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A cleaner, safer environment | |||||||||||
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| As a business which operates in so many communities,
we work hard to minimise our impact on the local environment. Much of this work
goes on behind the scenes in our stores, at our depots and in our suppliers’
premises, well beyond what our customers see on their weekly shopping trip. For
many years now, we’ve actively supported various worldwide environmental
initiatives and the past 12 months have been no exception. Board Responsibility Environmental issues are represented at Board level by our Supply Director Lawrence Christensen. Since 1996 we have set ourselves specific environmental targets, and in 2000 we became an early signatory of MACC2, which is part of the Department of Environment’s Making a Corporate Commitment campaign to encourage companies to improve the quality of their environmental reporting. Integrated Crop Management We have been strong supporters of Integrated Crop Management, a system which minimises the use of pesticides on fresh produce. All the fresh fruit and vegetables we source in the UK are supplied by growers who are members of the Assured Produce Scheme. This involves regular, independent audits to ensure that best practices are being maintained, supported by visits from our own team of technologists. For produce sourced outside the UK, we are working with other major European retailers to develop a similar scheme. The majority of our suppliers already support this initiative. Ethical Trading We are a corporate member of the Ethical Trading Initiative and are currently ensuring that ETI principles are communicated to all our suppliers. We have also carried out a review of our toy suppliers in the Far East, ensuring that their employment policies are of an acceptable standard. We have now established a scoring system for all new suppliers and produced a best practice manual to help them achieve the standards we expect. Reducing Packaging During the year we launched a new computer system to help cut the amount of packaging we use. We saved nearly 500 tonnes of plastic. We have also replaced many plastic shelf trays with recyclable cardboard versions and scored a world first by using returnable trays for tinned products. Our focus on merchandising ranges in a more appealing way has also resulted in less packaging and smaller labels being used. Our lorries continue to backhaul used packaging from stores for recycling – over the past 12 months nearly 90,000 tonnes of cardboard and 4,500 tonnes of plastic film were recovered. Energy As part of our drive to reduce energy costs in our stores, we are currently upgrading much of our refrigeration equipment, installing enhanced controls which cut their energy consumption by up to 10%. |
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