Demonstrating stewardship of the products we sell

Timber and wood sourcing

Illegal logging and de-forestation causes enormous damage to the environment and impoverishes local communities that depend on the forest for a living. We have a responsibility to ensure we understand properly the source of all the wood-based products that we sell and that we are not exacerbating the problem by purchasing materials from illegal or unknown sources. The Group has a comprehensive policy on sourcing wood products, aiming to increase the amount we buy from independently certified well-managed sources and reducing the risk of illegal or undesirable materials anywhere within our supply chain.

Homebase is a member of the WWF’s Global Forest and Trade Network (GFTN), which publicly commits the business to eliminating illegal materials from its supply chain. Homebase reports annually on the source of all its wooden products and in the latest submission, which covered over 90% of Homebase’s products, less than 9% was found to come from unknown sources or sources of concern.

Growing consumer awareness of the issues of illegal logging has prompted the development of certification schemes which prove to the consumer that products come from well-managed forests. Home Retail Group supports the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a standard that is awarded to forests that can be independently shown to meet the FSC’s criteria for being well-managed. The FSC scheme includes all the principal social, environmental and economic issues related to forest management and has been subject to rigorous independent scrutiny by experts and NGOs. It is widely regarded as the most robust and rigorous forest management standard.

Homebase is pleased to have its own Chain of Custody certificate for own-brand products, allowing it to use the FSC logo on those originating from FSC-certified forests. We now stock a wide range of FSC products covering 160 product lines that have the FSC number SA-COC-8888 (our own certificate).These include garden furniture, wallpapers and a wide range of stick timber, treated timbers and mouldings and bark chips for beds and borders.

All wood used in the Home Retail garden furniture range is either certified to the Forest Stewardship Council (58% of the total range) or comes from suppliers who are members of the WWF Global Forest and Trade Network (42% of the total range).

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Conflict diamonds

We are committed to stamping out the trade in so-called ‘conflict diamonds’. These are diamonds originating from parts of the world where there is rebellion against legitimate governments. The profits from these diamonds are often used to fund the conflict and particularly affect the countries of Angola, Cote d-Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.

We do not knowingly sell diamonds from conflict areas and have a policy that seeks written assurances from each diamond supplier that diamonds are sourced from non-conflict regions and that this is supported by an audit trail with confirmation of the country of origin of the diamonds supplied. We have contacted all our diamond suppliers setting out these requirements and they have assured us that all diamonds used in Argos’ products are legitimately sourced.

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Dirty Gold

‘Dirty Gold’ is the term used to describe gold that is mined in such a way that it contributes to water shortages and polluted water supplies. In some cases it can lead to conflict in developing countries such as Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Philippines and Guatemala.

During 2006/07, Argos was approached by CAFOD to support their campaign to prevent the use of Dirty Gold and to adopt a set of ‘Golden Rules’. CAFOD itself acknowledges that it is very difficult to trace where the gold in jewellery has been mined from and the extent to which any retailer is able to exert influence or identify country of origin (let alone a specific mine) may well be limited. Argos supports the aims of the campaign, recently applying to become a member of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practice and is working with its jewellery suppliers to demonstrate supply chain scrutiny.

Animal testing and Genetically modified organisms

We do not sell many cosmetics or similar products. For the small amount that we do supply, we seek our suppliers’ assurance that the products are not tested on animals.

Similarly, Home Retail Group stocks only a very small number of products that might potentially be the subject of genetic modification. The Group has a precautionary policy which means we do not stock GM products.

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Peat and growing media

We have a policy which ensures that none of the peat sold in Homebase comes from Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) or their European equivalents. Homebase is reducing the amount of products containing peat and also offering clearly labelled peat-free alternatives. In partnership with our key supplier, we have reduced the amount of peat in our retail bags and have included a new material that dramatically improves the growing media’s performance. This material comes from well managed FSC forests and is locally sourced.

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Paint

The manufacture, use and disposal of paint can affect the environment in a detrimental way. Therefore our policy is to continue to provide clear information about the volatile organic content (VOC) of own brand paint. We will strive to reduce the VOC of our paint, through product development, and make available water-based alternatives to traditional solvent-based products. In addition, we offer advice about the removal and safe disposal of old and leftover paint to our customers.

Sourcing from the wild

Uncontrolled sourcing of animal and plant species and minerals from the wild can have serious effects on local eco-systems which are increasingly under pressure from both trade and land development. Home Retail Group’s policy on the use of wild plants, animals and minerals for use as products can be found here.

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Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (WEEE)

The WEEE regulations became UK law on 2 January 2007. Every year the UK throws away around two million tonnes of WEEE, mostly into landfill sites, and it is one of the fastest growing types of waste. This new law makes provision for WEEE to be taken out of existing waste streams and sent to approved treatment facilities for recycling and recovery by registered processors or exporters.

We have obligations under these regulations as both a distributor and retailer of electrical products and also a producer of electrical products for own-branded and goods imported by us.

As a Distributor of electrical products, Home Retail is obliged to offer customers a free disposal route for WEEE. Given the nature of the retailing model, where store space is optimised to carry stock for customer sales ,we began working with the British Retail Consortium and other UK retailers in 2005 to find an appropriate way to fulfil our obligations. As a result of this collaboration the Distributor Take-back Scheme (DTS), solely operated by Valpak WEEE Services Ltd, has been established. It is the role of the DTS to act on behalf of its members to co-ordinate the take back of WEEE from customers via civil amenity collections. Retailers contribute to a fund to allow local authorities to upgrade their civic amenity sites for the receipt of customers’ WEEE. Home Retail is now a member of the DTS and it is in this way we will ensure our Distributor obligations are met.

As a Producer of electrical products, Home Retail is obliged to pay for the recycling and treatment of WEEE collected from the DTS registered sites. To fulfil these obligations several Producer Compliance Schemes (PCS) have come into being and Home Retail has joined the scheme known as ‘Transform’ operated by Biffa.

WEEE laws have been in force in the Republic of Ireland for almost two years now and, after some initial teething problems, the country is collecting almost twice the EU target of 4kg pa per person. This is achieved via mandatory in store take back facilities and a collection service geared to recovering WEEE on a regular basis. Unlike the UK model, when Irish customers purchase a new electrical item, they make a contribution to the cost of collection and recycling of electrical products sold prior to the introduction of the legislation. Argos and Homebase have joined the producer compliance scheme ‘WEEE Ireland’ to ensure their obligations as producers are met.

Chemicals of concern

Many of our customers have concerns about the use of certain chemicals in products, the accumulation of these ‘persistent’ chemicals in the environment and the damage they may cause. To address this issue we have developed a policy on chemical use in our supply chain. This places over 150 chemicals into one of four groups:

• Remove: the chemical should not be used in any future Home Retail Group products
• Restrict: restrict the chemical from certain products only where we believe it may pose a greater risk to human health and the environment
• Notify: keep a watching brief on certain chemicals and request suppliers to notify Home Retail Group of their existence in own-brand products
• No immediate action: no further action until a policy review, unless there is some marked change in the prevailing scientific view

During the year, we hosted a workshop for 30 supplier representatives at which we presented our policy on chemicals in products, and asked our suppliers to look for alternatives. Our voluntary approach is being supplemented by the introduction of compulsory legislation in the form of the European REACH chemical regulations, which will oblige us to record and register chemicals used in our products. We will be working closely with suppliers to ensure that they understand and can comply with these changes.

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