Sodexo – Carissa Tasto – 2023

Goals

Sodexo is a leader in global food service and facilities management. This year, Sodexo North America (NorAm) participated in a company-wide global sustainability innovation challenge, which gathered employee ideas and increased internal engagement with sustainability goals.

The Office of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (OSCSR) enlisted EDF fellow, Carissa Tasto, to help ensure the successful execution of the NorAm innovation challenge and update CSR benchmarks to better understand Sodexo’s market position.

Solutions

• Facilitated collection and analysis of employee submissions and meticulously maintained high levels of communication between stakeholders during the challenge. She was able to categorize submissions in relation to areas of focus, such as carbon emissions, food waste, cost reductions, client relationships, and others. She also helped develop and execute timelines for the challenge while engaging with submitters to help refine their ideas for implementation.
• Identified ways to improve competitive intelligence collection and data visualization for the CSR benchmark. This included market research and attendance at an industry-related conference to gather ideas. She also found relevant tools and information that will enable Sodexo to continue to be a responsible industry leader.

Potential Impact

The innovation challenge has helped Sodexo’s OSCSR to gain a better understanding of the landscape of sustainability obstacles and opportunities across different parts of the company and has strengthened internal engagement with these ideas. As a result, Sodexo has several new sustainability efforts underway. The innovation challenge will also help reduce costs for Sodexo while improving client relationships and increasing product and service quality.

The updates to the CSR benchmark provided relevant and actionable information to better Sodexo’s market position and resulted in a tool that is easier to use and understand and helps to arrive at insights more quickly.