Tesco 2010 Annual Report Download - page 31

Tesco PLC Annual Report and Financial Statements 2010 29
Our business
Community
Increasingly
important for
our growth
We succeeded in
getting 6.2 million
people active across
the world
Throughout the
year we gave over
£60m in donations
to charities
We are committed to being
a responsible neighbour within
our local communities and
taking a leadership role on the
environment. This is something
our customers expect and we
believe is increasingly important
for our growth.
Caring for the environment
Over the past few years we have
played a leadership role amongst
large businesses in tackling climate
change, through our own actions and
in collaboration with our customers,
suppliers, NGOs and governments
around the world. We have made
great progress this year in reducing
CO2 emissions across our business
globally. Emissions from our baseline
2007 store and distribution centre
portfolio have fallen by 7.8% over
the past year and new stores and
distribution centres built since 2006/7
are on average emitting 28.8% less
CO2 than their equivalents in 2006/7.
We have delivered on our promise
to divert 100% of store waste in the
UK from going directly to landfill.
In 2007 Tesco invested £25m to
create a new Sustainable Consumption
Institute (SCI) at the University of
Manchester. The SCI aims to answer
some of the fundamental questions
about how to make a consumer
society sustainable.
In October, the SCI held a conference
to launch its first major report
‘Consumers: The Key to a Low-
Carbon World’. At that conference,
we committed ourselves to a new set
of challenging long-term targets: to
become a zero-carbon business by
2050; to reduce the carbon impact of
products in our supply chain by 30%
by 2020; and to help our customers
halve their own footprints by 2020.
Actively supporting local
communities
Our Values at Tesco mean that we
listen to our customers and respond
to what we hear. Customers tell us
that being part of a local community
is important to them and they look
to us to play an active role. Being at
the heart of successful, thriving
neighbourhoods is not just in the
interest of our customers. It is in our
interest too. We aim to use our size
as a force for good in society.
Throughout the year, we gave
over £60m in donations to charities
and contributions to community
projects including cause-related
marketing, gifts-in-kind, staff time
and management costs. Once again
we have donated the equivalent of
more than 1% of our profits to good
causes. Additionally, including our
Charity of the Year partnerships,
which go from strength to strength,
this year our staff raised over £7m
for charity across the Group.
We have continued to roll out
Community Champions right across
the Group. Community Champions
are staff members who dedicate paid
hours to coordinate store activities in
their local communities. The Champions
support local charities, organisations,
schools and causes that local people
really care about. We now have
Champions in seven countries.
As part of the Tesco for Schools and
Clubs scheme in the UK, this year
we gave away £13.7m of equipment
to 35,000 schools and clubs, a rise
of about 50% in both the value of
the equipment and the numbers
participating.
In the US, we ran our ‘Shop for
Schools’ project for a second year.
In this scheme, we give participating
schools US$1 for every US$20 spent
at Fresh & Easy stores. The first year
of the project helped raise over
US$130,000 for schools in California,
Arizona and Nevada, with the school
that raised the most money in each
state receiving a US$5,000 bonus.
In Turkey, our Computers for Schools
programme distributed 264 products
including computers, printers and
projectors to 60 schools. In Poland,
more than 600 schools took part in
our Tesco for Schools programme,
an environmental contest for schools
where children create a piece of art
with an environmental theme.