Annual Report and Accounts 2016


John Lewis Partnership plc


45


Our communities


We believe that the most meaningful way we can contribute to the wellbeing of the communities in which we operate is by understanding their needs and drawing on our strengths to make a lasting difference.


How we invest This year we invested £12.2m1


equivalent to 4%1 in communities, of our pre tax profits.


We encourage decision making at a local level – supporting Partners to invest their time, skills, resources and expertise into communities where they live and work. At the same time, we run centralised programmes that support our brand activity and motivate Partners to get involved.


Seedlings to seniors


During 2015/16, both of our Divisions delivered programmes, in Partnership with national charities and organisations, that complement the school curriculum, empower young people, and provide access to support networks for older people.


At John Lewis, our flagship education programme, Bringing Skills to Life, provides schools with access to curriculum resources and Partner volunteering time. It now has 3,000 schools, nurseries and children’s groups registered.


Waitrose’s successful ‘Grow and Sell’ programme is now in its third year. In 2015/16, stores continued to team up with local primary schools, providing kits containing seeds, equipment and growing instructions to get school allotments and vegetable patches up and running. The scheme has now reached almost 250,000 school children.


Barnardo’s and John Lewis united this year to support young carers and young people leaving care through fundraising activities in branch and special merchandise sales. This will help fund the charity’s ongoing work – including staffing costs, extra support for young carers outside care duties and employment advice.


To celebrate the popularity of the John Lewis ‘Man on the Moon’ Christmas advert, Partners were involved in a number of fundraising and volunteering events for Age UK. In collaboration with Waitrose as part of its isolation campaign, John Lewis branches also supported Christmas events, such as Christmas lunches at their local Age UK.


Investing in supplier communities overseas


The Waitrose and John Lewis Foundations exist to allocate investment in communities overseas in our key sourcing regions. The Waitrose Foundation, supporting fresh produce growers in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, celebrated its tenth year in 2015. Since it was launched, it has


reached over 100,000 people in our fresh produce supply chains. The strength of this model is in empowering communities to decide how the money is spent on local educational, social and healthcare projects. Waitrose and the Fairtrade Foundation also announced a new partnership that will see them share best practice and a joint ambition to build upon sustainable supply chain models.


The John Lewis Foundation invested further in projects aimed at improving livelihoods and access to education in India.


Following a pilot in 2013 with Geosansar, the Foundation has committed to investing in further financial literacy training and access to bank savings accounts for factory workers in Delhi.


Our tax contribution


The Partnership recognises that collecting and paying tax is an important contribution to the economies and communities in which we operate. In 2015/16, over £338m in taxes were borne by the Partnership and a further £718m collected.


Our priority


a Identifying social return on investment so that we can build on where we make a real difference


The Golden Jubilee Trust


The Golden Jubilee Trust is our flagship volunteering programme. We give Partners the opportunity to volunteer full or part-time with a UK registered charity for up to six months, on full pay. Since it launched in 2000, Partners have dedicated 297,0001


hours


to over 700 charities. These span causes such as youth education, care for people in need, environmental protection and the arts.


In 2015 we began to measure the impacts of the scheme on developing secondees’ skills back in the workplace as well as the impact on the charities involved.


Emma Blaikie, Selling Assistant at John Lewis Edinburgh won the Scottish Business in the Community Employee Volunteer of the Year 2015 for her successful secondment to Bloodwise. As well as raising money through her planning and execution of its Winter Walk, raising £9,000 for the charity, she devoted her time to highlighting its work. “I got so much more out of it than I ever thought I would” says Emma. “I grew in confidence and my efforts were recognised.” She has since become an ambassador for the charity.


Principle 7 The community


invested in our communities1 (cash, time, in-kind, management costs)


£12.2m 1


Data extracted from www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr which was included within KPMG LLP’s independent limited assurance scope. See www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr for their full opinion.


It’s Your Performance


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