Doing more with less. That is Mercadona’s premise to continue taking care of the planet. Its commitment to the environment has led the supermarket company to promote sustainable logistics, energy efficiency, responsible waste management, sustainable production and reduction of plastics. In the latter, they will invest more than 140 million euros in the next five years.

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Also within Mercadona’s Social Responsibility Plan, the company collaborates in the Balearic Islands with twelve charities, to which they have donated 200 tons of essential products so far this year, 70% more than 2019 due to the exceptional situation in the country caused by COVID-19.

Strategy 6.25: a greener Mercadona

The company has a triple goal by 2025: reducing 25% of plastic, that all its packaging is recyclable and recycling all their plastic waste. For this reason, they have designed Strategy 6.25, with which they intend to carry out six actions: to eliminate single-use plastic bags in the sections, to eliminate disposable single-use plastic bags, to reduce the plastic in their containers, favor that these are recyclable or compostable, to recycle all the plastic waste generated and to train and inform how to separate at home.

The first two actions will be implemented throughout the chain by the end of 2020 and the company is already working on the others to progressively achieve its objectives within the time horizon that has been set.

In the Balearic Islands, the Palmanova supermarket has been a 6.25 Store since October. Here and in other 72 Mercadona stores distributed between Spain and Portugal, you can already see the progress of the strategy in order to listen to the opinion of the “bosses” (this is how they call customers internally) and workers.

Before creating this strategy, for which 90,000 employees will be trained, Mercadona was already practicing the circular economy. An example is their household goods line, made with recycled plastic from agricultural thermal blankets, or the annual recycling of 220,000 tons of plastic and cardboard, which return to stores in the form of cartons or bags from the box line.

Closer to the citizen

In order to return part of what they receive from society, Mercadona maintains a social commitment with the residents of the areas where it has a presence and activity, which has been reinforced in 2020 as a result of the situation arising from the health crisis.

donación alimentos mercadona

With the COVID crisis, Mercadona has increased its donations by 70%.

The company has intensified donations to charities of Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza with which they regularly collaborate, so they have delivered more than 200 tons of essential products so far this year, the equivalent of 3.334 shopping carts, which it is 70% more than what was donated in 2019.

The eleven entities and community kitchens with which Mercadona already collaborated in the Balearic Islands, the congregation of the Little Sisters of the Poor joined in July, which has since received fruits and vegetables, dairy products, meat, fish, sausages, bread or pasta that the Store personnel deliver from Monday to Saturday in the best quality conditions and food safety.

Likewise, in Mallorca, the company has increased to three the number of supermarkets that donate each day to the Tardor (Palma) and Sister Isabel Bonnín (Inca) community kitchens, and has doubled the annual contributions to the Mallorca Food Bank, going from 10 to 23 tons. In addition, they have continued to collaborate with the Es Refugi dining rooms and the Estrellas y Duendes Foundation. They have also delivered two tons of personal hygiene and home cleaning products to Cáritas Diocesana de Mallorca in April.