SAINSBURYS
Like any major business, our environmental agenda is shaped by external influences.
The four key drivers of our environmental programme are:
Our own environmental management strategy
We are developing a more strategic approach and increasing the involvement of our colleagues in meeting our goals. Our Energy Team has trained colleagues in energy saving techniques and those at Sainsbury’s are engaged in Stockwise, a programme to eliminate waste. In addition to regularly reporting our environmental achievements in our house magazine, the JS Journal, we have started to develop a communication process for those employees whose agreed personal business targets include specific environmental targets. We have already held two seminars in 1998 to help them develop action plans and increase their understanding of environmental issues.
We continue to champion the spread of best practice. We have published 12 Best Practice Guides and distributed them to nearly 3,000 managers. In addition, our Distribution Division has relaunched its 4 regional environment best practice groups involving 50 people from 18 depots, including those owned by contractors but managed for Sainsbury’s. Colleagues at our Basingstoke depot are implementing EMAS, which we believe will result in this site being the first retail distribution depot in the world to be certified to this standard.
Our commitment to environmental reporting is a major part of our strategy. To assist us with this, our third report, we carried out 36 interviews, drawn from key internal and external audiences – store and office managers, UK government, local authorities, consumer and environmental groups, the investment community and media. We have tried to respond to their comments on how the report could be improved by designing it in 2 clear sections. The first section provides overview information, while the second gives greater detail about our performance and achievements. Our interviewees also requested that we explain where in the life cycle of our products and business we are focusing our efforts for improvement.
The case studies in the overview section are identified by their place in the production life cycle showing the impacts we are focusing on, whether at source with suppliers, in the store, or with customers, as shown below.
Legislation
We take compliance with the law extremely seriously in all parts of our business and environmental management is no exception. However, we believe this is only a starting point and we often seek to go beyond what the letter of the law requires. We had no prosecutions on environmental issues in 1997/8.
In addition to complying with legislation, we respond to government consultation documents and participate in industry working groups on strategic environmental issues. Sainsbury’s contributed to the report on climate change by the Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment (ACBE). This was part of the UK Government’s response to the need to reduce CO2 emissions in preparation for the international agreement at the Kyoto climate change conference in December 1997. In addition, our membership of the Government’s UK Biodiversity Group resulted in our developing the Farm Biodiversity Action Plan, the first practical application at farm level of the government’s strategy. Key environmental regulations, which will continue to impact on our business in the years ahead, include the Producer Responsibility Obligation (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 and the recent Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 1998 (read more).
Consumer concerns
We regularly survey our customers for their opinions on environmental issues. We use this data to shape our policies, for example stocking more organic food; selling cleaner fuels or increasing the number of plastic recycling banks. Our Customer Relations department answers customers’ queries by phone or letter. Environmental issues accounted for 2% of all queries in 1997/8.
Pressure from NGOs
We engage in dialogue with a wide range of environmental and consumer groups and, where appropriate, work with them to achieve environmental change. For instance, our work as members of the World-Wide Fund for Nature’s “1995 Plus Group” (WWF ’95 Plus Group) is having far-reaching changes on forestry management and sourcing.
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is generally defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This requires consideration of economic progress, environmental protection and social responsibility. This is a difficult concept to translate into practical action so we have signed up to trial The Natural Step, a methodology developed in Sweden, to take steps to build the concept of sustainability into our decision making process. Sainsbury’s, one of 10 Pathfinder companies testing the concept in the UK, is running a pilot project to review the packaging of its organic product range and seek more sustainable alternatives.