SAGICOR Group has announced that 30 per cent of the food waste collected from this year’s Sigma Corporate Run will be donated to farmers for use as animal feed.

A target has also been set to collect and recycle 50,000 plastic bottles at the annual run.

Daidre Sloley McKay, vice-president of group marketing at Sagicor Group, said the initiative aligns with the company’s vision to be more sustainable. The donation will be done in partnership with sponsors Pan Jamaica Group Limited through JP Farms.

“We are bringing together over 27,000 people in one space, and we recognise the impact that has on the environment, so we sat down and tried to figure out how is it we can help the environment and help the persons who are contributing indirectly to Sigma Run, and some of these [individuals] were the farming community,” said Sloley McKay.

She noted that after the event, several companies will gather at their tents in Emancipation Park to eat breakfast, and typically there is some amount of food waste that is left.

“When Pan Jamaica came to us with the idea to donate the waste to their network of farmers, it was a no-brainer for us. Pan Jamaica was able to sponsor [the event], but it is the farmers that help Pan Jamaica to be profitable, so we thought, how do we give back to the very persons who help us to host the run and support our beneficiaries,” she told journalists at last week’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, animal feed is one of the most significant expenses in livestock production, accounting for approximately 60 per cent of total costs.

The organisation said that Jamaica’s livestock sector is heavily reliant on imported protein concentrates and energy feed inputs, resulting in high production costs.

Food waste is one way the organisation said that farmers can reduce their reliance on imports and lower operational costs.

Executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of Pan Jamaica Group, Jeffrey Hall, who is also the sustainability coordinator for this year’s Sigma Run, praised Sagicor for its efforts to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

“One of the things that is not spoken about in the context of what Sagicor has done over the last 27 years is a sense in which the run takes back the city. Kingston is perceived to be a little bit dangerous and not a place where you easily move around on foot. What Sagicor has done is made it a safe place for all of us on a Sunday morning to come together and take back our city, and that, for us, is meaningful at Pan Jamaica because we are heavily invested in our city as well,” said Hall.

“This year they said we’ll take back the city, but we’re going to do it in a way that is environmentally friendly. We are going to make sure we collect back the plastic bottles and recycle them. We are gonna make sure we minimise the amount of waste in the process and so, in addition to our financial contributions that support the causes that [Sagicor CEO Christopher Zacca] laid out, we have also desired to do it in an environmentally conscious way,” he said at the Monday Exchange.

Pan Jamaica will also be providing road marshals for the run, who will stand at different points along the route and encourage participants to properly dispose of their plastic waste.

“We have water stops along the route, and the water and Gatorade, they are placed in plastic bags. Instead of dumping the waste along the route, we have created these special dumping zones with recyclable drums. They are properly labelled, and the marshals will instruct the participants [that they] are to dump the bags there. For whatever reasons persons do not adhere to the instruction of the marshals, the marshals themselves will take up the plastic and put it in the recycle bin,” Sloley McKay explained.

She added that Sagicor has also organised for a “green team” to be present at the event.

“That team is specifically dedicated to walking the park and ensuring that they pick up the bottles and separate the waste so that the bottles go into the designated container and then removed by Recycling Partners of Jamaica,” she added.

The 2025 staging of Sagicor Sigma Corporate Run is set for February 16. The company aims to raise $115 million for three beneficiaries — Kingston Public Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Sir John Golding Rehabilitation Centre, and Father Ho Lung and Friends Foundation.