Zipli’s founding premise is that surplus food represents an opportunity: for the people who need it, for the businesses that generate it, and for the planet that bears the cost of wasting it.
The environmental case
Food waste is responsible for approximately 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. When food goes to bio-waste rather than being consumed, it decomposes and generates methane, a greenhouse gas with a warming potential approximately 80 times that of CO2 over a 20-year period.
Finland’s redistribution hubs diverted 6.6 million kg of food from bio-waste in 2025. For Stadin Safka alone, redistributing 680,000 kg per year generates an estimated 750,000 kg CO2e in avoided emissions annually. These are significant environmental contributions. But they are only as credible as the data behind them. Zipli generates verified data: every kg logged is a verified data point, not an estimate.
The social case
The 2025 Hävikkiterminaalien selvitys records over 1 million food aid visits across the five Finnish hubs that systematically track this data. Because most hubs do not have the data infrastructure to track demand, the social impact of Finland’s redistribution system is systematically underestimated. A redistribution system that cannot document its social impact is leaving funding and support on the table.
The governance case
Under CSRD (ESRS E5), large catering operators must report food waste data with auditor-verifiable accuracy. Under the amended EU Waste Framework Directive, member states must demonstrate measurable progress toward binding food waste reduction targets by 2030. All of these governance requirements converge on the same need: a chain of custody for food waste data that can be presented to an external auditor, a national competent authority, or a procurement evaluation panel.
Zipli’s platform generates that chain of custody as a natural output of daily operations. The data is stored, auditable, and exportable.
The compounding effect
Environmental, social, and governance impact are not separate outputs that need to be separately generated. They are three dimensions of the same underlying event: a donation logged.
When a restaurant photographs surplus food and confirms a donation in Zipli, the food begins moving toward people who need it (social impact). The kg diverted from bio-waste is recorded (environmental impact). The chain of custody is established (governance impact).
As more donors join the platform, more food is redistributed, more CO2 is avoided, more impact is documented, and more evidence is available to support funding applications, regulatory compliance, and corporate sustainability reporting. Each outcome makes the next one easier to achieve.
Sources: IPCC food waste and climate · WRAP CO2 equivalence · Hävikkiterminaalien vuosi 2025 -selvitys, Luke/Ruoka-apu.fi · CSRD ESRS E5. Read the ESRS E5 standard.
