Marta Mikliszańska: Allegro at the forefront of change

ESG is a trendy term lately. What does it mean for Allegro?

From Allegro’s perspective, it’s an illustration of how we’ve approached social responsibility over the years (actually since starting the company) towards our environment, the cities in which we operate, and – most of all – us, buyers and sellers. Let me remind you that more than 135,000 companies sell on the Allegro platform, most of which are small and micro businesses.

For us, ESG is about structuring the activities we have done before and putting them into the form that is required when a company goes public. Our approach to CSR has been expanded to include these investor expectations. When we became a public company two years ago, we were required to report our activities. Not only do we carry out these activities, but we place a strong emphasis on how to measure and report them.

We are already thinking about how we will be able to measure and learn from the three areas (environmental, social, and governance) when we plan our activities.

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Can you give specific examples of such activities?

We are serious about the environmental issue; we do not avoid responsibility. As a leading company in the e-commerce market, we have a significant impact on our environment and the community. We are taking a number of measures to reduce our environmental impact. I refer to the sustainable so-called “last mile,” a logistic process that is extremely important to us. When designing our ecological parcel vending machines, we wanted them to be pro-environmental. They are powered by energy that is guaranteed to originate from renewable sources, planted with greenery, and are also equipped with air quality sensors. In addition, we consulted with urban movements, cities, and experts, because we know that putting up parcel machines has an impact on the urban landscape.

We present a summary of our ESG efforts each year in an ESG report. We also measure our carbon footprint in three scopes, which enabled us to join the Science Based Targets Initiatives. Following the path of the Paris Agreement, we will reduce our emissions.

So, what do you commit to?

We want to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions to 38%. – This is a very ambitious goal. In addition, we want to motivate our largest suppliers to also set themselves decarbonisation climate targets. We want our business partners to be ready for environmental transformation.

From the buyers’ perspective, the issue of packaging and moving away from plastic is important. We have introduced recycled packaging with appropriate certifications for our sellers. We view this move as part of social responsibility; we are changing the market. We want to encourage the sellers to use tools and solutions that help transform their businesses in a more sustainable direction.

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How did the sellers respond to these ESG measures?

Of course, this takes time, education, and mutual understanding. We bring them closer to solutions that help them do business in a more informed way.

This is not an easy task. Entrepreneurs have had a difficult time with the pandemic. Now, there are ongoing problems, such as the war in Ukraine, disruption of supply chains, and energy prices. All this makes the openness to change less than it could have been. We take our role very seriously and want to be a leader of the change, but we can’t do it without our sellers.

Allegro’s activities are designed to give our shoppers the opportunity to make balanced choices and find products that meet their needs. Alternatively, we want to show vendors that this is a direction of change they should take advantage of. They should, with our support, get on that departing train and never look back.

There is great potential here, this is the future.

What else will be happening at Allegro as part of its ESG mission?

We have merged with the Czech e-commerce group Mall, which operates in five markets. Next year, we will be reporting for the first time as a new, larger structure, and here we have many challenges with that. We need to acquire data and make our policies consistent. My task is to introduce a sustainability strategy in all group companies, and to do this successfully, we need to get to know the Czech consumers and sellers better. These are interesting challenges.

— Recored by: Grzegorz Balawender

Partner relacji: Allegro

Foto: rp.pl