REFOOD’s Impact is born of daily action, with each precious meal rescued. The cumulative results amount to enormous quantitative and qualitative impacts – but it is the process itself, that transforms the world.
Refood’s daily action has immediate effects: good food is not wasted, people do not go hungry, citizens can donate a small part of their time to change the world in their neighborhood, local companies can activate their duty of social and environmental responsibility and everyone can actively participate in a circular economy that produces a social good in their own local community.
The quantitative and qualitative results produced are visible in the ever-growing numbers and in the lives of the people involved. Together, they weave a network of benefits that unites a diversity of community members – young and old, rich and poor, long-term residents and newcomers, people in need and people who feel the need for help. Refood´s impact is to mobilize, unite and transform the community.
Each meal rescued feeds someone in need while protecting our environment.
The quantitative impact of the Refood Movement is measured by the number of meals rescued, the tons of bio waste avoided, the number of local centers in operation as well as the number of volunteers active, partners involved and beneficiaries supported.
REFOOD impact in numbers
The Refood solution solves universal challenges faced by local communities, producing transformative impacts every time.
Refood transforms food waste into priceless meals, while turning untapped resources into instruments to serve the common good.
Refood turns uninvolved citizens into purpose driven agents of change in their own local communities.
Refood turns polluters into friends of the environment and businesses into socially and environmentally responsible partners in local community development.
Refood transforms exclusion into inclusion, food insecurity into stable nutrition, beneficiaries into volunteers, strangers into friends and indifference into solidarity.
Refood transforms local communities and the people lives of those who live there.
SUSTAINABILITY
For REFOOD, sustainability is fundamental in three spheres: social, environmental and financial.
Social sustainability comes from a sincere invitation to everyone in the local community, inviting each volunteer to participate for just two hours, once a week. These shared experiences invariably generate a return-on -investment (happiness), resulting in a willingness to continue.
In the same way, the experiences of the volunteer-managers (supported by the positive interpersonal dynamics of participatory democracy) generate a sense of shared purpose that facilitates the work and ensures the continuity of the management team.
Environmental sustainability is built-in to our operational model, as each meal rescued protects our shared environment. It is also present in our conscious and informed choices that contribute to neutralize our carbon footprint and complete our circular economy.
Financial sustainability is ensured by the economic efficiency of our unique low cost and high productivity operating model (millions of meals rescued at just € 0.10 each), together with our community outreach and inclusion model (contacting, inviting and including people, companies, local institutions, etc.) to participate with their time, food or other material support – a process that guarantees the operational costs of each local Center.
The REFOOD Movement is a promoter of sustainable development and contributes daily to the achievement of more than half of the SDGs – Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
SDG 1 – Stabilizing a family’s nutrition is the first step out of poverty.
SDG 2 – The greatest direct social benefit of Refood´s work is to eradicate hunger.
SDG 3 – The basis of health is to have food security and quality nutrition.
SDG 10 – The inclusion and feeding of needy families reduces inequalities.
SDG 11 – We Include the community in sustainable, circular and solidary work.
SDG 12 – Transforming waste into nutrition is responsible, sustainable and circular.
SDG 13 – Eliminating waste is an essential climate action needed to save the planet.
SDG 16 – Peace and Justice are promoted daily by the actions of volunteers to secure the well-being of our beneficiaries and defend our shared environment.
SDG 17 – In response to the invitation to participate in the Refood goodwill economy, partners in each local community participate in the implementation of the UN SDGs.
INNOVATION
The REFOOD Movement is innovative naturally, by design and in response to necessity.
1. Refood’s essential innovation is its local operating model, which turns one universal problem into the solution for another (negating both) while generating collateral benefits for everyone involved.
2. Refood innovates as a 100% volunteer organization, governed by a network of autonomous democracies, guided by principles and values – deciding by debate and consensus (or vote) – and always as equals.
3. The innovation that generates its financial sustainability (without commercial activity, state subsidies or active fundraising), successfully relies on the goodwill and inclusion of members of the local community.
4. Refood’s trajectory, from idea to neighborhood project and on to national institution, required innovation at every stage – the “Global Refood Community” will be the next innovative step forward.
5. The Refood expansion by replication model (driven by the goodwill and inspired effort of the members of each local community) is an innovation that, although counterintuitive, has a success rate of 96.77%.
6. Refood fosters a culture of innovation where best practices and local solutions are shared over its internal network, resulting in the continuous improvement of all Local Centers.
7. In the global health crisis, Refood reinvented itself with new sources of food, innovated its processes and procedures and took advantage of the unexpected opportunities that always come with crises.
