Best Buy 2013 Annual Report Download - page 9

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implemented an enhanced price-matching policy in the U.S. to allow customers to request that we match a price offered by
certain retail store and online operators, following a successful pilot over the fiscal 2013 (11-month) holiday season. In order to
allow this, we are focused on maintaining efficient operations and leveraging the economies of scale available to us and our
global vendor partnerships.
In addition to price, we believe our ability to deliver a high quality customer experience offers us a key competitive advantage.
We believe our dedicated and knowledgeable people, integrated online and store channels, broad product assortment, range of
focused service and support offerings, distinct store formats and brand marketing strategies are important ways in which we
maintain this advantage.
Environmental Matters
While seeking and discovering new and innovative ways to engage our customers, we also strive to lessen our impact on the
environment. Our energy efficiency strategy is focused on reducing energy use in our operations and on offering energy
efficient products and services to our customers. For our exclusive brand products, we continue to make efforts to provide
products that use less energy, are made with a reduction of toxic materials and are packaged in more responsible ways.
Continued efforts to be more environmentally conscious in our exclusive brands packaging focuses on the use of recycled
materials, non-solvent coatings and organic inks where possible.
Our energy efficient practices include a centralized automated energy management system for our U.S. Best Buy stores and
retail energy reports by store. We continue to evolve our High Performance Building Program as we remodel and update
locations. For example, where economically viable, during remodels we install skylights and dimmable lighting to reduce our
energy consumption. These energy efficiency improvements, as well as process enhancements, have helped us reduce our
carbon footprint. In calendar 2010, we set a long-term goal of reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by calendar 2020
(over a 2009 baseline). During calendar 2012, our retail stores, distribution centers and corporate offices reduced over 58,000
metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, an “absolute” decrease of 8.4 % from the previous calendar year.
Our U.S. Best Buy customers purchased over 21.2 million ENERGY STAR® certified products in calendar 2012. Through our
ENERGY STAR program, we helped our customers realize utility bill savings of over $51 million in calendar 2012. This
energy saving equates to just over 689 million pounds of CO2 avoidance, or the equivalent of removing 61,000 cars from U.S.
roads. We are also investing in partnerships that increase our product and service offerings to our customers that will allow for
more affordable energy efficient products.
Our nationwide consumer electronics recycling program allows customers to bring many consumer electronics products to our
U.S. stores for free recycling, regardless of whether they were purchased from Best Buy. This recycling program is available in
all U.S. Best Buy stores. We also collect old, inefficient appliances for recycling through a haul-away program. Best Buy has
publicly committed to recycle 1 billion pounds of consumer goods by the end of calendar 2014. From June 2008 through
December 2012, we have diverted 680 million pounds from the waste stream. We project attaining our goal in 2014.
We are not aware of any federal, state or local provisions which have been enacted or adopted regulating the discharge of
materials into the environment, or otherwise relating to the protection of the environment, that have materially affected, or are
reasonably expected to materially affect, our net earnings or competitive position, or have resulted or are reasonably expected
to result in material capital expenditures. See Item 1A, Risk Factors, for additional discussion.
We believe we can continue to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in cost effective ways that deliver value to our
shareholders, customers, employees and the communities we serve, whether in our own internal operations or through our work
to connect customers with more energy efficient solutions.
Number of Employees
At the end of fiscal 2013 (11-month), we employed approximately 165,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees
worldwide. We consider our employee relations to be good. We offer our employees a wide array of company-paid benefits that
vary within our company due to customary local practices and statutory requirements, which we believe are competitive in the
aggregate relative to others in our industry.
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