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John Lewis Partnership plc Annual Report and Accounts 2014


CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT CONTINUED


Sustainability update This year has seen us continue to lower the environmental impact across our estate, in our products and in our supply chains. We have also invested Partner time in community activities and in encouraging customers to live more sustainable lives.


– Our new Waitrose store in Chipping Sodbury is 40% more carbon efficient than the equivalent existing shop.


– John Lewis launched a trial Energy Efficiency Service – selling heating systems and insulation, solar panels and home energy control devices – and we are participating in a trial with the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to give customers information on the lifetime electricity running costs of laundry products.


– We were highly praised by WWF in its ‘Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard’ for our leading efforts in sourcing segregated sustainable palm oil.


– At John Lewis we are developing a sustainable fibre guide to help buying Partners make more sustainable purchasing decisions.


– Partners continued to invest their time and skills in the local community through the continued work of the Golden Jubilee Trust, and through the launch of dedicated programmes at Waitrose and John Lewis that support local schools in the curriculum.


– Through the ‘Waitrose way’ commitments, Waitrose continued to encourage customers to make small changes in the way they shop and live.


We recognise that managing sustainability issues across our complex and growing business is only going to become more challenging and so, for 2014/15, we are adopting a pan-Partnership process to update our views of the issues that are most material to our business, allowing us to prioritise and then plan and invest accordingly.


2014/15 Outlook There are more encouraging signs for the economy as a whole and, although this has not yet come through as a significant increase in consumer spending, I am cautiously optimistic that we will see improvements this year. I am confident that however quickly the UK economy emerges from this prolonged period of slow growth, the Partnership is well positioned to continue to strengthen its competitive position and to grow market share in both Waitrose and John Lewis.


In 1864, John Lewis opened a draper’s shop on the same site that our flagship occupies on Oxford Street. We’ll be marking our 150th anniversary with celebrations throughout the summer, bringing to life the original vision of John Spedan Lewis through activities in our shops, reviving and reinterpreting designs from our 150 year history, and creating new collaborations with some of the brands we work with today.


Sir Charlie Mayfield Chairman, John Lewis Partnership


“ You don’t achieve the progress we have in a straight line: there will be bumps along the way. It’s how you respond to those bumps  organisation and we have been agile and responsive.”


Sir Charlie Mayfield


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