Biodiversity & Responsibility

As a purpose-driven company, organic pioneer and plant-based food leader, our Corporate Social Responsibility is rooted in green action with genuine impact.

Our Impact (100% fact, 0% spin)

By feeding biodiversity through the food we grow and make, we are changing our home planet for the better. Our CSR performance speaks for itself.

Our commitments are built around our biodiversity mantra:
“Protect, Grow, Care”

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80% Organic (and counting!)

Our farming feeds nature instead of holding her back. That means no chemicals on the vast majority of the land we farm, protecting biodiversity for good.

97% Plant-based

We help everyone rethink meat and milk with our plucky plant-first alternatives, reducing demand for animal proteins that drive deforestation and climate change.

64% Alternative Ingredients

Today, 2/3 of what humankind eats is made of only 9 plant species… We are committed to offering the opposite: alternative ingredients for more nutrients and more biodiversity!

95% Renewable Electricity

Carbon footprint reduction was a target way back in 2012. 100% of our factories and offices will be green energy powered by 2030. We’ve greened it because we mean it!

Planet-First Packaging

From sugar cane caps to paper alternatives, we’re on a journey to cut down plastic packaging across our brands. Our mantra is reduce, recycle and use renewable materials.

Europe’s first largest B Corp food business

We were the first and largest international food business to be fully B-Corp certified. Ahead of the green curve as ever!

Biodiversity-Boosting Projects

Through our daily work as a mission-driven company, and our foundation, we act at all levels to cherish biodiversity!

Planting 200,000 Trees in Peru

Our Alter Eco team has funded a huge agroforestry project (35000 ha) to help wildlife and cocoa farmers alike. It’s an uplifting tale of community and ecosystem restoration.

Ancient Almonds, New Thinking

In Europe we cultivate forgotten local varieties including Montone and Rachele piccola that are packed with flavour. Better almonds, better almond milk. In France, we’re reviving organic almond farming.

Sowing Wildflowerst at Work

Since 2012, our nature-loving team at Allos have planted 12 hectares of biodiversity-enhancing wildflower meadows in Germany, and they are still going!

Want the full picture?
Here’s where we’re at:

2021 Figures 2022 Figures 2025 Target 2030 Target
Organic (% TO) 79% 79% 85% 90%
Vegetarian (% TO) 96% 97% > 95% > 95%
Alternative ingredients (%) 64% 66% 66% > 67%
Strategic raw material agrichains fostering biodiversity (%) NA 8% 20% 33%
Number of active iconic ecosystem restoration projects 2* 3* 3 per year 3 per year
Employees committed to deliver our mission : Food for Biodiversity 88% TBC continuous improvement continuous improvement
B Corp score (100% turnover) 91,7 116,5 TBD TBD
Recyclable packaging (%) 73%** 83%** 100% 100%
Carbon intensity (Scopes 1,2,3, tonnes/k€) 0,426 0,591*** 0,35 0,25
Women in senior leadership (%) 36% 38% 50% 50%

*French scope of foundation

**Covers BBCie + core categories

**Change of methodology in 2022 (updated emissions factors, third party supplier emission added, new raw material calculation methodology)

B-Corp Certification

In a world with so many challenges, we are convinced that companies should play a role by having a positive impact. But this impact must be measurable in an objective and trustable way.

Certified B Corporations are leaders of a global movement of people using business as a force for good. They meet the highest standards of overall social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability and aspire to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

B Corps are for profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

We were proud to be Europe’s first largest B Corp certified food business in December 2019 with a score of 91.7 points.

We are now prouder to be scored 116,5 in 2022, ranking us among the global leading B Corp companies!

B Corp is a journey and we’re continuously working on improving our positive impact on the different dimensions (governance, workers, environment, community, customers).

Engagement stakeholder

Cooperating with our ecosystem is not only necessary, it is vital. We interact on a daily basis with most of our stakeholders and take all opportunities to get their feedback to improve our performance and as a result, our relationship.

We collect feedback from our employees with the Great Place to work survey. This is a very practical way to measure the quality of the communication and the engagement of our people.

Our consumer care service does its utmost to answer all questions from consumers, we track the level of complaints but also the consumer care service level to ensure all contacts receive an answer as soon as possible. We have daily discussions with our Customers and measure our service quality level, as our key performance.

Supply chain engagement

We cooperate on a daily basis with more than 900 suppliers (raw materials, packaging, finished goods). It is obvious that we cannot achieve our ambition on biodiversity and have a positive impact on the world around us without engaging many of them in this journey.

We first ask them to respect the fundamental rules of the ILO (International Labour Organisation) convention by signing our suppliers Code of Conduct. We also require for all of them to engage in Sedex. To guarantee the quality and safety of our products, we defined the minimum requirements applicable to any Ecotone supplier, in our Product Quality Booklet. Our quality experts verify that the defined requirements are met.

We also engage in a specific partnership contract with some suppliers through which we create the conditions of a long term relationship with mutual engagement to have together a positive impact on our ecosystem.

Our carbon footprint

Climate change is one of the five major causes of the destruction of biodiversity. Nearly 20% of habitats and 12% of species of interest in Europe are threatened by climate change. In line with its mission to preserve biodiversity, Ecotone has set ambitious impact reduction targets and initiatives throughout its value chain to reduce its footprint. 

Nutrition

In addition to the EU organic regulation which prohibit chemical pesticides, ban synthetic fertilisers and limit the use of additives, we pay extra attention to the nutritional quality of our products.

It is our job and passion to put on the market products that will help consumers to have heathy diets.

In order to do so we consider the Nutriscore of products. Nutriscore is a method which classifies products based on their nutritional profile (levels of energy sugar, fats, fibres,…) from A (good profile) to E (bad profile).

We aim at having a large part of our assortment classified as Nutriscore A, B or C. We measure it on all innovations.

KPI Nutriscore: for instance, 80% of Bjorg products are ABC

Diversity and Inclusion

In nature, an ecosystem is more resilient when it’s diverse: the more diverse an ecosystem is, the greater its richness!

In 2020, we decided to combine our different processes into one and launched the “I’m In” program with the aim of aspiring to be a “truly inclusive European food company by 2025”.

We’re focusing on two areas: Gender diversity and gender balance, and social backround.

A 3 tier Governance structure was put in place : an Inclusion Board which defines the main orientations , an Operation Board in charge of the follow-up and implementation , and Local Inclusion Ambassadors whose role is to develop and implement the actions locally.

This governance meets regularly and progress reports are publicly displayed.

Sustainable development goals – SDGs

The world is facing many challenges: climate change, poverty, obesity, diabetes, inequalities, waste and many more.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were defined by the United Nations in 2015 as the key topics for Sustainable Development, as part of the 2030 agenda.

They represent the global society challenges. Each SDG is defined with specific objectives and targets which can be adopted by any organisation

Ecotone is fully committed to these SDGs with a focus on 2, 3, 5, 12 and 15.