What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2017 Corporate Responsibility Report Woolworths identified a range of material issues, such as employee conditions, wellbeing and communications, energy and emissions, end-to-end reduction of waste, labour rights in the supply chain. Among these, making healthy choices easier for its customers stands out as a key material issue for Woolworths.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Woolworths engages with:

Stakeholder Group

Consumers

Customers

Employees

Government

Investors

Peers

Suppliers

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics, Woolworths carried out an assessment of its material sustainability issues using, among others, customer insights and employee surveys.

What actions were taken by Woolworths to make healthy choices easier for its customers?

In its 2017 Corporate Responsibility Report Woolworths reports that it took the following actions for making healthy choices easier for its customers:

• Improving the nutritional profile of brand foods
• In 2009, Woolworths adopted the Food and Health Dialogue targets, a joint government and food industry initiative focusing on reducing the sodium content of foods from nine commonly consumed categories. In 2017, Woolworths met all targets when it completed a 20% salt reduction across seven hams and 30% salt reduction in Woolworths cheese slices.

• Committing to health and nutrition targets
• When the New Zealand government launched the Obesity Action Plan in 2016, Woolworths’s New Zealand team pledged to commit to health and nutrition targets. This included nutrition renovations, at least one confectionery free checkout in 95% of stores, nutrition information on the website and health stars on front of pack.

• Using the health star rating
• Over 80% of Woolworths’s own brand range – that’s more than 2,000 products – has the voluntary health star rating on front of pack. Customer research found shoppers like the simplicity of the health star ratings, to make ‘at 
a glance’ choices. These ratings appeal to time poor shoppers, to those less confident in their food health knowledge and to families, making it easy to point out healthier choices to children.

• Collaborating with nutrition experts
• Woolworths has a team of accredited nutritionists to guide healthier product development, food labelling and communications. Transparent labelling, the removal of additives and an improved nutritional profile of Woolworths’s products help its customers make better-informed choices when shopping.

• Joining the Healthy Food Partnership
• Woolworths is an invited member of the Healthy Food Partnership. This is a joint initiative between government, industry, retailers and public health advocates, to improve the dietary habits of all Australians by making healthy food choices easier.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standards addressed in this case are:

1) Disclosure 416-1 Assessment of the health and safety impacts of product and service categories

2) Disclosure 417-1 Requirements for product and service information and labeling

 

Disclosure 416-1 Assessment of the health and safety impacts of product and service categories does not correspond to any SDG.

Disclosure 417-1 Requirements for product and service information and labeling corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
• Business theme: Product and service information and labeling

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
• Business theme: Compliance with laws and regulations

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by Woolworths, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

Note to Woolworths: With each case study we send out an email requesting a comment on this case study. If you have not received such an email please contact us.

What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2015 Corporate Responsibility Report Woolworths identified a range of material issues, such as supplier relationships, communication and collaboration, end to end reduction of waste, labour rights in the supply chain, environmentally responsible sourcing, energy and emissions, product quality, safety, availability and range. Among these, as Australia’s second largest private sector employer and New Zealand’s largest private sector employer, employing 197,426 people in Australia, promoting workplace diversity stands out as a key material issue for Woolworths.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The organization should identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups Woolworths engages with:

Stakeholder Group

Consumers

Customers

Employees

Government

Investors

Peers

Suppliers

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

With Woolworths’ original Sustainability Strategy drawing to a close, work has began on preparing a wider Corporate Responsibility Strategy through to 2020. To prepare this, Woolworths had an independent assessment carried out to review its key material sustainability issues.

The AccountAbility AA 1000 Assurance Standard (2008) principle of materiality and their Five Part Materiality Test were used as a basis for the assessment, to identify and prioritize issues relating to:

• Financial impacts
• Policy-related performance
• Business peer-based norms
• Stakeholder behaviour and concerns
• Societal norms

During the assessment, all of Woolworths’ business divisions and a wide range of external stakeholders were considered, including consumers, customers, employees, government, investors, peers and suppliers.

Vital information was obtained through sources such as customer insights, employee surveys, strategic priorities and targets, the Advantage Report, traditional and social media reviews and industry sustainability benchmark indices. The issues were categorized as either ‘Material’, of ‘High Stakeholder Interest’, of ‘High Woolworths Interest’ or none of these.

What actions were taken by Woolworths to promote workplace diversity?

In its 2015 Corporate Responsibility Report Woolworths set the following targets for promoting workplace diversity, based on the company’s approach to materiality – on taking action on what matters, where it matters:

• Improving the representation of women in executive and management roles

More than half of Woolworths’ workforce are women, Woolworths is committed to improving their representation in executive and management roles. In 2014, Woolworths reached its target to have 33% of leadership roles (within two levels below Woolworths’ CEO) filled by women, a year ahead of Woolworths’ commitment to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Women hold 39% of management positions in Woolworths, with most of these roles based in operations. Increasing female representation at this level of management is vital in improving Woolworths’ overall gender equality in the business. Woolworths’ CEO, Grant O’Brien, is a member of the Male Champions of Change, a group of 22 CEOs committed to achieving change on issues related to gender equality in organisations and communities. As part of his commitment, Woolworths is implementing a new workplace flexibility program, WoWFlex, which currently involves more than 550 employees. This pilot program is focused on encouraging flexible work and is supported by a new flexibility policy and an activity-based working model. At Woolworths, the average gender pay gap is less than the average national gender pay gap. Woolworths does have more work to do, to close the gap. Woolworths is reviewing remunerations for a number of levels of employment, to spot gaps and to set suitable targets for improvement.

• Creating employment opportunities for indigenous Australians

In line with the commitment outlined in Woolworths’ Reconciliation Action Plan, Woolworths continues to focus on closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians by means of employment strategies. To create the best employment opportunities Woolworths collaborates with external partners on community-based pre-employment programs. By means of a combination of soft skills training, in store work experience and ongoing mentoring, 84% of participants successfully reach 26 weeks of employment. Other pathways to employment are internships and the Graduate program. Woolworths continued its membership of the Business Indigenous Network, coordinated through the Business Council of Australia, which creates opportunities for greater participation of indigenous people in the workplace. Woolworths continues to work with Supply Nation, a body committed to growing diversity within the supply chain. In 2015 Woolworths supported two indigenous suppliers: Young Guns Container Crew, a Labour hire company and Message Stick communications.

• Supporting employees or potential employees with disabilities

Supporting people with a disability to find employment continues to be a main concern for Woolworths. For example, Woolworths continues to support all of its potential employees by collaborating closely with the Australian Network on Disability – Woolworths continues to be a gold member of the Australian Network on Disability and its Group Head of Safety and Health is a member of its board – to ensure its new recruitment system is disability friendly. Woolworths is working to train employees in Auslan (Australian Sign Language), the language of Australia’s deaf community, to enable co-workers, supervisors and managers to communicate better with hard of hearing colleagues and customers. This work was championed by Drisana Levitzke-Gray, the Young Australian of the Year and Woolworths Workplace Advocate.

• Promoting age diversity

With more than 74,000 of its employees under the age of 25, Woolworths provides many young people in Australia and New Zealand with a great start to their careers. Woolworths appreciates the experience of older workers, too, with more than 18,000 employees over the age of 55.

Which GRI indicators/Standards have been addressed?

The GRI indicators/Standards addressed in this case are:

1) G4-LA12: Composition of governance bodies and breakdown of employees per employee category according to gender, age group, minority group membership, and other indicators of diversity – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees

2) G4-LA13: Ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men by employee category, by significant locations of operation – the updated GRI Standard is: Disclosure 405-2 Ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men

Why diversity matters

• A diverse workforce drives both innovation and market growth for companies (Harvard Business Review)
• Employees from companies embracing diversity are 45 percent more likely to report that their company’s market share increased during the preceding year and 70 more likely to report that their company captured a new market (Harvard Business Review)
• Workplace diversity across a number of dimensions, like education or personality, improves a group’s performance and creativity (Stanford Graduate School of Business)
• Diversity enhances a group’s ability to manage conflict (Stanford Graduate School of Business)
• Gender-diverse teams are more productive compared to single-gender ones (MIT News)
• Switching from a single-sex office to a gender-diverse one could increase revenues by approximately 41% (MIT News)

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

Research by well-recognised institutions is clearly proving that responsible companies can look to the future with optimism.

 

 

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References:

1) This case study was compiled using published information by Woolworths which is located at the links below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses but made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following links:

https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/186121_corporate-responsibility-report-2015.pdf (October 2015)

http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au/page/Who_We_Are/ (July 2016)

2) http://www.fbrh.co.uk/en/global-reporting-initiative-gri-g4-guidelines-download-page

3) https://g4.globalreporting.org/Pages/default.aspx

4) https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

5) https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/diverse-backgrounds-personalities-can-strengthen-groups

6) http://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom-line-1007

7) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

Note to Woolworths: With each case study we send out an email to your listed address in request for a comment on this case study. If you have not received such an email please contact us.