Deliveroo Hong Kong is committing HK$2 million to its restaurant partners to encourage them to get greener in their delivery operations.
This is the partnership between Deliveroo and Sustainabl – a zero-waste packaging company that supplies plastic-free, responsibly-sourced home-compostable and recyclable packaging solutions.
According to the company, this investment is the first initiative to be funded in Hong Kong by Deliveroo’s Global Community Fund and comes ahead of the territory government’s proposal to eliminate single-use plastic utensils from 2025.
Independent and small food & beverage companies will receive a discount of up to 50 per cent on the packaging, while larger restaurant chains will have a 30-per-cent reduction for the first six months of the program. Deliveroo restaurant partners will be offered around 20 eatery items that are sourced from 100-per-cent home-compostable bagasse material or FSC-certified paper with water-resistant bio-coating.
Customers of Deliveroo will see a badge on their screens when ordering that helps them recognise whether or not a restaurant is participating in the program.
“We hope that our eco-minded steps can benefit our restaurant partners as they help create a greener future with us, and by extension, offer the same to their customers,” said Andrew Hui, at Deliveroo Hong Kong.
“With that said, we understand that integrating sustainable practices will come with new operational costs for our restaurant partners, especially that they are just suffering from the impact of the pandemic. That’s why we are here to provide solutions and financial support, as we leverage our community fund.”
The tech-enabled delivery platform has made some initiatives to help increase awareness towards sustainability and eco-friendly practices in Hong Kong, such as collaborating with a local start-up The Loops to recycle more than 500kg of mooncake boxes and signing an industry-wide commitment to be part of WWF’s Plastic Action Initiative (PACT) in 2020.
“It is very encouraging to see Deliveroo taking on new and targeted initiatives to tackle the critical problem of “single-use plastics”,” said Professor Laurence McCook, director of Oceans Conservation at WWF-HK
“The additional support to their restaurant partners also demonstrates a willingness to give back to the community, as we all work to raise awareness and create real change amongst both industry players and consumers. We look forward to seeing more ambitious initiatives for the industry to achieve a circular economy business model.”
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