Uber Eats has become the saving grace for restaurant delivery services, enabling a safe and easy service for both restaurants and customers.
In a move towards a greener future, Uber Eats has announced a $13 million fund and multi-year partnership with Australia’s pre-eminent environmental organisation, Planet Ark, to assist restaurants that use the platform to transition to sustainable packaging.
The move has been described as an “important step” for the more than 50,000 restaurant partners across Australia and New Zealand, especially for the inclusion of reusable, recyclable, and compostable packaging options by 2030.
This follows a pilot initiative in the last quarter of 2023, where Uber Eats offered all small to medium-sized businesses access to $1m in funding to support the purchase of more sustainable packaging through our packaging partner Detpak.
“We are thrilled to partner with Planet Ark to bring information to businesses that are looking to make the shift to more sustainable packaging. We’ve already seen the incredible impact our technology can have on the restaurant ecosystem,” said Bec Nyst, General Manager of Uber Eats ANZ.
“Since making cutlery opt-in, rather than being included by default, we estimate eaters have helped reduce the equivalent weight of four jumbo jets worth of plastic forks, spoons and the like ending up in Australian landfill.”
Nyst added that as Uber Eats has increased investment in this area, it will look to identify additional system changes to accelerate the uptake of more sustainable packaging options across Australia and New Zealand.
“We’ll use our scale and relationships with suppliers to improve the unit economics on more sustainable packaging, and finally, we will explore rewarding restaurants investing in this type of packaging with enhanced visibility on our platform.”
Planet Ark’s CEO Rebecca Gilling said there is increasing expectation from consumers, governments and the community to reduce the environmental impact of packaging.
“With the recent announcement that the federal government will become the new regulator of packaging standards, mandating how packaging is designed, setting minimum recycled content requirements, and prohibiting harmful chemicals being used, all ladder up to encouraging developments.”
Uber Eats will continue to work in partnership with industry experts, like Planet Ark, government and business leaders to share knowledge and address challenges in the packaging lifecycle. Allowing restaurants to continue to focus on their core business – incredible hospitality and inventive cuisine.
