Industry sustainability - a war on waste

Circular Economy – Waste Management Solutions a. MGA’s historical joint venture with corporate partner, Aussie Energy to form a “Social Enterprise” company, Australian Circular Economy Solutions Pty Ltd. (ACES) was abandoned by MGA. MGA withdrew from the Joint Venture because of unexpected significant burdensome operational expectations placed upon the MGA team.

b. MGA will continue to educate members on environmental and socially responsible management solutions to help them reduce cost of waste pickups and negative consequences associated with waste being sent to landfills and generally reducing annual quantities of CO2 equivalent gasses into the atmosphere.

c. MGA will continue to share insights with members to help reduce their waste impact on the environment.

d. There are 2 types of waste members experience

i. Organic waste

1. Vegetables and produce - Out of code dairy products (yoghurts, dips & cheeses), meats, chicken, bakery, paper toweling, delicatessen items coffee grinds and cooking oil, wood saw dust, timber off cuts and shavings. ii. Non-organic waste

1. Plastic soft and hard (pallet shrink wrapping), cardboard, rubber gloves, paper towels, foam vegetable and fruit trays, Styrofoam, plastic punnets, foil etc.

NSW Bin Trim programme a. The Bin Trim programme ceased in the first half of FY2021 - MGA has been conducting Waste and Energy Audits & Assessments in more than 120 NSW IGA stores, with NSW Government support.

MGA MiPlanet - Planet Friendly Choices Platform

Launched in late 2021, MGA and ImFree formed a joint venture partnership to enable consumers to make planet friendly choices.

The purpose of MGA’s involvement in this world class breakthrough technology initiative is to drive for a competitive point of difference between the giant corporates and the family and private food and grocery, liquor and timber and hardware sectors by attracting conscious consumers to their local family and privately owned businesses. In other words - Differentiate then activate Australia’s Independent Grocery Network.

With 56% of Australian Grocery shoppers categorised as Conscious Consumers, MGA undertook a multi-year investigation to develop a differentiated consumer facing program focusing on Sustainability for our membership base of 2,700 national independent retailers delivering over 15 million weekly customer transactions.

MiPlanet is the world’s first Scientifically gamified Carbon Rewards Platform that shifts manufacturers’ back of packet and retailers’ back of store Environmental investments to front of mind consumer purchase discriminators to drive sales and loyalty.

Value Proposition:

Planet Friendly Choices that reward you, your family, and mother nature.

MiPlanet is a free to download mobile application that navigates consumers to Planet Friendly Choices on participating products at their local independent food and grocery retailer - and rewards them financially, socially, and emotionally with Carbon Rewards which are micro-measures of authenticated carbon credits credited to, redeemed, and then sequestered by the consumer.

Consumer Method:

Gamify Carbon Rewards with Prizes and Promotions so everything is

Rewarding.

The platform publishes and promotes a scientifically quantified rewards score for the Kyoto and Paris agreement aligned activities, memberships, subscriptions, and efforts made by the product manufacturer and the local retailer which empower consumer knowledge and are attributed in the App as Eco Labels.

MiPlanet has also been engineered to accommodate other community based independent category businesses from Sustainable Hair Salons to Health and Fitness providers.

The MiRewards screen acts as a consumer wallet with direct attribution to Carbon Rewards earned by Eco Label (organisation or activity) as well as aggregated Carbon Rewards earned by product attribution to the manufacturer’s activities, efforts and memberships activating a ‘do good to get good’ gamification and reward for the customer.

The Vouchers sub tab redeems Carbon Rewards for promotional vouchers and competitions which are verified as extinguished from the system and sequestered back to the planet.

MIPlanet Partnerships

MiPlanet has partnerships and collaboration underway with University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), the Food and Agriculture Network, Sunshine

Coast Council Economic Development

Department, and the Queensland State

Government Advance Queensland initiative. Summary: Actually it is just the beginning.

The MGA has been on a long and deeply committed journey to define our unique role and responsibility to our members, customers and producing partners in line with global sustainability targets.

Whilst we recognise there is no single perfect solution, we believe our role with MiPlanet is to bring our millions of customers together with great independent retailers and world class products and brands whom all share an authentic, quantifiable ambition to contribute positively to arresting climate change for the next generations of our planet.

MiPlanet is our Carbon-based solution that attends to the tough consumer decisions made every day around price, habit, discretion, and household pressures to gamify a financially, emotionally, and socially rewarding experience at our members stores with products and brands that openly and honestly support our customers who seek to make Planet Friendly Choices.

We look forward to all our members, industry friends and stakeholders and the wider local community eco system joining us for this exciting initiative that will securitize the future of independents.