Grab Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: GRAB) today announced a new target as part of its Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments. Aimed at tackling Southeast Asia’s packaging waste problem, Grab is committing to achieve zero packaging waste in nature by 2040.
“We recognise that food packaging waste is an inherent by-product of our food delivery platform. Change has to happen throughout the value chain, and we are committed to proactively seeking and developing sustainable, inclusive answers. This means both being introspective, while working with other parties in the ecosystem such as regulators, packaging manufacturers, waste management firms, merchant-partners, and consumers,” said Cheryl Goh, Group Head of Marketing and Sustainability, Grab.
Grab has mapped out a two-phase approach to reach its waste target. In Phase 1, Grab will focus on reducing overpackaging and replacing single use-plastics with compostables. The company will also work on developing reverse logistics mechanisms to increase the adoption of reusable and recyclable packaging. This builds on efforts that have begun since 2019 to encourage consumers to opt out from receiving single-use cutlery for their food delivery orders. To date, Grab has saved more than 23,800 tonnes of waste2, with 898 million sets of cutlery weighing 8,088 tonnes saved from 2022 alone. Phase 1 will run until 2030, with the aim of having 30% of plastic packaging diverted by then.
Phase 2 will focus on developing long-term scalable solutions to contribute towards a circular economy by performing proper waste collection and supporting the use of reusable packaging, enabling Grab to achieve its target of zero packaging waste in nature by 2040.
Grab’s latest ESG report also tracked the company’s impact in 2022 across key priority areas:
- Grab continues to create opportunities for everyday entrepreneurs to build sustainable livelihoods. 30% of Grab driver-partners surveyed say they were not earning an income before joining Grab3. Today, 72% of Grab’s driver-partners earn from more than one service on the Grab platform. Grab has also continued its efforts to bring small businesses online, onboarding 658,000 small merchant-partners in 2022. Small businesses on the Grab platform saw a 26 per cent increase in their monthly earnings on average, after one year of being on the Grab platform. Beyond earnings, Grab provides upskilling opportunities, with 1 million partners having taken at least one upskilling course offered via Grab in 2022. In total, Grab partners earned US$10.6 billion through the platform in 2022, a 19 per cent increase from the year before.
- Grab maintains a safe and trusted platform as a top priority. In 2022, 99.99% of Grab rides occurred without incident; 5.5x safer rides regionally when benchmarked against Singapore Land Transport Authority’s QoS standards4. New safety features rolled out in 2022 include AudioProtect and QuietRide.
- Grab is accelerating efforts towards carbon neutrality, reducing 48,000 tonnes of emissions in 2022 through zero or low-emission modes of transport as well as through optimisations such as batched deliveries and shared rides. About 50% of Grab deliveries in Singapore are made on zero-emission modes of transportation. Grab has ~13,000 low emission vehicles as part of its rental fleet regionally, including a 100% two-wheel EV fleet in Indonesia, where Grab is the largest EV ride-hailing fleet operator.
To find out more about Grab’s latest ESG report, visit the link here. The full report can be downloaded here.
About Grab
Grab is a leading superapp in Southeast Asia, operating across the deliveries, mobility and digital financial services sectors. Serving over 500 cities in eight Southeast Asian countries - Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - Grab enables millions of people everyday to order food or groceries, send packages, hail a ride or taxi, pay for online purchases or access services such as lending and insurance, all through a single app. Grab was founded in 2012 with the mission to drive Southeast Asia forward by creating economic empowerment for everyone, and strives to serve a triple bottom line: to simultaneously deliver financial performance for its shareholders and have a positive social and environmental impact in Southeast Asia.
1Grab’s decarbonisation target for Scope 1, 2 and 3. Applicable where we provide ride-hailing, delivery and financial services through our existing subsidiaries under our operational and management control. Grab’s roadmap and targets are set in consideration of future business growth.
2Based on 9g per set of cutlery for 2.6 billion sets (2019-2022)
3Based on an online survey of 7,037 respondents, conducted by Ipsos from 16 December to 21 December 2022 in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam.
4Includes mobility rides on the Grab platform. The Singapore’s Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) Quality of Service (QoS) measures how well transport companies providing point to point transport services manage service quality, including safety indicators, and is used as a benchmark for the region as not all countries have a published or defined set of standards, and because Singapore has high safety standards for its taxi and ride-hailing industry.
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