Walgreens 2012 Annual Report Download - page 16

Through Walgreens sustainability
efforts, the Company is reducing
costs and its carbon footprint at
the same time. Using a new
construction debris diversion
process during store remodels,
Walgreens has diverted 1.7 million
pounds of debris from landfills and
reduced construction waste costs
by almost 5 percent. As those stores
are remodeled, they’re fitted with
fluorescent and light-emitting diode
(LED) bulbs, which are brighter,
yet use less energy. In addition,
new cooler doors are added to
open-front coolers, which reduce
cooler energy usage by 70 percent
while maintaining healthy food
temperatures.
and innovation
Walgreens has a long history of commitment to continuous improvement and
innovation. That commitment stretches across the Company, as Walgreens
designs and develops new store formats, connects to customers with award-winning
applications and technologies, commits to sustainable practices and invests
in the development of new ideas across the healthcare industry. That spirit of
innovation also is alive every day in the Company’s stores and employees, as a
means to improve operations, manage costs and develop new sources of revenue.
The Company encourages its employees to personally invest in that transformation
by developing more efficient processes and ways to source merchandise and
supplies. In doing so, Walgreens is giving its employees a creative outlet for
revenue-generating workplace ideas, while creating value for shareholders and
a valuable experience for customers.
Thanks to important, employee-generated innovations, team members like
Melanie Sipe in Denver are able to spend more time getting to know their
customers and engaging them in efforts important to Walgreens and its
communities. For example, instead of making several trips to the stockroom
to replace popular items that move quickly off the shelves, Melanie now uses
a new mobile replenishment cart Walgreens introduced in more than 4,000
stores earlier this year. These carts are organized according to the store’s shelving
and stored in the stockroom, ready to roll out directly onto the sales floor.
This single process improvement has removed an average of 2.5 hours per week
from the restocking process, and upon chainwide rollout, is expected to
translate to approximately $11 million in workload efficiencies.
The Company is also improving work processes in the pharmacy. By centralizing
tasks such as data entry and phone calls, Walgreens has been able to give
community pharmacists more time to spend with customers, elevating their
work to a new level of consultative care for patients. Customer feedback shows
that when Walgreen pharmacists spend more time with patients, they’re seen as
more approachable. That can lead to better care, closer adherence to medication
regimens and improved health outcomes for patients.
In addition to working more efficiently to provide better customer service, some
of Walgreens best examples of cost savings come from its sustainability efforts.
Rooftop solar power systems, geothermal energy, state-of-the-art energy
management systems, fluorescent lamp retrofits and wind turbines are all
“green” technologies the Company is using to reduce its energy consumption.
Combined, these energy savings totaled approximately $19 million in fiscal
2012. By doing good while doing good business, the Company is able to reduce
its costs and its carbon footprint at the same time.
14 2012 Walgreens Annual Report
The value of ideas