Worldfavor > Case Studies > Leading Change with Sustainability as Core Business Model: A Case Study on Oatly

Leading Change with Sustainability as Core Business Model: A Case Study on Oatly

Technology Category

Networks & Connectivity - 5G
Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Food & Beverage

Applicable Functions

Procurement

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Time Sensitive Networking

About The Customer

Oatly is a plant-based food brand that was founded in Sweden in 1994. The company's vision is to make it easy for people to turn what they eat and drink into personal moments of healthy joy without recklessly taxing the planet’s resources in the process. Oatly produces dairy alternatives from oats and has built its core business model around sustainable practices. Today, its products are available in over 20 countries, and it has an international presence in 11 locations and three production units. Oatly's two key focus areas are to constantly become more sustainable and drive society to adopt a plant-based diet. The company believes this is the way to tackle the inadequate distribution of food resources worldwide and help fight for a world where everyone is fed.

The Challenge

Oatly, a plant-based food brand founded in Sweden in 1994, has a core business model grounded in sustainable practices. As the company expanded its global presence, it faced the challenge of scaling its sustainability work in proportion to its growth. Prior to implementing a solution, Oatly manually collected and reported sustainability data using Excel sheets. This process was time-consuming and created a lot of administrative tasks for everyone involved in reporting the data. As Oatly continued to grow rapidly, these manual tasks were taking up too much time. The company needed a time-efficient solution that could scale with its growth, allowing it to continue producing high-quality sustainable products but in larger quantities. This meant finding a system that could digitalize data collection globally and simplify the quality control of the data, enabling Oatly to make data-driven sustainable decisions that were better for both the business and the planet.

The Solution

Oatly chose Worldfavor's Sustainability Management solution to digitize and automate its global sustainability activities. This web-based platform allowed Oatly to collect data globally from all offices, production sites, and partners, increasing transparency and providing more data to inform decision-making and communication to customers. The Worldfavor platform also enabled Oatly to automate customized analyses from the collected data, eliminating the need for manual double-checking and crosschecking in Excel. This saved time and made it easier for non-technical staff to gain insights about what was working and what wasn't, rather than getting lost in spreadsheets. Oatly also used the platform to onboard production partners to report on sustainability and to conduct its first sustainability assessment and report. The company has been focusing on change management, with data collection becoming more accurate, effective, and enjoyable as users become accustomed to the new process.

Operational Impact

Implementing Worldfavor's Sustainability Management solution has allowed Oatly to become a market leader in its field. The platform's dashboard has boosted global staff engagement in the company's sustainability work by allowing them to interact visually with the data, understand the information in real-time, and follow progress over time, directly in the platform. On a global scale, implementing Worldfavor has also made it possible for Oatly to comprehensively work towards relevant global initiatives such as the SDGs and GRIs. Gaining immediate insight into which areas are most closely correlated with Oatly’s line of work helps the company spend time and energy making effective, positive, high-impact decisions in line with global efforts. With this level of insight into its sustainability work, Oatly’s core business model has the data it needs to thrive and simultaneously bring about its vision of a more sustainable world.

Quantitative Benefit

Oatly has 100 users on the Worldfavor platform, streamlining data collection in one place.
The company has 11 offices worldwide and three production units, all of which are now able to report sustainability data through the platform.
Oatly works with 15-17 external partners, who are also able to report sustainability data through the platform.