 people took online and offline sustainability education in culinary colleges and local chef communities in 2021.
- Since 2016, almost 6,000 people have been trained - 795 graduated from the Like a Chef training program and 5,200 were trained using the sustainability curriculum in culinary colleges.
Support
Vision
Support people in need.
2030 target
Support three million people in need through meals and other donations by 2030.
Achieved in 2021
- The equivalent of approximately 668,000 meals were donated in 2021 by the Electrolux Food Foundation through employee-led projects in our local communities and through our global partnership with the Red Cross.
- The total number of meals donated between 2016 and 2021 amounted to over 2 million.
- In addition, Electrolux local business units donated about 78,000 meals.
Next steps
| Community investment roadmap | Next steps | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Fully develop Electrolux Food Foundation and a strong Group approach to community investment in line with the Agenda 2030. | Strengthen our approach to community investment by further developing the Food Foundation programs and other philanthropic initiatives. Build collaborative partnerships and engage employees - all with the aim of scaling up the positive impact in our communities. | |
| Engage and inspire 300,000 kids, consumers and professionals on more healthy and sustainable food habits and reach the viewership of 300 million - all by 2030. | Further develop digital tools for our programs in order to inspire and educate more people on healthy and sustainable cooking and eating. | |
| Educate and train 12,000 people by 2030: Train unemployed and underprivileged people in sustainable cooking with the aim of finding a job. Educate culinary professionals in sustainable practices. | Continue to replicate and develop educational programs with a blended learning approach – including both digital tools and offline (face-to-face) practices. Expand the "Like a Chef" program. | |
Support 3 million people through meals, employee engagement and the donation of food, equipment and money by 2030. | Continue to co-fund local food donations, develop the Red Cross partnership and increase employee engagement. |
- On track
- Additional effort is required
- Off track
- Work has not yet begun