More than 160 company volunteers participated for the first time in simultaneous cleanup activities that took place in natural spaces in Spain and Brazil.
This initiative is part of Grupo Calvo’s ‘Responsible Engagement’ program that seeks to reach sustainability goals by 2025.
Madrid, September 28, 2022. On September 24th, Grupo Calvo carried out the company’s first global waste collection operation, in which over 160 volunteers managed to gather a half a ton of waste. A component of Grupo Calvo’s ‘Responsible Engagement’ strategy, cleanup operations were organized simultaneously in three different sites located in Madrid, Spain and Itajaí, Brazil.
Ropes and cords, plastic and glass bottles and cups, caps, straws, cigarette butts and clothing were most prominent among the waste participants encountered. The volunteers managed to collect and sort more than 520 kg of abandoned waste and thereby demonstrate Grupo Calvo employees’ commitment to tackling this environmental issue.
Through this global initiative, the food company specialized in canned fish and seafood aims to underscore the impact of ‘littered nature’ on natural coastal and inland water spaces, in addition to freeing the areas from waste, analyzing its effects on the environment and raising awareness about this problem. The activity is part of Grupo Calvo’s ‘Responsible Engagement’ plan, which establishes twenty-one objectives to be met by 2025 in three key areas for the company: oceans, the environment and people. All of the objectives are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Spain
Here in Spain the initiative unfolded in two key locations—Bergatín Beach (at the San Juan Reservoir in Madrid) and Baldaio Beach (A Coruña)—within the framework of the ‘1m2 for beaches and seas’ campaign that is part of the joint LIBERA project carried out by SEO/BirdLife and Ecoembes. The Spanish groups removed the garbage they found along their way in the different locations, managing to collect and sort 40 kg of waste in Madrid and 76.5 kg in Carballo.
Brazil
In Brazil, where the company has been operating since 2004, cleanup efforts were organized in collaboration with local organizations INIS (Instituto Itajaí Sustentável), Semasa, the Port of Itajaí, the Prefeitura de Itajaí, Defesa Civil de Itajaí and Recicla Itajaí. Volunteers collected a total of 404.2 kg of waste discarded by people or brought in by the water to the shores of the Praia do Atalaia, located in the municipality of Itajaí in southern Brazil.
