Munich, Germany, July 26, 2021: IFCO, the world’s leading provider of Reusable Plastic Containers (RPCs) for fresh food packaging, has appointed Iñigo Canalejo as Vice President, ESG (Environmental, Social & Governance) as of August 1st. IFCO is strongly committed to its ESG strategy and to making the world’s fresh grocery supply chain sustainable. Mr. Canalejo joins IFCO to further build on its intrinsically sustainable business model and to ensure delivering against the company’s ambitious ESG strategy.
IFCO´s business model is built on the principles of the circular economy with a strong focus on sustainability and has recently had its European line of Lift Lock RPCs awarded Cradle to Cradle Certified® at the Silver level. By leveraging the environmental benefits of its business model, where RPCs are being re-used up to 120 times, washed, sanitized, and then at the end of their life cycle, granulated in order to produce new crates, IFCO enables significant CO2, water, and energy savings as well as reductions in solid and food waste when compared to single-use packaging. Through a third-party Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) IFCO is able to scientifically quantify these savings and share them with their European and North American customers to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.
“Over the past years, we have achieved great progress in delivering against our sustainability agenda with one highlight being Cradle to Cradle Certified® at the Silver level. This reinforces our leading role in the industry, successfully applying the model of the circular economy for many years”, said Michael Pooley , CEO at IFCO. “I am delighted to welcome Iñigo Canalejo in our team. He brings many years of experience in successfully leading ESG programs in the industry and will help us to position IFCO at the forefront of supply chain sustainability.”
In his former role, Mr. Canalejo led the sustainability function in the EMEA region at Brambles. a global supply chain solutions company, while also contributing to the design of the Global Sustainability Strategy and its implementation. He also led Brambles’ strategy for negotiating the commercial and operational changes caused by Brexit and has extensive experience in managing government relations.
Mr. Canalejo will directly report to IFCO CEO Michael Pooley, reflecting the importance of the role. Achieving IFCO’s challenging ESG goals and making the fresh food supply chain sustainable requires focus and execution speed. He will also chair the IFCO ESG Committee, which includes members of IFCO’s advisory board, the CEO and CFO. This committee will oversee all ESG strategy and activities for the company.
“I am very much looking forward to joining IFCO, working together with my new team on the company’s growing ESG commitment and focus. We have a very busy agenda ahead of us to reach our ambitious sustainability goals and make every step of our customers’ supply chains more sustainable”, said Canalejo.