Evidence of retailers’ and growers’ environmental commitment

Customers’ attention towards environmental and climate protection has been steadily increasing over the past years, resulting in a strong focus on sustainable products and business practices. Valuing the increased demand for environmentally friendly products and processes helps retailers and growers to stand out from the competition and to increase their customers’ loyalty. Therefore, IFCO presents its Sustainability Certificate as evidence of their environmental commitment. As not only customers but also company shareholders are increasingly paying attention to corporate sustainability goals, holding IFCO’s Sustainability Certificate is a clear demonstration of environmentally friendly behavior to customers and shareholders alike.

"Many retailers and growers are working hard to make their supply chains more sustainable and to reduce their environmental footprint. To honor these great efforts and to provide reliable evidence of all the measures taken to customers and shareholders, we are presenting our Sustainability Certificate to companies in the retail and grower industry. The certificate shows that the certificate holders are taking clear measures to make supply chains more sustainable and to protect the environment. Being able to show this commitment to customers and business partners is a decisive factor for business success", explains Michael Pooley, CEO at IFCO SYSTEMS.

As the use of RPCs makes a meaningful contribution to environmental protection, IFCO shares these achievements with its customers by presenting the Sustainability Certificate to them since 2018 for their efforts in the year before. Each retailer and grower customer will receive a certificate highlighting the amount of carbon dioxide, water, energy, solid waste, and food waste avoided by utilizing IFCO RPCs in its supply chain. These savings are based on IFCO’s energy and resource savings estimate. 123

17 to 20 percent more energy and water savings as well as CO₂, solid and product waste reduction since the start of the initiative

IFCO is constantly monitoring the environmental benefits generated by its logistics concept, the IFCO SmartCycle™, which is based on the principle of "share and reuse" and thus reduces the ecological footprint of companies’ supply chains. In 2020, IFCO customers saved between 17 and 20 percent more water, energy, CO₂ emissions as well as solid and product waste than in 2017, the first year the certificate was presented to retailers. That is possible because all IFCO RPCs are reused between 30 and 120 times during their lifetime, and at every cycle are put through a rigorous cleaning and inspection process before being delivered for the next cycle. Damaged RPCs that cannot be repaired are 100% recycled and used for the production of new IFCO RPCs. Several studies have proven that the use of RPCs leads to savings in terms of CO₂ (up to 60%), energy (64%), water (80%), solid waste (up to 86%), and food product damage (up to 96%), when compared with single-use packaging

These benefits carry through to IFCO customers’ supply chains and represent a significant achievement for companies wanting to protect their fresh products while still being committed to improving their sustainability performance.