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Page 24


Business review

Resources and relationships (continued)


(Photo captioned: We work hard to divert waste from landfill and increase recycling, as well as helping our customers to do the same)


Environment (continued)

Carbon reduction (continued)

(...Continued from page 23) the use of biofuels is a contentious issue and the long-term implications of such a solution need further consideration.

In 2009 we committed to halving the impact of our refrigeration and cooling direct emissions as well as no longer using high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) gas for refrigeration in all new shops and major refurbishments from 2010 onwards. To achieve this, we developed and implemented a new refrigeration system that uses a propane-based natural refrigerant. The first new store to utilise this system was Waitrose Altrincham, which opened in October 2009.

Responsible development

The Partnership’s programme of building, acquisition and refurbishment remains ambitious. We aim to minimise the environmental impact of our buildings, by ensuring they are all built responsibly and operate sustainably. To achieve this our Responsible Development framework, launched in February 2010 and replacing our 2007 Sustainable Construction framework, is applied to all new construction and refurbishment projects, helping us to define clear objectives and practical steps to improve the planning, design, construction and operation stages of every project.

From 2010, each new construction site will be registered and regularly assessed under the Considerate Constructors Scheme. All new shops will also be assessed by the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), a leading benchmark for sustainable design and construction best practice. We are targeting to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ on all major projects. The Partnership has also committed to increasing the use of recycled materials for all projects and to achieving a minimum of 95% building waste recycling on all new building projects in 2010 – a rate of 99% recycling was achieved during the construction of the John Lewis Cardiff store.

Water

Operationally, the Partnership is not a big user of water, but we recognise the need to use less of this increasingly scarce resource. Following a review of our estate in 2009, we made the decision to install additional water meters in all existing and new shops, allowing remote, accurate, real-time water usage to be reported and used to inform our programme of water-reduction measures.

Waste

We work hard to reduce the waste we create, develop solutions for diverting waste from landfill and increasing recycling, as well as helping our customers to do the same. John Lewis diverted 4,752 tonnes from landfill last year, equivalent to 50% of its waste. Waitrose diverted 25,387 tonnes – 53% of its waste. The ultimate goal across both trading divisions is to divert 95% of our waste away from landfill by 2013.

The Partnership has recycled components of its operational waste for many years including transit packaging materials such as cardboard and plastic, office paper, plastic cups, toner cartridges, glass, magazines, cans and bottles. More recently, as part of efforts to tackle operational food waste, an increasing number of Waitrose branches now send food waste to an anaerobic plant in Bedford to create ‘green’ electricity and high nutrient fertiliser. This process was extended to Peter Jones in 2009. However, the large-scale expansion of such a scheme is restricted by the current lack of anaerobic digestion facilities in the UK, so we are also exploring trialling on-site aerobic digestion of food waste at John Lewis Cambridge.

We continue to comply with our obligations under the Waste Electricals and Electronic Equipment Regulations. During the year we have also ensured we have been compliant with new UK regulations for producer and distributor obligations for the collection, treatment and recycling of waste batteries, introducing recycling facilities in all our shops at the end of January 2010. We also provide in-store recycling for carrier bags and mobile phones.
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