Sophie Bellon has been Chairwoman of Sodexo’s Board of Directors since 2016, and Chief Executive Officer since March 1, 2022.
She has been a member of the Board of Directors of L’Oréal since 2015, of the AFEP (the French Association of Private Enterprises) since 2017, and of Catalyst since 2022. Sophie is a graduate of EDHEC Business School.
Sophie joined Sodexo in 1994 and has held various functional and operational positions at Group level as well as in major segments and countries. In her different roles, Sophie has always upheld and promoted Corporate Social Responsibility, which she sees as a key business priority for Sodexo.
Corporate Social Responsibility is central to our original dual mission, which is to improve the quality of life of our employees and those we serve and contribute to the economic, social, and environmental progress in the communities where we operate. Sodexo formalized a company purpose in 2021. Sophie is a strong supporter of this purpose, which is ‘to create a better every day for everyone to build a better life for all. It is an extension of our mission and reflects our history, our vision for the future, and the impact we strive to have on the world. We know that it is precisely by focusing on the most concrete, tangible, everyday things that we have a real impact on individuals, communities, and the environment.
“Our CSR approach is embedded in our strategy, our value propositions, our offers and services, and frankly everything we do. I am convinced that this—and only this—will yield strong, profitable, and responsible growth for Sodexo over the long term.”
Among others, Sophie is convinced that Sodexo’s commitment to fighting food waste is central to the environmental impact we can have:
“Food is fuel for life, but producing it comes with an environmental cost. When people are talking about climate change, it is not generally food waste that is top of mind. At Sodexo, we know how important it is! 60% of our business is linked to food and we serve millions of consumers worldwide every day. Reducing food waste is the single most important climate and social action we can take to cut our emissions.”
This is why we have set an ambitious objective to halve the food waste that is linked to our operations by 2025. This target is totally aligned with the UN’s sustainable development objective.
Sodexo is also the first food services company with a carbon emission reduction target that is in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – a 34% reduction by 2025 compared to 2017.
Last but not least, Sodexo is also the first group in its sector to have linked its financing to its action to combat food waste.
To fight against food waste, Sodexo is focusing on 5 key pillars:
- Collaborate with our suppliers to source responsibly (10x20x30 initiative)
- Avoid food waste in our restaurants by deploying our WasteWatch program (On average, we observed a 45.8% reduction of food waste on sites which have already deployed the WasteWatch program). This program makes it easy for our teams to collect data on food waste in our restaurants and implement the operational and behavioral changes needed to eliminate the waste produced by our kitchens or thrown out by our guests.
- Train our teams, consumers and clients to waste less (WasteLESS Week)
- Manage food recovery through our unique philanthropic cause: Stop Hunger
- Collaborate with our peers (founding member of the International Food Waste Coalition)