Tesco 2011 Annual Report Download - page 40

Buying and selling our products responsibly
In every country throughout the world, our customers want safe,
affordable products. Many also want to know that what they buy
is sourced to robust ethical and environmental standards. We want
to provide all of our customers with what they want, whatever their
needs – and we believe it is possible to do this while upholding strong
standards across our business and in our supply chains.
We work in partnership with our suppliers to ensure our products are
sourced responsibly. We have local technical teams across the world,
working alongside our commercial teams to ensure that our standards
are met in every area of our business, and dedicated ethical trade
managers in key sourcing countries.
We continue to engage with our suppliers through our Trading Fairly
programme and in Bangladesh, China and South Africa we help
suppliers and stakeholders address local and national challenges.
We are also working to strengthen the sustainability of our supply
chains by assisting with export growth. In India, we held a Tesco Meet
the Buyer event in Mumbai this year and have been working with the
Joint Economic Trade Committee to help Indian exporters access
international markets.
We have listened to our customers and know that many of them want
to buy locally sourced products to support their local communities.
This year in the UK, we have reached sales of £1 billion for local products.
In Turkey, the large majority of our own-brand Kipa products are
domestically sourced, helping many small local suppliers to compete
with larger international suppliers.
Caring for the environment
As one of the world’s largest retailers, we have a clear responsibility –
and a significant opportunity – to protect the environment. Our aim
is to create more sustainable ways of doing business.
We are reducing our direct impact on the environment, working with
our suppliers to manage resources more carefully in our supply chains
and empowering our customers to create a mass movement in green
consumption.
We know that retail businesses can play a powerful role in tackling
climate change. We are determined not only to play our part, but
to play a leading role. We are working to reduce our own emissions,
while also engaging with customers, other businesses, suppliers,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and governments to
bring about change.
We are making real progress in becoming a low-carbon enterprise.
This year, Tesco was named the top retailer in the Carbon Disclosure
Project’s 2010 UK FTSE 350 and Global 500 reports for our carbon
reporting and performance. Our global direct carbon footprint in
2010/11 was 5.44 million tonnes of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent).
This year, we continued to decouple our business growth from the
growth in our carbon emissions: while our net sales area grew by 8.8%,
our carbon footprint increased by only 1.7%.
We opened the world’s first zero-carbon supermarket in Ramsey,
Cambridgeshire, in 2009. This year, we opened our first international
zero-carbon store in Jarome˘r˘, Czech Republic, and completed
two more zero-carbon stores in the UK, in Welshpool and Bourne.
Together with Unilever, Tesco co-chairs the Sustainability Steering
Group of the Consumer Goods Forum, and is leading the project
announced in December 2010 to achieve zero net deforestation by
2020. This work involves developing and committing to sustainable
supply chains for palm oil, timber, soy, paper and beef.
Providing customers with healthy choices
We want to help our staff and customers to lead healthy lives. As a
global business, we know that ‘healthy lives’ mean different things
in our different markets. We aim to work with partners in industry,
academic and technical experts and governments to understand and
help tackle key public health issues – for example, food safety, obesity
and alcohol misuse.
We want to be highly valued by our local
communities and this year, we have made
good progress with our Community Promises.
ZERO-CARBON STORES
We opened our second
zero-carbon store in Jarome˘r˘,
Czech Republic, in February.
£1bn
of locally sourced product sales
in the UK
36 — TESCO PLC Annual Report and Financial Statements 2011
BUSINESS REVIEW
Community at the heart of what we do