Community and environment

We recognise that running our business responsibly is important to our customers and increasingly crucial to our growth. We are working within communities to develop our own plans as well as involve customers in the journey.

We understand that many of our customers are facing real financial pressures at the moment and they’re looking to us to help them spend less.

However, when customers shop with us they don’t leave their ethics at the door and they’re telling us it is still really important to them that we behave responsibly and honestly. They want to see Tesco doing the right things on community and the environment at the same time as providing them with the value they expect from us.

We’ve made some great progress this year and one of the things I’m most proud of is the work we have done in getting unemployed people back to work which is especially important in light of rising unemployment in the UK and elsewhere. Last year we recruited over 3,000 long-term unemployed people and other disadvantaged job seekers, up on nearly 500 the previous year.

Lucy Neville-Rolfe Corporate & Legal Affairs Director

Board of Directors

We understand the importance of behaving responsibly in all our operations. Over the past year, we have worked even harder to be a good neighbour and have strengthened our contribution to the wider communities we serve.

All communities have their own individual concerns and priorities and so each of our countries has its own Community Plan. Whilst the goals and targets are tailored specifically to each country, each plan is underpinned by five core promises: actively supporting local communities; buying and selling our products responsibly; caring for the environment; giving customers healthy choices; and creating good jobs and careers.

Our success depends on listening to our customers, and responding to their feedback by giving them what they want. Often the most significant contributions we can make to communities are at the truly local level and so over the past year we have appointed over 250 Community Champions in stores and depots across six countries. These members of staff are dedicated to working with local schools, charities and services to support the causes that matter most to our customers.

We have made a step-change in our work on climate change and environmental responsibility by taking clear leadership in these vital areas. In 2007, we set ambitious targets to reduce emissions in our own buildings and distribution networks and we continue to make good progress. Over the past year we have continued to roll-out initiatives to save energy and lower our carbon footprint in all our operations and we now have environmental stores in every country in which we operate. Since 2006/7 we have reduced our carbon intensity of new stores by 21%.

Our aim is to give customers choice by providing them with the information they need to make informed decisions when they shop through initiatives such as carbon and Guideline Daily Amounts (GDA) labelling.

In addition we have continued to work hard to help our customers to lead healthy lifestyles by providing information and services such as Tesco Diets, our online dieting, weight loss and healthy eating service, and improving nutritional content in all our foods. We also continue to find innovative ways to help customers get active. In Thailand, for example, our Getting Active with Tesco Lotus programme has inspired 2.4 million people to get involved in activities such as aerobics.

To provide the best quality, choice and value for money for our customers we need strong and constructive relationships with our suppliers. We continue to make good progress in building these long-term relationships as we recognise that our success is linked to theirs. Trading fairly is essential in all our operations and last year we met with the UKSI F (the Sustainable Investment and Finance Association) to discuss our ethical trading approach. They benchmarked us against a number of peers and concluded that we were in a leadership position in terms of good factory labour standards.

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