Being a strategic Woolworths supplier comes with a special responsibility towards nature and our fellow citizens. Our farms and packhouses participate in the progressive Farming for the Future initiative and all the other initiatives that make up Woolworths’ Good Business Journey. But we want to go further, and the Unlimited Group has set itself 4 clear targets in Sustainable Development Goals.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
We are growing physical products and our operations involve a lot of logistics getting fruit from the farms to the customer. In the process we are emitting carbon. After having established a carbon baseline in 2021, our target is to reduce our emissions by 25% by 2030 and to become carbon neutral by 2050 in line with UN development goals. In 2022 we have installed a 200kW solar installation on the roof of our packhouse in Johannesburg.
All of our fruit is packaged, often individually and mostly in plastic. It’s practical and hygienic, we get it but we must turn this around. Step 1 is to audit and understand the packaging we use at a material level. Since 2018 the Unlimited Group has meticulously tracked its packaging usage and classified it in green, orange and red categories. Over the past 4 years the Unlimited Group has improved its green rated packaging from 81% to 97%. Our Superthene project with Woolworths will further improve our score. But green rated doesn’t mean it can stop here. Many ‘green’ rated packaging options still allow too much plastic and we are aggressively working with Woolworths to replace these with natural, sustainable options.
Fruition signed up to the CGCSA Voluntary Agreement. Our goals are to identify food loss and waste arising from our operations and underlying causes. We are developing a strategy or plan to reduce food loss and waste in our operations. We partner with charities to redistribute edible surplus food to those in need.
Transformation and Black Empowerment are very typical South African expressions of pursuing increased equality. We live in one of the most unequal societies in the world, just have a look around you. Fruition has been participating in annual BBBEE audits since 2014. It’s a powerful tool to energize change for our employees and the impact we have on our society. This journey is continuing and we are very proud to be joining forces with the Lona Group which has a Level 2 BBBEE.
