#SustyTalks: Glovo’s Sebastien Pellion on making speedy deliveries more sustainable

#SustyTalk is all about keeping edie’s loyal readers connected to sustainability leaders across the world, whilst reminding us all that sustainability and climate action must go on through the current cost of living crisis and beyond. It launched in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020 and has continued since then, keeping us connected to the leaders who are continuing to drive sustainable business and climate action.

For this latest #SustyTalk episode – our first of 2024 – edie’s deputy editor Sarah George is in conversation with Sebastien Pellion, global head of impact and sustainability at multi-category delivery app Glovo.

While rapid deliveries are becoming increasingly popular, the business model comes with concerns around topics like emissions, waste and social impact. Pellion outlines how businesses like Glovo can meaningfully address these issues as they grow. He also sets out the difference between speedy deliveries within urban areas and those from warehouses at distance from the customer.

Pellion goes on to provide his learnings on working with a network of retailers and restaurants to facilitate collaboration and knowledge-sharing on sustainability. This can result in an impact at a far greater scale than any one business could achieve in isolation.

He says:“That’s the first objective of Glovo… to digitise small, local businesses so they can reach new neighbourhoods and new customers. Many of the big chains already have their own resources and are changing their own habits.

“But we also have the responsibility to make sure that this growth is sustainable…. One topic where we feel we have an very important role to play is with packaging, because if these businesses start delivering online, packaging is a necessity.

“When it comes to small, local businesses, they don’t have the time, resources and expertise to understand the best options for them or do a benchmark analysis. So what we decided to do was create a website which is a marketplace where we sell different types of greener packaging.

“This is an example, I believe, of knowledge-sharing and leveraging our platform effectively and making packaging prices more affordable.”

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Want to be featured on a future episode of #SustyTalk? Email newsdesk@fav-house.com. Please bear in mind that our interview calendar is now booked for January.