The future of hospitality is sustainable.
At Olo, ESG is a shared responsibility, and our culture of caring and connection defines our approach. Our ESG strategy is designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of our business in the highly dynamic restaurant technology sector.Caring for one another, acting with trust and accountability, and striving to grow and improve are what drive Olo forward. These values inspire and guide us in everything we do, including our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy and initiatives.
We are committed to leveraging our platform to drive positive change and foster a sustainable future in the places we live, work, and serve.
Noah Glass
Our Strategy
Goal
Taking Care of Oloites
Our team and our culture are what define us and make our success possible. In this spirit, we support and empower our employees and their families, offering flexible and inclusive work arrangements that blend with personal life. We celebrate and promote diverse perspectives and we strive to foster a culture of connection and belonging. Our goal is for every person at Olo to feel valued and empowered to succeed.
Compensation & Benefits
Olo provides our workforce with the energy and support they need to excel at their job. We regularly review our processes for assessing team performance to ensure that we are improving upward mobility for employees from underrepresented groups. We conduct annual calibrations to examine the standardization of team performance assessments and better monitor the advancement and mobility of underrepresented groups. In addition to an annual performance review we introduced a mid-year performance check-in and ensure we have a well-defined, company-wide job architecture.
With 75% of our team working remotely across the U.S., we believe in inclusive and flexible work that integrates with your life. We support this with a generous 30+ days of time off (PTO, quarterly mental health days, bimonthly half-day summer Fridays, plus a company holiday break) and 10 dedicated sick days. Olo also offers health, dental and vision coverage for you and your family, a 401(k) match, company equity, and a 12 week parental leave plan.
Learn more on our People & Culture page.
Employee Engagement & Wellbeing
Employee Engagement Survey
Making progress requires careful listening and deliberate, focused action. Olo prioritizes this with our annual employee engagement survey. Using the results of our employee engagement surveys, we created an action plan to respond to the feedback we received. And in 2024, we introduced a ‘pulse survey’—a mid-year progress check on our engagement initiatives aimed at fostering a culture of continuous feedback and transparency within Olo.
Regional Meetups
As a remote-first company, in-person opportunities to build relationships and community make our team more resilient and demonstrate our values through action. Meetups often have a volunteer focus, but can also be just for fun. Examples from this year include beach clean-ups, food bank volunteering, bike tours, and baseball games.
Wellness
Olo's commitment to holistic employee wellness is supported by comprehensive health and wellness benefits, including extensive medical, dental, and vision plans, life and disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts. Our approach is anchored to four pillars: physical, mental, social, and financial wellness.
Our initiatives include guest lectures and interactive, themed challenges, as well as a partnership with Sequoia to provide topic-focused wellness activities. We also initiated a mid-year benefits and wellness review process for the first time, ensuring that our offerings continue to support and benefit team Olo.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Olo is committed to building a culture of belonging that encourages diverse voices and perspectives, and ensures equitable growth opportunities for all its employees. Our approach to DEIB is rooted in the belief that diverse voices and lived experiences strengthen our organization and drive us forward. Our DEIB values are embedded in our day-to-day practices through employee feedback, training, events, and programs; they are furthered by our people and culture initiatives.
Learn more on our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging page.
Learning & Growth
Continuous growth is part of the fabric at Olo. Through our annual development stipend, mentorship and leadership development programs, as well as our on-demand learning resources, we work to ensure all Olo team members have the tools and support they need to contribute and thrive.
Training
We continued to provide robust on-demand training for all employees and recently launched a library of 20,000 on-demand training courses. In addition, all of our managers are required to complete leadership development training and Leading Inclusively, a series that creates a foundational understanding of DEI in two-stage virtual and live formats.
Olo Ties Mentorship Program
Olo Ties is a mentorship program we launched in 2022 in response to feedback from our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging employee survey. The program aims to support women and people of color by fostering mentorship relationships that encourage career development and leadership skills. While anyone and everyone is invited and encouraged to participate, in 2023, the program expanded to include support for people with disabilities, non-binary individuals, LGBTQ+ employees, and veterans.
GROW Leadership Development
In 2023, we launched GROW, our newest leadership development program focused on developing our next generation of leaders as they guide their teams toward success and make a positive impact on the Olo employee experience. The 7-month program includes a blend of personal assessments, 1-on-1 coaching, virtual training, and a 3-day in-person session at Olo’s headquarters in New York. Two cohorts of 15 participants each completed the program in its inaugural year.
Goal
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We promote a culture of active participation and generous community support, whether through volunteering, financial donations, or leveraging our platform and our technology for good. Through our volunteer time off (VTO) and donation-matching programs, every team member has the opportunity to contribute to causes they care about and to magnify their social impact.
Olo for Good engages employee volunteers across our organization to make a positive impact in the communities where we live and work. By joining Pledge 1%, we have committed to allocating 1% of our time, products, and equity toward organizations and initiatives that align with our mission and values.
Each year, the Olo for Good Committee recommends annual and strategic grant recipients to our donor-advised fund, Tides Foundation. Our annual grant recipients have a focus in one or more of our pillar areas; our strategic grant recipients work on social justice issues and provide disaster relief.
• Advancing all aspects of racial, ethnic and gender diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Providing relief and support for the restaurant industry and its front-line workers
• Ending childhood hunger and increasing access to food
• Protecting natural resources and reducing waste and emissions
Time
Olo actively supports its employees' charitable efforts with our donation-matching and VTO programs. Each Olo team member receives eight paid hours each year to volunteer at an eligible nonprofit they are passionate about. In addition, Olo amplifies the impact of our employees' generosity by matching their donations up to $500 per employee every year to eligible nonprofit organizations.
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These are just some of the things we've done to make it easier on Olo team members to volunteer and dontate:
• We implemented a new donation management tool called Brightfund to help simplify the donation tracking process and provide enhanced data insights.
• To boost participation in our matching donation program, we lowered the minimum donation amount to $15.
• We created more in-person and virtual opportunities to volunteer to causes connected to current events, as well as organizations chosen by our ERGs.
• We encouraged more employees to volunteer by including VTO opportunities as part of team off-sites.
Equity
Since its founding in 2021, Olo for Good’s annual grant cycle has awarded $9.3+ million to non-profit organizations through its donor advised fund (DAF) partner, Tides Foundation. We regularly monitor the impact of our DAF recipients through written quarterly reports and in-person meetings. These were the organizations that received funding in 2024:
Through our DAF, we also provide strategic grants that respond to social justice issues and natural disasters. To date we’ve provided more than $60,000 in grants to nonprofits, including International Committee of the Red Cross, The Trevor Project, Everytown for Gun Safety, Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, and the Maui Food Bank.
In addition to Olo for Good’s annual and strategic grants, we provide each of our Employee Resource Groups (ERG) with $5,000 to donate to a charity of their choice that feels authentic to their mission and goals. Those organizations included Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), ACLU, Girls Who Code, Organic Farmers Association, and Chow.
Product
Olo is enabling Emma’s Torch’s (one of our annual grant recipients) digital ordering capabilities by waving our fees for our Ordering and Dispatch modules. We are actively working to partner with additional nonprofit organizations to see how our platform can help them streamline their business and enhance their customers’ experience.
We’re also using our products and platform to create opportunities for our customers and partners to support their communities. For example, we created an Open Donation functionality where restaurants can add a donation option to their menu to benefit any nonprofit of their choosing.
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Ensuring digital accessibility is crucial to our ESG strategy and to our aim of creating an inclusive environment where our platforms and technology are accessible to everyone. We offer Americans with Disabilities Act compliance guidance to our customers to help make their digital services accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. We also work to ensure that our own website is accessible.
Goal
Climate Strategy
In 2023, our increase in scope 3 emissions was a result of additional travel, as we created more opportunities for in-person meetings for all teams, including meetings and VTO events with our C-team. We also increased our annual marketing investment and accelerated our go-to-market activities. While marketing is a small portion of our overall emissions, that, plus travel contributed to an increase in our scope 3 emissions. We are still working towards achievable reductions and mitigating future avoidable emissions.
Our reduction in our Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions can be attributed to the new location of our headquarters in a smaller office space which enabled us to consume less natural gas and electricity.
As part of our ongoing efforts to mitigate our emissions, in 2024 we plan to launch a supplier code of conduct that includes environmental sustainability guidelines.
We continue to track our carbon footprint, look for ways to reduce our cloud computing usage, and lessen our carbon intensity, including optimizing our servers and working with providers that have carbon reduction plans.
GHG Emissions
Energy Usage
Total energy consumed within the organization (gigajoules)
Percentage grid electricity energy (as % of total energy)
Offsets & Credits
While we are in the early stages of these efforts, we are committed to using high-quality, additive, verifiable carbon credits to offset some of our emissions. In 2023, we established a carbon offset budget for 2024 and continued with our ongoing annual GHG emissions reporting.
In addition, we pinpointed business travel emissions as an area difficult to mitigate as our business grows. As a result, we are committed to offsetting domestic travel emissions starting with 100% of our 2023 travel offset through purchasing 928 metric tons of carbon credits. We will continue to look for methods to mitigate our business travel emissions through internal policies and controls. These upcoming efforts are intended to help us reduce our scope 3 emissions, as well as help us achieve our goal to offset 100% of our scope 1 and scope 2 emissions by 2025.
Minimizing Our Environmental Footprint
As part of our commitment to sustainability, we are actively refining our cloud computing practices, which decreases our carbon footprint. By optimizing server efficiency and collaborating with providers who are dedicated to carbon reduction, we're enhancing our operational sustainability.
We also aim to help the restaurant industry operate more sustainably by offering waste reduction options to customers. Minimizing unnecessary plastic usage and waste is aligned with our overall environmental sustainability strategy. Since 2022, our platform has included a feature enabling guests to opt out of receiving plastic utensils with their orders. To date, more than 200 brands have used this functionality.
Olo Green, our grassroots and volunteer-led Employee Resource Group (ERG), plays a critical role in advancing our climate strategy by championing eco-consciousness throughout our remote-first workforce. Olo Green engages employees with educational resources, volunteer opportunities, and a variety of sustainability-focused events.
From donation-matching campaigns to upcycling challenges to sharing ideas for sustainable product swaps, Olo Green's efforts encourage employees to adopt more sustainable habits in their daily lives. In April 2023, Olo Green, in partnership with our Employee Engagement team, led the first annual Earth Month, a month-long series of employee awareness campaigns and volunteer events. This year, the group is working to develop and publish a work from home green guide, as well as initiate a no-waste and plant-based recipe sharing program.
Learn more about our ERGs
1,624
Refillable water bottle reuses
48.72
lbs of waste diverted
10 lbs.
Nearly 10 pounds of ocean waste prevented
Fill it Forward
In 2023, Olo Green continued its partnership with Fill it Forward to encourage Olo employees to use refillable water bottles and coffee mugs to reduce waste. Participating employees received a Fill it Forward QR-code sticker, which they scan every time they refill their water bottle to track how much waste they are saving. Our goals for 2024 are to reach 70 active users as well as add Fill it Forward stickers to every new hire kit.
Goal
ESG Governance and Oversight
Sound governance, values, and ethics are the foundation of our business and ESG program. Our dedicated ESG Team, supported by executive sponsors and our board of director’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee, oversees all our ESG initiatives and goals across the organization.
We aim for transparency and accountability, regularly reviewing our progress, setting achievable targets, and sharing clear status updates. Our Code of Conduct, which is overseen and approved by our Board of Directors, ensures that we collectively uphold our values and ethics. This structured approach underpins our governance efforts and helps us drive positive change.
ESG Governance Structure
As part of our efforts to advance our collective skills and knowledge of sustainability at all levels of our company, our ESG team has regular meetings with the Executive Sponsors, shares relevant updates at monthly All Hands meetings, and regularly shares materials and presentations with both our executive team and Board of Directors.
Responsible Procurement
We are committed to launching a responsible procurement program that includes social and environmental considerations in all of our vendor assessments. To this end, we introduced a new vendor intake form that asks about sustainability and social impact disclosures and programs. Since the new form was implemented 100% of all new vendors have been assessed. We also conducted an internal audit to determine which of our existing vendors have sustainability and impact programs. 100% of our vendors with contracts of $100,000 or more have been assessed as part of this audit.
Additionally, we are working toward publishing a supplier code of conduct that ensures all of our suppliers adhere to Olo’s standards for DEIB, environmental sustainability, and ethical and responsible business practices.
Corporate Governance & Ethics
Our employees and Board are expected to adhere to the principles outlined in our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which is approved and overseen by our Board. Our Code of Conduct is publicly available on our website, and all employees receive training during our onboarding process and annually thereafter.
We understand the importance of risk oversight and management. Our Board has overall responsibility for risk oversight and is responsible for monitoring and assessing our risk management process. Olo’s General Counsel and the Audit Committee of our Board oversee any governance or ethics violations and take appropriate action.
Ethics & Integrity Compliance Training
Olo requires annual training to ensure our policies, values, and ethics are upheld by our employees. These are self-paced training courses that equip our team with essential skills for ethical decision-making and integrity in business. Additionally, all new employees are required to complete our Legal 101 training as part of their onboarding.Yearly training courses required for all employees:
• Code of Business Conduct & Ethics
• Preventing Harassment & Discrimination
• Security Awareness
Governance, Risk, and Compliance Committee
To forward our commitment to ethical business practices and privacy, we established a Governance, Risk, and Compliance Committee (GRC) to centralize risk management efforts, provide a clear understanding of our risk landscape, and enable informed decision-making and resource allocation. The committee meets regularly and includes members of our leadership team as well as specialists, including our General Counsel, Chief Information Security Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief People Officer, and Chief Financial Officer.
Learn more on our Investor Relations Page.
Cybersecurity & Data Privacy
At Olo, safeguarding our customer’s guest and business data is a responsibility we don’t take lightly. We view cybersecurity and data privacy as business critical. Our dedicated in-house cybersecurity teams, led by our Chief Information Security Officer, monitor our platform, conducting regular vulnerability assessments, and implementing necessary safeguards. We take privacy seriously when developing technology, prioritizing a focus on the protection of customer data and complying with applicable laws, regulations, and contractual obligations.
In 2023, we advanced our cybersecurity framework by executing our first externally facilitated tabletop exercise to enhance our incident response readiness. In 2024, we aim to include more of our senior leaders in these exercises, ensuring our entire team is prepared for critical decision-making in emergency scenarios. We also appointed a new Head of Risk for our payment team and a Head of Privacy. These new roles will help us take a more proactive approach to navigating the complex regulatory environment as our technological capabilities and company continue to grow.
We have continued to uphold our SOC 1, Type 2 and SOC 2, Type 2 and PCI-DSS compliance, as well as update and refine our Security Policy, tools and practices as needed. All of these efforts demonstrate our strong commitment to data privacy and security as foundational elements of our ESG strategy.
Materiality Matrix
Our materiality matrix illustrates the environmental, social, and governance topics of highest influence on our business success and importance to our stakeholders. The material topics of highest priority are depicted in Tier 1, the uppermost band to the right.
The use of “materiality” for the assessment is intended to reflect our ESG priorities and is a broader standard than used in our financial disclosures. The term does not carry the same meaning as it does under U.S. securities laws and does not speak to the materiality of those issues to Olo as a whole.