Turning volunteering into practical environmental action

At Fresh Del Monte, we encourage employees to volunteer in local environmental cleanups by turning good intentions into practical team routines. That means giving busy people a nearby place to help, a clear role on the day and a way to see what their effort changes. A litter pick is useful in itself, but the stronger story connects immediate action with prevention, education and respect for local habitats.

Our Australian teams work around coastal cities, inland production regions and busy transport corridors, so environmental priorities can change from one community to the next. Discarded plastic, storm debris and pollution entering waterways call for different responses. Across our global growing and distribution operations, we recognise that local knowledge is essential: a team should understand its area before deciding how to help.

Employee programmes work best when participation is voluntary, accessible and connected to the place where people live. This approach supports our wider commitments in tree planting, sustainable sourcing and protected-land monitoring. Healthy landscapes require both long-term agricultural stewardship and the hands-on care of local communities. The aim is a repeatable contribution rather than a one-off photo opportunity.

Make participation easy for working teams

Start with access, not obligation. Many colleagues work shifts, manage caring responsibilities or live some distance from their workplace. Flexible volunteering windows, including weekend mornings and a late-afternoon arvo, make it easier for more people to attend. Online registration, accessible transport information and a simple equipment list remove practical barriers before the event begins.

Good workplace culture matters just as much. When colleagues talk openly about volunteering, managers can encourage participation without making it another performance target. Using familiar language helps: mates are welcome to help, nobody needs previous cleanup experience, and every bag of rubbish makes a difference. Managers who participate themselves also show that the activity has a legitimate place within working life.

We encourage team leaders to include cleanup time in rosters where possible and support reasonable leave under local workplace arrangements. Recognition should be shared rather than competitive, with photographs of the team and a useful summary of local outcomes instead of a ranking of kilograms collected. Organisers should also offer non-physical roles for colleagues who want to contribute but cannot safely work outdoors.

Design every event around its local place

Each Australian site needs its own environmental baseline. Melbourne’s Yarra catchment calls for attention to litter moving from streets into waterways, while Brisbane’s subtropical riverbanks can collect bulky debris after intense storms. Sydney’s harbour coves present coastal access and wildlife concerns, and Perth’s Swan River requires care around sensitive river edges. These settings need different equipment, safe working areas and waste arrangements.

Local councils manage public bins, street sweeping and bulky-waste collection in many areas, while state rules and council contracts determine how particular materials are handled. Teams should confirm before attending which streams accept the litter they expect to collect rather than assuming that every plastic item belongs in recycling. A local partner can also advise where dumping is recurring and where council services are already under pressure.

Respect for Country should shape every event. Employees can work with Traditional Owners, local custodians, Landcare groups and coastal care organisations to identify suitable sites and appropriate methods. Volunteers should not enter sacred places, remove native vegetation or photograph people and culturally sensitive areas without permission. Where restoration is planned, local ecological advice should determine what can be planted or recovered.

Equip volunteers to prevent more waste

Training turns a morning of litter picking into a practical lesson in waste prevention. A short workshop can introduce the waste hierarchy—refuse, reduce, reuse, repair, sort, recover and dispose—and show how those choices affect household budgets as well as the environment. Volunteers can learn which reusable containers, refill options and purchasing habits prevent waste from reaching a creek or beach in the first place.

Prevention also requires understanding the conditions behind a problem. A Swiss dairy farm’s non-chlorinated water management illustrates the value of addressing underlying environmental factors rather than relying indefinitely on one routine treatment. The same principle applies locally: teams that understand how litter travels through drains, streets and waterways can focus their efforts where they will have the greatest effect.

Advice should fit the systems Australians already use. Selected Coles supermarkets operate soft-plastic recovery points, while council services, independent grocers and wholesale markets handle other packaging in different ways. Employees can therefore learn where eligible plastics can be recovered, use refillable drink bottles at events and encourage suppliers to move away from unnecessary packaging. Safety boundaries are equally important; volunteers should not handle sharps, dead animals or unidentified chemical containers.

Connect cleanups to everyday operations

Volunteering has greater credibility when it reflects how the company operates. Employees are more likely to take part when sustainability is visible in ordinary work rather than confined to a separate programme. Our explanation of geothermal office cooling connects an infrastructure decision with lower energy demand and gives teams a tangible example of practical change.

That example can lead to conversations about the company’s own environmental footprint. Colder storage, efficient transport, reduced food waste and reusable packaging all affect resource use across fresh produce operations. Employees can discuss these choices during a cleanup, visit a local food rescue partner or suggest improvements to communal areas in their workplace. The aim is to make sustainable behaviour visible both at home and on site.

Healthy land and water also depend on long-term action beyond individual cleanup days. Fresh Del Monte’s tree-planting and habitat work can be strengthened when local nurseries and conservation groups select appropriate native species and monitor their survival. Educational sessions with schools and community organisations help young people understand the relationship between food production, biodiversity and the places where they live.

Build a repeatable cleanup format

A useful event follows a repeatable cycle rather than beginning with a group chat and a pile of borrowed equipment. Choosing one nearby site, one local partner and one clear reporting method keeps things manageable. Clear targets also help employees understand the wider purpose: our Mediterranean vineyard programme to reduce irrigation water use by 15%, described in irrigation water savings, demonstrates how a defined improvement can guide decisions throughout an operation.

Before the day, teams can use this checklist:

• Confirm the site with the council, park manager or local conservation group.
• Choose a meeting time and accessible location that suit shift workers and carers.
• Provide gloves, litter pickers, bags, water and reusable sign-up materials.
• Brief volunteers on hazards, native species, waste rules and photography.

After the cleanup, the host can share:

• Attendance, volunteer hours and collected waste by type.
• Images of progress, with consent, and any hazards requiring attention.
• A short summary of prevention opportunities and the next event date.

Measurement should cover more than volume. Teams can record whether waste was placed in the correct stream, whether overflowing or illegal dumping was reported, and whether volunteers understood the prevention advice. Over time, repeated visits at the same location provide a clearer picture than a single event. Support from local partners is also essential because they retain knowledge of changing conditions, resident concerns and ecological priorities that a corporate team may not see.

Keep local environmental action growing

Volunteering becomes durable when employees have time, tools and a trusted local connection. The role of Fresh Del Monte is to support continuity rather than replace the knowledge held by councils, custodians and community organisations. Sharing aggregated results also helps us refine future activities and connect employee participation with sustainable sourcing, habitat protection and educational work across our operations.

Our next concrete step is to have each Australian workplace nominate one nearby environmental site, confirm it with the responsible council or land manager, and schedule a team cleanup within the next full quarter.