Achievements and challenges
We report on our progress by issue throughout the Review.
Overall highlights in 2007 are included below.
Achievements in 2007
- We reduced our carbon intensity by 4.7% compared with 2006, which means we are on track to meet our ambitious targets to halve CO2e emissions from existing stores by 2020 (see Climate change - Setting an example).
- We installed 30 automated recycling units for customer use, bringing the total number installed to 45. The machines have exceeded all expectations, with over 65 million items processed in 2007 alone (see Environment - Helping customers).
- We met our target to reduce carrier bag use by 25% from the 2006 level of four billion after just 36 weeks, saving over one billion bags (see Environment - Helping customers).
- We increased sales of locally sourced products by 55% in the UK and 18% in Poland (see Suppliers - Local sourcing).
- We sold over 18 million litres of 'local choice' milk, which pays farmers 28 pence a litre, the highest price in the UK (see Suppliers - Supporting UK farmers).
- We launched an industry-leading Auditor Recognition Programme for vetting our suppliers' labour standards. All audits for Tesco must now be carried out by an approved, individually named auditor (see Ethical trading - Monitoring ethical performance).
- We continued the roll-out of front-of-pack Guideline Daily Amount (GDA) labelling to own-brand products in countries including Turkey, South Korea and Poland, where 33% of products are now labelled (see Customer choice and community - Making healthy options more accessible).
- We improved the nutritional content of over 900 products in the UK (see Customer choice and community - Making healthy options more accessible).
- We supported communities in crisis, from the Dominican Republic to China, Malaysia and the UK. In total we gave over £250,000 in donations to people affected by extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes and floods (see Community - Community investment).
- We raised a record £4.55 million for our UK charity of the year, the British Red Cross (see Community - Community investment).
- We attracted over 1,000 interviewees for 170 jobs at our first six Fresh & Easy stores, thanks to the generous pay and benefits offered (see Our people - Training and development).
Challenges in 2007
- Our Group distribution emissions decreased by 4.7% per case delivered against a target of 10%, making our target of a 50% decrease by 2012 more challenging (see Climate change - Setting an example).
- The amount of our waste that we recycled in the UK was 70%, below our target of 75%. We will improve our processes to help us meet our target of diverting 80% from landfill by 2009 (see Environment - Managing our impacts).
- Since we introduced biofuels into our fuel for customers and in our distribution fleet in the UK, there has been an active debate about whether biofuels have a positive or negative environmental and social impact (see Environment - Managing our impacts).
- We issued 40 warnings to suppliers for breaches of our environmental standards relating to pesticide use (see Our suppliers - Supporting UK farmers).
- On animal welfare, concerns were raised about the welfare standards of broiler chickens and those that produce standard eggs. Supermarkets, including Tesco, were challenged to stop selling them (see Our suppliers - Animal welfare).
- We did not meet our target to audit labour standards at 100% of high-risk suppliers during the year. Audits took place at 73% of such suppliers, a total of 455, compared with 221 carried out in 2006 (see Ethical trading - Monitoring ethical performance).