our good business journey

The good business journey is an acceleration of Woolworths ongoing commitment to managing the business’ impact as it continues to grow and meet the increasing needs of South African consumers, and specifically defines a 5-year plan to 2012 in key areas.

Accelerating transformation
In addition to our own broad BEE Employee Share Ownership Scheme, we will focus on advancing skills development and pushing our ‘South Africa first’ approach even harder. Having made a start with groups such as the madumbi farmers of KwaZulu-Natal and the Beaufort West Hydroponics Project,
we remain deeply committed to increasing the number of core products sourced from BEE supplier partners.

Driving social development
We’ll work harder to drive social development by expanding the existing initiatives of the Woolworths Trust such as EduPlant and MySchool, and by introducing a programme through our stores to improve the plight of orphans and other vulnerable children. By 2012, Woolworths will be making a direct
contribution to social development in excess of R300 million per year.

Protecting the environment
Reducing the use of potentially harmful pesticides and chemicals by increasing our organic food and clothing offering, preserving natural resources by ensuring that key raw materials come from the most sustainable sources and changing the way we think about packaging will reduce our impact on the
environment. We’re committed to eliminating a third of our clothing packaging and 20% of our food packaging and to using more recycled materials, and have set ourselves a goal of reducing our water consumption by 30% by 2012.

Addressing climate change
Our goal is to reduce our relative carbon footprint by 30% by 2012 by focusing on energy savings and reducing product miles - and using the savings to explore more sustainable sources of energy and more efficient forms of transport. In addition to cutting our own electricity usage by 30%, we’re also going to be removing conventional light bulbs from our shelves, making Woolworths one of the first retailers in the world to offer only energy-saving bulbs.

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