Joint winner — Companies and organisations with innovative environmental strategies that improve business performance: Woolworths
We all love to shop at Woolies. Ignoring the dent it can cause in the credit card, foodies winkle out scrumptious edibles, mothers trust the quality clothing and health nuts enjoy the fact that in 2007 Woolworths removed hydrogenated vegetable oils and 31,6 tonnes of salt from its recipes.
Greenies have found a home there too — for free-range eggs and chickens, hormone-free Ayrshire milk and organic vegetables, among other things. Woolies was one of the first South African retail stores to introduce organic food and it aims to boost organic food sales to more than R1-billion by 2012. It has nearly 100 lines of organic food and even organic cotton clothes.
“For the past decade we’ve been on a good food journey,” says chief executive Simon Susman. “We have expanded this to embrace our entire footprint, directly and upstream, to include the important issue of climate change.”
Environmentalists will appreciate further little details. For example, stores recycle hangers through Hangerman, a company co-founded by Woolworths. It collects all unwanted plastic hangers, sorts and cleans them — using a workforce that includes disabled workers — and sells them back to clothing suppliers at a discount. More than a million hangers were reused in 2006/07.
Another green initiative has seen the placement of recycling bins in stores where customers can discard used energy-saving light bulbs (they should be recycled because they contain mercury).
Plans are afoot to ensure Woolies packaging will carry recycling sorting symbols, to help shoppers to work out which items can have future lives and which go one way — to the landfill.
These are a few of the hundreds of innovations that have helped the retailer win international recognition for its Good Business Journey. It was named Responsible Retailer of the Year at the illustrious World Retail Awards held in Spain in April, beating several international retailers in the process.
Susman says the company is not resting on its laurels: “In April last year we reviewed our sustainability plans and targets. The Good Business Journey is a five-year sustainability plan to protect people and planet. It was adopted by the board and was implemented across the entire business.”
Justin Smith, former senior manager of governance and sustainability at the Nedbank Group, recently joined Woolworths as manager of the Good Business Journey. His position is four down from the top and a sustainability committee was created at board level.
Environmental issues are integrated into all business units and the breadth of environmental interventions is admirable. The Good Business Journey has set stringent targets to be achieved by 2012 in four key priority areas:
Transformation: supporting South African and previously disadvantaged suppliers, advancing skills and sharing ownership;
Environmental focus: increasing organic and free-range food sales fourfold to more than R1-billion a year and organic-content clothing sales to more than R1-billion a year. Plans include accelerating conservation and biodiversity programmes and reducing packaging. Woolworths was the first retailer to develop and support badger-friendly honey, in cooperation with the WWF. It is now working with the Landmark Foundation to develop predator-friendly meat — by finding eco-friendly solutions to deter predators such as leopards that attack livestock;
Climate change: reducing its carbon footprint by 30% from the 273 010 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year that it produces. This will be achieved by reducing transport emissions by 20% and electricity usage by 30%; sourcing food regionally wherever possible; and clearly labelling food imported by air; and
Social development: increasing its social contributions to more than R300-million a year. An in-store My Planet card will enable customers to make contributions to environmental initiatives. Partnerships will be established with the Amy Biehl Foundation, South African National Council for the Blind, I Care, the National Horse Trust and The Wildlife Foundation.
The company also aims to plant 17 000 trees by 2012 (one for each member of staff) via the greening NGO, Food and Trees for Africa. The Woolworths Trust EduPlant programme, already administered through Food and Trees for Africa, teaches communities about food gardening, food security, better health and nutrition using permaculture principles.
Susman says Woolworths customers, from the super wealthy to the less affluent, are acutely aware of social and environmental issues. “Our major challenges include setting realistic goals, yet keeping our products competitive. It’s a journey, you cannot do it overnight.
“For example, five years ago we thought biofuels were good. Now we realise they threaten food security. Plastic is traditionally seen as ‘the enemy’ — in fact, if one does a total energy analysis, plastic uses only a fraction of the oil produced and far less oil to transport than glass.”
The Greening the Future judges said Woolworths stood out as a leader for the depth and breadth of its environmental transformation plan. It had set itself ambitious five-year targets that it was applying across all levels of its business.
“By taking environmental concerns into the core of its business, the company captures the definition of this category — which is to use innovative environmental strategies to improve business performance,” the judges commented. The company was changing behaviour in the elite end of the consumer market and, more recently, in the mass market, they said.