Alpro: Promoting healthier eating and sustainable living
About Alpro
Since its beginning, Alpro has been a pioneer of plant-based food solutions, building on the promise to put sustainability at the heart of all it does for more than 40 years, taking into account the interest of all its stakeholders, not just its shareholders. Alpro’s vision is of a world where more of what we eat comes directly from plants. Why? Because a plant-based lifestyle is not only more sustainable for the planet but also good for our health, says Alpro. By bringing innovative plant-based food and drink products to millions of consumers, Alpro is growing its business while tackling the health challenges of both people and the planet, thus creating both economic and social value.
Plant-based products by Alpro: "Feeding our future with plants"
A company deeply committed to the environment
Alpro has sustainability in its DNA since the 1980s. All through their existence, the company’s goal has been to continuously improve their products’ ecological footprint and make them healthier.
“Following this long heritage and mission, it was just making sense to become a B Corp. B Corp strengthens our overall ‘One Planet. One Health’ vision which emphasizes our belief that the health of people and the planet are linked. We were at the time pioneering the global Danone ambition towards B Corp. In 2018, we finally certified with a B Corp score of 87 but this achievement was not the end. We focused even more on combining health & sustainability.”
– The sustainability team of Alpro
In 2022, Alpro was recognized as Best For The World™ in the Environment category. These B Corps are leading the way towards a more sustainable and regenerative planet by putting their impact on the air, climate, water, land, and biodiversity first in their business practices. These companies excel in environmental performance by offering products or services designed to solve an environmental issue or through their facilities, materials, emissions, and resource and energy use, as well as transportation/distribution channels and the environmental impact of their supply chain. Their focus on the planet as a vital stakeholder hasn’t gone unnoticed. Find out more about Best For The World™ here.
“For two years in a row, we have been recognized as Best for the World 2022 in the environmental category since our last re-certification in 2021. We gained almost 20 points in the environment category of the B Impact Assessment thanks to the hard work we put in. We are not the best IN the world but we do our best FOR the world. So, this recognition is so much more than just a badge of honor, it gives us more motivation to keep increasing our efforts. We are always looking at other inspirational B Corps who have amazing practices related to the environment in place but also at the same time thrive in other areas.”
– Juliane Greff, Sustainability Expert Plant-Based Europe at Alpro
At Alpro, environmental accountability is key. In turn, having robust data is indispensable for achieving and maintaining the B Corp certification. Therefore, the team at Alpro is committed to the continuous evaluation of the impact that Alpro’s products have through an extensive life cycle analysis. This analysis will also support environmental labeling on Alpro’s products. Empowering consumers to make more sustainable food choices by providing additional information about the environmental impact of food products is an integral part of the transition to more sustainable food systems. According to the B Corp, there is a growing awareness amongst policy-makers, international organizations, and scientists that plant-based products have a low environmental impact, and a shift towards a more plant-based diet is proposed as part of the solution for global environmental and social challenges humanity faces today and tomorrow. Having these impacts calculated with Alpro’s own data will also support and add proof points to the science.
The global food production system has a huge impact on our planet, not only on climate but nature as a whole. This is why, Alpro continues pioneering the work with science-based targets for nature, expanding from setting science-based targets for carbon only through SBTi to including also impacts on biodiversity, water, and land.
Lessons learned
Throughout its B Corp journey, Alpro has learned some valuable lessons.
#1
Becoming a B Corp is quite time-consuming. When taking the B Impact Assessment, make sure to have resources in place to support the certification – a dedicated team and time to engage key internal stakeholders.
#2
Celebrate your B Corp certification. Take the time to celebrate and make employees proud to be working in a company that is B Corp certified. You can also take this momentum to already build an improvement plan for your next re-certification which will be due 3 years later.
#3
It is very valuable to have this external, independent assessment of your performance. But it also gives you input for your strategy and can help to set your focus. At Alpro, using B Lab’s standards as guidance pushes us to do better and improve our impact on the planet and society.
#4
Internal engagement during the process but also after is key. Alpro created a lot of resources to increase the awareness internally: “For instance, we built an internal B Corp Q&A including explanations of the B Corp values but also our journey as Alpro. We explained what is behind our score for each of the 5 impact areas but also already identified areas for improvement and clear future actions to take. In parallel, we had a live session with all Alpro employees to engage around the B Corp values and also to present the results and analysis of our re-certification”, says Juliane Greff from Alpro.
