Spain’s Glovo launches new Impact Fund to solve socio-environmental issues

Barcelona-based Glovo, an on-demand delivery startup, announced on Thursday, March 2, that it has launched a new Impact Fund where a small portion of Glovo’s profits from each order will go towards supporting Impact & Sustainability initiatives.

The Impact Fund is expected to generate €5M by the end of 2023.

This money will assist initiatives in local communities, environmental protection efforts, digitalisation of small local companies, narrowing the gender gap in tech, and courier upskilling programmes. This includes money that has been set aside for these initiatives since the middle of 2021.

Sébastien Pellion, Head of Impact and Sustainability at Glovo, says, “It’s critical that businesses step up to empower those in need and protect the planet. Glovo customers will support initiatives that create positive change for communities and the environment with every order.”

The pillars of the Impact Fund

Reducing hunger: Giving organisations free access to Glovo’s last-mile operations in exchange for paying the transportation costs and distributing supplies to low-income families. 

Since Glovo Access launched in March 2020, more than 2.3 million meals have been distributed and more than 1,100 tonnes of food have been spared.

Climate action: Glovo is making additional efforts to cut its carbon impact considerably by 2030. The Impact Fund will help electrify the company’s vehicles even more and offer sustainable packaging to partners in nine different nations via the Glovo Store. 

This will help reduce CO2 emissions throughout the company’s complete value chain. Glovo claims that 8,800 tonnes of CO2 emissions were cut in 2022 by its value chain as a whole.

Digitising small local businesses: Glovo’s Local programme will give SME restaurants and shops the tools and training they need to digitise and expand their businesses online.

Currently, the company has more than 100,000 small local companies among its stores, and by 2023, it hopes to have 150,000 such establishments.

Women in tech: Glovo says it is funding training camps for young women who are anxious to begin careers in technology. 

In 2022, 230 women received web programming and data analytics training in Spain as part of a 6-month scholarship programme by KeepCoding. A new initiative will be started this year to enrol 250 Polish girls in coding courses, and 65 additional girls will enrol in Tech Bootcamps in Ghana, Spain, and Poland.

Education programmes for couriers: Glovo will offer a learning programme for couriers, both online and in-person, so they can advance their careers and build the skills necessary to compete for higher-paying positions.

Currently, about 6,900 couriers are actively taking part in training programmes with an emphasis on business, money management, computing, and other topics.

Aid to Ukraine: The Impact Fund will contribute €195K in 2023 to aid the people of Ukraine and local NGOs assisting war-affected areas.

Since the start of the war, the company has used Glovo Access to serve more than 114,000 social dinners, save 54,000 kg of food, and allow the donation of 1,300 charitable meals from Glovo Cook Rooms.

About Glovo

Founded in 2015 by Gerard Olive, Miguel Vicente, Oscar Pierre, and Sacha Michaud, Glovo connects customers with independent local couriers who acquire goods from any restaurant, grocers and supermarkets, pharmacies and high street retail stores. It also delivers urgent packages for a variable fee. 

The company operates in over 1,500 cities across 25 countries in Southern Europe and EEMEA.