A good example of an environmental report is the Boots report for 1999/2000. This was published as a separate report consisting of around 20 pages. Extracts from the report are reproduced below to give you a feel for it. Note that the report is based around 'key performance indicators'. These are monitored against targets. We emphasise that this is not the only possible approach to environmental reporting.
Environmental policy statement
We have a responsibility as a company to take proper care of the environment on behalf of our
shareholders, customers, staff and the communities in which we operate. Caring for the environment is an essential part of the way we run our business.
We are committed to managing responsibly the way in which our activities affect the environment by: Optimising the use of energy
Ensuring efficient use of materials Encouraging re-use and recycling
Incorporating the principle of sustainable development
By integrating environmental considerations into our everyday activities, the environment will be managed alongside other business considerations such as safety, quality and value.
Management
We will set objectives and targets for those activities which significantly affect the environment and we will measure our performance over time. Details of our progress will be published at least annually.
Environmental audits and inspections will be undertaken to monitor our progress against this policy. Within the individual businesses there is a clear structure of responsibility devolved into each business via an appointed manager with overall environmental responsibility. At a corporate level, the Environmental Affairs team co-ordinates environmental issues for the company through the Environmental Working Party. The company's significant impacts have been assessed and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have been selected to track performance over time. Data to monitor these is generated via environmental
management systems that are incorporated into business systems and regularly audited.
Environmental management is integrated into everything we do from product development to the supply chain and staff training.
Key performance indicators 99/00
Energy
In 1999/2000 total company energy use decreased by 5.3 per cent, while energy efficiency improved by 10.2 per cent.
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Over the last four years energy efficiency, as measured by kWh per $ thousand turnover, has improved by 12 per cent overall, maintaining a positive trend.
Transport
Commercial transport efficiency improved by 2 per cent.
Alongside the ongoing internal data verification programme, improvements to data management systems have resulted in additional transport data being reported for 1998/99. Transport efficiency over the last three years, as measured by litres of diesel consumed per $ million turnover, maintained a positive trend overall with a 2 per cent improvement recorded over the last year.
The efficiency of inventory delivery, as measured by the volume of inventory delivered per 1000 litres of fuel, reduced by 3.7 per cent at Boots The Chemists. This is due to a combination of factors, including new store openings and the closure of an old warehouse in an urban centre (see Progress against targets). The move to lower sulphur diesel for commercial fleets has also had a negative impact on fuel efficiency. Trials of alternative fuel vehicles have continued.
Carbon dioxide and global warming
In the last year, like-for-like CO2 emissions decreased by 4.4 per cent.
The main greenhouse gas associated with the company's operations is CO2 arising primarily from energy
use in manufacturing and retailing, and emissions from its transport fleets. Some 84 per cent of total emissions relate to energy consumption. Similarly, around 85 per cent of transport emissions relate to commercial fleets, with around 8 per cent to company cars.
The company's modern combined heat and power (CHP) energy centre on the head office site continues to contribute to a global reduction in annual CO2 emissions of around 44,000 tonnes compared with
purchasing electricity from third party suppliers. This represents a reduction in the company's total CO2
emissions of around 15 per cent each year. The saving is achieved through the re-use of waste heat from the electricity generation process to generate usable steam.
Waste
Around 26,000 tonnes of waste was recovered through recycling or incineration with heat recovery. As the business is primarily retailing, the largest proportion of waste (91 per cent) is transit packaging and general office waste that is mainly non-hazardous. Other wastes arise from manufacturing processes, laboratories, garage and pharmacy operations.
Of the 54,000 tonnes of material identified as waste, some 26,000 tonnes (48 per cent) was recovered through recycling or incineration with heat recovery. The majority of the remaining 28,000 tonnes of waste (94 per cent) was disposed to landfill.
Quantifying the weight of non-hazardous waste is difficult due to small quantities of unweighed waste being collected from a large number of retail locations by multiple collection vehicles, and shopping centres amalgamating non-hazardous waste from a number of retailers for bulk collection. Because of this, although the company's data collection systems for waste have continued to improve, it is unlikely that year-on-year comparisons will be meaningful for some time to come.
Packaging
In the last year the company handled some 162,000 tonnes of packaging.
Minimising packaging is a complex business challenge where a number of considerations have to be balanced. These include evaluating the wide variety of roles performed by packaging (from improved keeping qualities for food and medical products to optimal shapes for efficient stacking and
transportation) together with aspects such as design, quality, performance, cost and environment. In addition, several factors mask the performance that can be directly attributed to packaging management. In particular, consumer and business demands in retailing require ongoing changes to the scale of product ranges and the general product mix within stores, which can produce conflicting trends in packaging use.
The issue will remain as a key performance indicator given its perceived environmental impact in the retail and manufacturing sectors, but it is unlikely that a valid, quantitative comparison of company performance will be developed in this area.
Water and effluent
In the last year Boots Contract Manufacturing reduced the effluent load per unit produced by more than 18 per cent.
Centralised monitoring of water consumption continued with substantial effort being put into the development of robust data management systems. Water conservation in Boots Contract Manufacturing, across all production areas, has again been an area of considerable focus. Improvements such as the elimination of 'once-through' water cooling systems have been implemented in key areas. Fitting improved temperature controls to a tempering belt reduced steam demand as well as saving cooling water.
Water use has been benchmarked across departments and factories to enable sharing of best practice in successful conservation strategies. A computerised data reporting system in the main factory on the Nottingham site allows water use profiles to be analysed. This has been a significant factor in bringing about change. For example, over the past four years water consumption in the factory over the Christmas shutdown period has been reduced from 60 per cent to less than 10 per cent of that on a normal working day. This experience has been shared and improved water metering is now being installed at the Airdrie factory.
In other areas external factors, such as the reduced use of preservatives in products and third party customer specifications that predefine equipment-cleaning procedures, resulted in some increased water use. Overall, water use per unit of production was reduced by 2.6 per cent against a target of 3 per cent. Reducing waste discharged as effluent has been targeted in several key areas. Process changes have brought about material savings at Nottingham and, at Airdrie, a new system for cleaning pipes between product batches has reduced the amount of water required for this operation by 90 per cent. Together, all these initiatives reduced the loss of material to drain by more than 18 per cent (as measured by chemical oxygen demand and solids load per unit 'produced').