Impact, activity and responsiveness

Actions, however big or small, and taking initiative are core Olio values. Your impact screen is your data centre and here you can learn more about how we calculate these statistics.

How do you calculate “People shared with”?

This is the total number of Olio-ers you’ve shared an item with. A share is counted whenever it’s confirmed that a share is taking place in the messaging thread between two users for a particular listing across all listing types (i.e. Free, Sell, Borrow and Wanted).

How do you calculate “Meals saved”?

Meals saved is calculated based on the number of items of food you give away (add to the app) and the average weight per item of food added to the app, which is calculated by sampling analysis.

On average, each item in a personal Olio food listing contains 325g of food. The estimated weight per Food Waste Hero item varies depending on the business from which the food was collected.

420g is used as the weight of a ‘meal equivalent’ based on guidance from WRAP.

How do you calculate CO2 Saved?

CO2 saved is also calculated when you give away a food listing.

For every 1 KG of food that is given away, we calculate a saving of 4.3182kg of CO2 for the environment based on data from WRAP.

Our calculation includes both upstream and downstream diverted emissions, where 1 item shared counts for 1 item not being produced.

We don’t discount for leakage or rebound effects at an individual Olio-er level as it’s not possible to capture this information. However, at a company-wide level we started accounting for the environmental impact of transportation used to collect food items in October 2024 - and we’re pleased to confirm that the negative environmental impact of transportation only reduces Olio’s environmental impact by ~2%. This is because the average car emits 170g of CO2 per km, compared to the 4.3182kg of CO2 avoided per 1 kg of food saved - and of course many Olio-ers use public transport or walk to collections!

The ~2% value was calculated by surveying ~1,800 Olio-ers to find out what form of transport they typically use, and with what frequency, to collect food from businesses (Food Waste Heroes) and from individuals (requesters).

How do you calculate “Water saved”?

By saving food, we also save the water that was used to grow and process that food. Based on data from a WRAP report "The water and carbon footprint of household food and drink waste in the UK", the average personal food item requires 196 litres of water (this is calculated via sampling analysis).

The estimated impact per Food Waste Hero item varies depending on the business from where the food was collected.

How do you calculate non-food impact?

The average non-food listing shared in the Free section of Olio saves an estimated 7.71kg CO2eq. This is based on the estimated impact per item for three popular non-food categories: books and magazines; children’s clothes; and adult clothes. These categories were labelled as small, medium, and large. All other categories were also labelled as small, medium, and large, with the corresponding impact applied to them.

What is "money saved" and how is it calculated?

Your money saved on the impact page will go up when you collect Free listings from another user. If you’re a Food Waste Hero this value doesn’t include any food items you keep as part of your 10% allowance. The average amount of money saved per pickup was calculated by analysing the value of thousands of listings and then calculating the average value of a listing. Currently, this applies to UK, Jersey & Guernsey users only.

What is "responsiveness" and how is it calculated?

Responsiveness data is only measured for people who have added at least 1 listing. It is calculated every 2 hours to avoid sudden changes, as follows:

After you receive a request, your first response to that message contributes to the responsiveness score.
Replies to x % of requests - this is based on first responses to the last 11 requests received
Typically replies in x hours - this is calculated as the median of first response time for the last 11 requests received
Automatic responses (when you send a mass message to all requesters) do count as a response to each requester
Someone requesting from you in the middle of the night shouldn't affect your score as we use the median time for your first responses

Are non-food listings included in water saved?

No. Non-food listings vary considerably in size and material, so we are not able to provide average water saved at present.

Does “Listings offered” and “Listings received” contain both food and non-food?

Yes. However, it does not include 'Wanted' listings.

Keeping impact calculations up-to-date

To improve the granularity of our impact reporting, we continuously update the methodology used to calculate the environmental impact of Olio.

The most recent of these updates was conducted in September 2024, with the core improvements to our impact methodology as follows, all based on survey data from our community:

Adding the impact of Food Waste Hero food not picked up by requesters but subsequently successfully consumed (e.g. by the Food Waste Hero or their household)
Subtracting the impact of food picked up via Olio but subsequently discarded
Subtracting the impact of transportation associated with collecting food items (both by FWHs from client sites and by requesters travelling to their pickups)

The impact values shown on this page are those applied to all new listings added to Olio from October 2024 onwards. Different values may apply to historic listings.