Description

In order to struggle pollution levels and decrease the use of plastics, SONAE is looking for a solution that will help us to reduce the use of plastic materials on the company’s retail operations. The proposed solution must reduce the use of plastic bags in online retail operations.
Plastic, due to its characteristics such as durability, is widely used and is incorporated into industrial activities, medicine or food packaging and shopping. However, this characteristic turned out to be a problem, the low rate of degradation and incorrect management of plastic waste promotes its dispersion by the environment. In addition to visual pollution, there are other relevant consequences such as economic, ecological and human health impacts. The consumption of plastic has increased globally and the use of plastic bags is one of the main causes of this increase. It is estimated that each European citizen consumes on average 198 plastic bags per year and, according to the European Commission, in Portugal is around 466 bags.
E-commerce is a fast-growing business in the last few years and therefore relevant. Sonae, as an environmentally concerned company, is actively taking measures to reduce pollution. Thus, we intend to take measures and find solutions to reduce the use of plastic bags in all processes involving online shopping.
In our process, plastics bags are used for picking products from shelves and, in the last phase, for the delivery to the final customer. The picking is done by sections, each section referring a typology of products (e.g. frozen products, fishmonger, cleaning supplies, etc.) done by different picker’s. Consequently, there is at least one bag per section. This is necessary to guarantee food safety, according to Portuguese regulations.
The big challenge is to find an alternative to the use of the bags that guarantees the compliance of Food Safety regulations and that is financially feasible.

Target

The products sold online are delivered to the customer from 10 stores throughout Portugal. The challenge will be done in Porto region, in one of these stores, the Continente of Gaia.
The target group is the customers who buy online in Continente´s website served by the Gaia store. This store represents 14% of the total online orders and has a monthly average of 7.500 orders, which we consider a very good sample to take the test.
So, the challenge is that together with a partner, for 6 months we managed to find a solution and test it for 1 or 2 months in a real situation, in the store of Gaia. During this test, all orders made by Continente Online in this region will be prepared and delivered with the solution found.
The main goal is to test the solution with our website and retail operation, so to be able to roll out to all other operations.

Competencies

Sonae is a leader in the Portuguese retail market (food and non-food). Sonae’s vision is “to create economic and social value in the long run, taking the benefits of progress and innovation to an ever-increasing number of people”, that’s why the company sees innovation in the service of sustainability as a priority. The E-commerce, has been growing a lot in recent years and assumes itself as a very important tool for the empowerment of this business.
The problem of using plastic bags has been studied for a long time. However, for the online sales process, although we have a work team that has already tested some solutions, but no ideal solution has yet been found.
This project will be led by Sonae’s Granted Project’s team. Marlos Silva manages this team, he graduated in Business Administration at University of Pernambuco (Brazil) and has a M.Sc. in Accounting and Auditory at University of Aveiro (Portugal). 

Innovation

As mentioned earlier, Sonae has been looking for solutions for plastic reduction. Some measures have already been implemented, such as the use of smaller bags to avoid waste and a plan of actions for articles that do not require a bag.
However, we have not yet found a solution that is completely feasible. Sonae’s main concern it’s about the food security, for instance in the case of food products that may not be mixed with other products and the fresh and frozen products that must be kept at the ideal temperature so as not to spoil.
So, we launch the challenge to find a new solution, something out of the box that meets the requirements we are looking for.

Commitment

Sonae already has some measures and solutions on this subject that can be taken as a starting point for this challenge. In addition, our knowledge and experience can have a great influence on the construction and implementation of the solution. In this way we offer to give a constant support to the candidate who presents us a good solution
To support the implementation of the solution to this challenge, our organization could provide the following resources:
Information, data and expertise on the issue: our experience in the operational process of e-commerce and some information about the topic of plastic utilization;
Close cooperation and contacts with the Organizations: meetings, focus-groups with some tests; etc;
Access to our stores and internal processes
After the test period beyond the Social Challenges Innovation Platform grant, if we consider that the solution is really good and has the potential, our intention is to continue to bet on it and use it in all our stores.

Compliance

The challenge complies 100% with the ethical standards.

The Challenge Owner

Sonae