How LittleBig Connection supports METRO’s sustainable transformation ?
Solution déployée :
Connect for Good
With its 99 stores in France and thousands of employees, METRO is the leading supplier to the restaurant industry in the country. The company is committed to providing sustainable and high-performance solutions to restaurateurs, food retailers, and hoteliers. This ambition translates into a transformation that integrates sustainability into every aspect of its operations.
Marie Garnier holds the position of Quality and CSR Director within the company. Her role involves ensuring both the excellence and safety of METRO-branded products while integrating sustainability from the earliest stages of product development. Sustainability is now at the heart of this approach, encompassing topics such as production methods, packaging reduction, and decarbonization.
CSRD challenges for METRO
With the implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), companies of METRO’s scale are required to enhance their transparency. The CSRD mandates more rigorous non-financial reporting and pushes companies to assess their impact through a “double materiality” lens. This analysis enables METRO to evaluate both its effects on society and the environment (impact materiality) and identify how sustainability issues influence its performance and operations (financial materiality).
The priorities identified at METRO include:
- Nutrition: most of the products offered are food items
- Carbon footprint: particularly Scope 3, which constitutes the largest share of METRO’s carbon footprint
- Preservation of the value chain and resource security
- The social dimension: as the restaurant sector fosters conviviality and social connection
Marie Garnier highlights the value of this directive beyond mere compliance:
“This isn’t just an exercise in compliance; it’s an opportunity to foster a cross-functional and lasting sustainability dynamic.”
Properly conducted, a CSRD approach can help structure and enrich sustainability roadmaps and facilitate their integration into corporate strategies and operations.
LittleBig Connection and METRO: a collaboration on “double materiality”
METRO’s double materiality project was launched in January 2024. This analysis became an essential step in structuring non-financial reporting in line with CSRD requirements.
Marie Garnier explains:
“We didn’t have the internal expertise for such an exercise since the CSRD is still relatively new. At that time, even traditional consulting firms were just beginning to work on this directive and had little experience on it.”
By leveraging its Connect for Good community, LittleBig Connection enabled METRO to identify a qualified expert to conduct this double materiality analysis tailored to its sector’s specificities.
Thanks to this support, the expert was able to:
- Train key teams, including the Executive Committee, on CSRD by explaining terminology, methodology, and upcoming steps
- Assist the teams with a rigorous, end-to-end methodology closely aligned with regulatory requirements
- Draft numerous detailed deliverables to help teams structure reporting and facilitate it for years to come
- Ensure a handover at the end of the assignment, enabling internal teams to be autonomous in the future
“LittleBig Connection helped us find a resource with CSRD experience capable of providing a methodology that was both highly structured and well-suited to the various aspects of the company’s activities. We accessed invaluable expertise that allowed us to move forward with precision and clarity on this mission.”
Results and benefits of the assignment
According to Marie Garnier, outsourcing this project had a fourfold impact on METRO:
- Successfully completing the full double materiality analysis within the set timeframe
- Structuring and enriching roadmaps for more integrated sustainability
- Facilitating coordination between departments through a common language and shared objectives
- Maintaining a sustainability dynamic in the company’s activities and strategies
Implementing a materiality analysis also allowed to identify better the risks of METRO’s business and to establish a corresponding action plan.
Finally, the appointed expert conducted a “gap analysis,” identifying discrepancies between current practices and CSRD standards.
“Materiality analysis is similar to a risk analysis as it helps identify risks to our business and the action levers to reduce our footprint. At METRO, this allowed us to strengthen the vigilance plan and incorporate new aspects for better alignment with the CSRD.”
This project illustrates how, through a structured and collaborative approach, the experts from LittleBig Connection’s Connect for Good community support companies’ sustainable transformation toward a more sustainable and resilient future.
