Earlier this year we committed to track and reduce our carbon emissions across all our markets - in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 13 “Climate Action”. In the light of this commitment, we initiated our overall carbon neutrality strategy, which includes avoiding and reducing emissions wherever we can, replacing them with alternative energy sources where possible and finally offsetting all other emissions.

Throughout our entire value chain there are a number of sources for carbon emissions that are unavoidable. These include emissions from  internal operations and offices, as well as emissions from our delivery to customers. 

In order to understand where we stand in terms of carbon emissions, we needed to create an overview and calculate the amount of emissions across our value chain. Starting with our production, here is a breakdown:

Our operations: 

Our operations produce lower CO₂ emissions than traditional food retailers since we do not have to heat, light and cool thousands of stores. Globally, our emissions from electricity and gas added up to 7 grams of CO₂ per euro of revenue. This is 71% less than the average produced by 12 leading traditional food retailers (internal study, based on figures published by 12 leading traditional food retailers worldwide).

Our delivery: 

The emissions from our delivery differ from market to market. In the US, we use external delivery partners. When we combined the emissions from our production and attributed a share from our partners, each HelloFresh meal had a carbon footprint of 294.5 grams of CO₂. This equates to 39.8 grams of CO₂ per euro of revenue.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, we operate our own delivery fleet. Delivery distances are shorter in this region, making the carbon footprintper meal from processing and delivery 203.5 grams of CO₂, or 36.2 grams of CO₂ per euro revenue.

With this in mind, we decided to invest heavily into our goal of going carbon neutral. In collaboration with Planetly, a climate-tech start-up from Berlin, we identified projects around the world which we are supporting with a six-digit figure. 

As a result, we are proud to say that we are now the first global carbon neutral meal kit company - and have successfully offset 100% of our projected direct emissions for 2020.

Projects that make a difference

Together with Planetly we identified a number of projects which we would support, the focus being a) on local projects in our markets and b) on projects with a large footprint. Here are a few examples: 

• Large-Scale Wind Project, in Mongolia
  To contribute to Mongolia’s increasing electricity demand and avoid CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels such as coal, this project generates renewable electricity using wind power. This large-scale wind project in Mongolia is not only the largest electricity power plant commissioned in the last 30 years but also the first grid-connected wind farm in Mongolia, providing 80,000 households with a green electricity supply. This project has created local employment opportunities during project development, construction and operation phases and created local expertise for future projects. Registered under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the program contributes to affordable and clean energy, job creation and mitigating climate change. 

• Methane Capture Project, in the Netherlands
  According to former World Bank chief economist Sir Nicholas Stern agriculture accounts for up to 14 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture has shaped the landscape and way of life in the Dutch provinces of Limburg and North Brabant for several hundred years. First and foremost, the agro-swine industry. However, this concentration of livestock has led to a situation in which some manure cannot be disposed of into the surrounding fields anymore as the limit of the soil's nitrogen absorption capacity has been reached. This project tackles the problem by collecting the manure, initiating a fermentation process to capture its methane and transforming it to biogas which in turn can be used for power generation. The project is accredited with the VCS-standard.

• Reforestation Projects, in Switzerland and Peru 
  Another focus is on reforestation projects that bind CO₂ from the air into soil and biomass and protect ecosystems: With the reforestation project in Switzerland, HelloFresh supports a protected area in the canton of Schwyz, which is dedicated to sustainable forest management preserving natural biodiversity and strengthening the functionality of the forest as a CO₂ sink. HelloFresh also supports a protected area in Peru. The Alto Mayo protection forest plays a central role in the conservation of biodiversity protection of the local flora and fauna. The REDD+ project in Alto Mayo could reduce deforestation in the area by 75 percent.

What’s next? 

"Sustainability has been integral to our business model right from the beginning. Our responsibility grows in unison with our company size. Continuously measuring, reducing, replacing and avoiding carbon emissions is a natural course of action for us and represents an essential step in our sustainability strategy. In addition, our carbon offset strategy now allows us to be the first global carbon neutral meal kit company, enabling our customers around the world to enjoy an even more sustainable dinner time option”, says Tilman Eichstaedt, Global Vice President for Product, Procurement and Sustainability at HelloFresh.

The projects we support follow the highest standards and are evaluated on a regular basis. Looking into the future, we will continue on our mission to avoid, reduce and replace carbon emissions wherever possible. For example, we are working on a project to track emission sources along our value chain automatically and in real time. We will also expand our solar panel footprint across our network of production facilities and continue to optimize delivery routes in markets in which we operate our own fleet. 

Stay tuned for more updates on our carbon reduction strategy.