John Lewis Partnership plc annual report and accounts 2013

Environment (continued)

 •Refrigeration

We promote the use of reusable bags, encourage sustainability and cut down on waste and litter

Over the last four years, new water-cooled refrigeration systems have been installed in 97 stores – the majority of these into new stores. The reason for the increase in leakage is that in 2012/13 there was a smaller investment in the existing estate than was originally planned. In 2013/14 the predicted refurbishment spend has doubled which in turn will mean a greater level of water-cooled refrigeration and therefore fewer CO2 equivalent emissions.

There has also been and will continue to be much work taking place to ensure that the leakage across the estate is contained. This will include containment work across the worst leaking stores and auditors proactively visiting branches to identify leaks and take action.

• Waste We diverted 92% of our operational waste from landfill last year, by segregating more recyclable material by source, recovering energy from unavoidable food waste in an increasing number of shops, and processing general waste through Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) to extract recyclable elements from the residual, unsegregated waste.We recycled over 74% of our operational waste, including food waste, narrowly missing our target of 75% by January 2013. We met our target to divert all Waitrose shop- generated food waste from landfill by January 2013 (excluding Channel Islands) and expect to divert John Lewis hospitality food waste from landfill in 2013/14. In March 2012, we launched our Food Waste Hierarchy to help enable surplus food, fit for consumption, to be donated locally, rather than becoming waste.

• Water The Partnership delivered an improvement of 8.3% over the prior year in John Lewis in shop water consumption per square foot of trading floor area and Waitrose water consumption per square foot of trading floor area remained the same at 0.13m3 per square foot of trading floor area.

Responsible development

Our Responsible Development Framework details our approach to the development and refurbishment of our shops, offices and warehouses which can be found on the Partnership website www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr/our- environment/responsible-development.html.

During 2012/13 we commenced work to update the framework to include social, economic and environmental impacts of our whole property portfolio rather than just construction, and cover the whole-life approach to buildings including acquisition, design, build, fit-out, operations and maintenance, setting out not only what is important to us in 2013/14, but for years to come.

John Lewis Partnership buildings represented 32 of the top 42 BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) rated retail buildings. The Partnership is the only retailer to have achieved a BREEAM post-construction outstanding rating.

Packaging We place over 135,000 tonnes of product packaging on the market each year. We contribute towards investment in domestic collection and public recycling centres, promote packaging recyclability and explore ways to optimise our packaging. More information is available on our website, www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/csr/our-latest- report/our-environment/packaging.html.

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