Case Study Auchan Romania: Personal Sustainability Program (PSP)

Project strategy

Built in the form of an effort to mobilize employees to get actively involved in projects supporting local communities, the PSP program aims to become a source of inspiration for Auchan store customers as well, thus contributing to supporting social causes, as well as reducing the effects caused by climate problems, food waste and the excessive use of plastic.

Objectives

The Personal Sustainability Program (PSP) was launched by Auchan Romania in 2020 as the first action under the #nuepreatârziu umbrella and offers all its more than 7,000 employees the opportunity to get involved in various sustainability and social responsibility actions.

PSP program supports 4 causes:

• Environmental Protection

• Healthy food

• Social solidarity

• Food solidarity

PSP was created out of the desire to highlight the responsible actions already carried out by Auchan employees, both in their personal lives and through involvement in the company’s projects, over the years. Following their mobilization, we decided that this internal program can become a source of collective transformation for a more sustainable future and inspiration for our customers as well.

Business Alignment

The project involves encouraging the development of social and sustainability activities or participating in those organized by the company. Auchan supports the principle of volunteering and makes available to employees various actions in which they can participate and carry out “CSR Days”, as they are called internally.

At the same time, for customers, Auchan distributes informative materials in the digital space about tips and tricks for managing leftover food; healthy recipes and information about organic, sustainable or local products. The company also encourages customers and employees to participate in the CSR and sustainability actions and campaigns that they organize, such as Food Day, blood donation actions in stores and in the headquarters, planting or various commercial campaigns.

Statistics

Human activity generates effects on nature and these can be seen more and more in recent decades and include the degradation of agricultural land, air pollution, water contamination and climate change.

According to the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts (NFA) and the UN, humanity currently uses 75% more than what the planet’s ecosystems can regenerate. Thus, Auchan Romania aims to fight to limit these effects. That is why, in 2022, most of the PSP actions carried out at local and national level had as their main goal the reduction of carbon emissions and the protection of the environment.

According to World Bank, 2018, 4 out of 10 children in Romania come from poor families. Auchan fights to reduce social inequalities and reduce poverty. Through the PSP project, Auchan supports the programs of the Habitat for Humanity Association through which children and their families are supported in the fight against poverty, by building them decent homes in Berceni commune in Prahova County. Each additional year of schooling lowers the risk of poverty. In 2020, within PSP, colleagues from the Central Services and stores voluntarily participated in the construction of humanitarian houses, thus realizing „CSR days” and supporting the noble goal of the project.

 Impact and Results

 We quantify monthly the responsible actions that Auchan employees record, in the form of “CSR days” after carrying out activities, and we also keep track of colleagues who have been involved in donation actions, volunteering, blood donation, greening, etc. We are happy to see that last year we recorded 6,450 “CSR days” carried out by Auchan employees all over the country, and more than half of them participated in sustainability and social responsibility actions.

Communicating the Project

The Personal Sustainability Program benefited from extensive communication on all Auchan communication channels, both externally (on www.auchan.ro and the Facebook & LinkedIn pages) and internally, on the intranet portal, the employees’ internal Facebook page, email directly, posters in stores and headquarters.

The employees were very excited about the new project and enthusiastically participated in the PSP actions, as evidenced by the 6,450 CSR days accumulated during the past year.