Last year's targets

How we performed in 2007/08

Community

• Deliver community health promotion activity aligned to our core healthcare offer including support for our suncare consultants with local sun safety activity and Stop Smoking activity (in partnership with Quit charity).
  
  Achieved. In January 2008 we launched a new Change One Thing Schools website for secondary schools focusing on helping students to make healthy choices. The site has been well received by both teachers and students, and received praise from government.  We also created new resources for our suncare consultants to use to support local community activity to promote sun safety, and piloted an in-store health & wellbeing evening for women newly diagnosed with breast cancer.
   
• Raise the profile of our www.bootslearningstore.com (This link will open in a new window) website.
  
  Achieved. The number of visits to the site has continued to grow since the site was launched 5 years ago. There were more than 160,000 visits during the last year, which was a 17% increase on the previous year. New content is under development.
   
• Involve 150 store colleagues in Healthy Communities volunteering activity by the end of September 2007, promoting the programme more widely and sharing success stories by the end of March 2008.
  
  Ongoing. We achieved a successful pilot programme, which exceeded targets. The future of the programme is now being considered as part of a wider review of our volunteering programmes.
   
• Increase the £0.2 million raised in 2006/07 by our people for our charity partners - Breast Cancer Care, BBC Children in Need and new partner The Eve Appeal.
  
  Achieved. We delivered a strong programme of activity and increased the levels of engagement of our people across all our charity partners raising over £0.3 million.
   
• Maximise the awareness of Boots Charitable Trust.
  
  Achieved. There has been a marked improvement in the quality and quantity of applications to Boots Charitable Trust, which increased by over 15% on the previous year.
   
• Visit thirty local authorities and city partnerships engaged with town centre management and Business Improvement Districts across the UK, providing support and assistance to help the engagement of our store managers.
  
  Achieved. We visited over 50 locations throughout the UK,  maintaining the company’s track record of engagement in local communities, and continuing to support local store manager’s involvement in external partnerships.
   

Environment

• Use the expertise of our Chemicals Working Group to assess the long-term environmental impacts and fate of chemicals, and systematically review their long term implications
  
  Achieved. In 2007/08, working alongside experts from York University and Central Science Laboratories, we developed a unique environmental assessment tool to allow us to analyse the predicted environmental impact of chemicals used in Boots brand product. We analysed over 300 of our core chemicals using this tool during the year.
   
• Introduce systems to identify and monitor the biodiversity impact of Boots products and raw materials
  
  Achieved. In 2008 we commissioned a new online database system to record source and provenance data for all wood, paper and natural materials used in Boots branded products, exclusive ranges and goods not for resale. Suppliers can also remotely enter chain of custody evidence for approval.
   
• In line with national and international commitments on climate change, continue to reduce our equivalent carbon emissions for business operations within our direct management control, achieving a 30% reduction by 2020.
  
  Ongoing. Good progress continues to be made as we consolidate the data for the two former Boots The Chemists and Alliance Pharmacy businesses. Through Business in the Community and The Prince's May Day Network, and the Confederation of British Industry, we're directly engaged in the delivery of a single, standard method of carbon reporting for businesses in the UK.
   
• Further reduce carbon dioxide emissions by expanding the use of double-deck trailers, drag and drop trailers, shared user networks and backloading from suppliers.
  
  Ongoing. We continued to benefit from using our double-deck trailers, drag and drop trailers, shared user networks and backloading. In  May 2007 we started a unique collaboration with a leading local road haulage services company based in the north of Scotland, resulting in an annual fuel saving of almost 150,000 litres of fuel and reducing carbon emissions while delivering products to Boots stores in Scotland by 12%. In 2008/09 we plan to increase the number of  double-deck vehicles we use and replace some of our older trunking vehicles with  vehicles achieving Euro V emission standards.
   
• Continue to reduce like-for-like own brand retail packaging by 10% by 2010, in line with the UK Government's Courtauld Commitment.
  
  Ongoing. In July 2008 the UK government's Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) announced that the Courtauld Commitment signatories had collectively met the first Courtauld Commitment target to "design out the growth in packaging waste". We're on track to meet the second target "To deliver absolute reductions in packaging waste by 2010", delivering a 7% reduction in 2007.
   
• Complete our 5 year target to reduce like-for-like waste for disposal by 20% by 2007/08.
  
  Incomplete. In 2003/04 we set an aspirational target to reduce like-for-like waste for disposal by 20% over five years. In the first 4 years  our percentage of waste disposed o landfill reduced from 54% to under 40% , a 14 percentage point reduction.  This year, the final year of our original target, our percentage of waste disposed to landfill dropped back slightly to 42.8% as a result of an energy from waste plant being taken temporarily off-stream. (Please note, this data continues to cover the old "Boots The Chemists structure" prior to the merger with Alliance UniChem for comparability purposes - ie Boots The Chemists retail stores including the Republic of Ireland, Contract Manufacturing, and Nottingham site operations).
   
• Working with organisations such as The Carbon Trust, continue to evaluate the opportunity for using carbon footprinting as a measure of product sustainability.
  
  Ongoing. Following the successful trial of the Carbon Trust Carbon labelling scheme in the summer of 2007 we ran consumer research on the effectiveness of product carbon labelling as a means of reducing personal carbon footprints. In addition we've been working with the Carbon Trust on the development of the PAS 2050 Standard for measuring the carbon emissions associated with products. We've also been working with our logistics supplier to develop a method for measuring the carbon footprint of inbound logistics, and are currently developing methods to understand the trade-offs between carbon reduction and other sustainability criteria.
   

Marketplace

• Expand Increase total fundraising and awareness for our charity partners (nearly £1.3 million raised in 2006/07).
  
  Achieved.  Significant funds were raised for our national charity partnerships, with more than £0.6 million raised for our newest partner The Eve Appeal and over £0.6 million raised as part of our ongoing support for Breast Cancer Care.  Raising more than £1 million for BBC Children in Need took the total across all partners to £2.4 million - a record achievement for Boots.
   
• Ensure that environmental standards and working conditions in Boots product supply chain continue to meet the requirements of our Code of Conduct for Ethical Trading through programmes of in-depth assessment of first and second tier suppliers
  
  Achieved. During the 2007 calendar year more than 250 assessments of our suppliers were carried out to ensure compliance with our Code of Conduct. We continued to diligently maintain standards in the supply chain implementing corrective actions wherever necessary.
   
• Effectively communicate and advise our customers and work colleagues on healthy living issues (healthy diet, physical activity and the prevention of obesity for example) to support healthy lifestyles
  
  Ongoing. We continue to offer customers an extensive range of healthy lunchtime foods, drinks and snacking. Our new Healthy Living Policies demonstrate our commitment to support our customers and colleagues with their personal healthy living goals. These include policies on healthy living and physical activity, smoking cessation, alcohol and sensible drinking, healthy eating, Boots 5 A-DAY, salt, nutrition labelling and artificial colours and flavours. As a consequence we implemented the Food Standards Agency traffic light colour code labelling for around 175 products in April 2007. We have also been successful in removing artificial colours from all lunchtime foods, all children's gift foods and 96% of our adult gift range.
   

Workplace

• Building on the focus groups from last year, we will carry out quantitative research to get a detailed picture of what women feel are the barriers to progress into more senior roles in Boots. This will be reported to our Executive with recommendations to address the issues raised.
  
  Ongoing. Initial research was carried out, leading to further research being considered so that we can really understand how we can make the most of the opportunities to ensure our workforce consider Boots as a great place to work, particularly for women. Our new employee engagement measurement process will help inform our thinking. We are also embarking on some further research in terms of age related issues as the potential for up to 4 generations being part of our workforce becomes more of a reality within our changing marketplace – we will particularly focus this research at the women in our organisation given the substantial numbers of women making up our workforce.
   
• Carry out further analysis of ethnicity data on colleagues vs local population and store performance. Provide stores with information on ethnicity of local customer base and information on festivals - religious calendar of events. Identify the ‘blocks’ to promotion for ethnic minorities.
  
  Ongoing. We have launched a Diversity e-Learning module which ,following testing, will be launched across the entire business. This gives an overview of all aspects of diversity for all our employees. Our diversity toolkit, which is in production, fully explains a vast number of religions and traditions as well as dealing with all other aspects of diversity. Both these mechanics will continue to build to provide greater information for our stores at a local level. We are working with several inter-faith organisations as well as the Employers Forum on Age & Belief to ensure we fully understand the implications of communicating festivals and events and to ensure we accurately and respectfully portray traditions of faith. We're looking further at how we produce and communicate information on the ethnicity of our local customer base.
   
• Build on the success of Boots Red Carpet Induction for stores, providing 1 day off-the-job training for all new Boots colleagues
  
  Ongoing. A one day off the job induction experience used in our stores is being adapted for colleagues joining to work in non store areas. This is now in place for our Nottingham support office and a new look Learning and Development team will be developing further resources for new starters in other areas of the organisation.
  
  
• Understand and review our forum arrangements as a merged organisation, and how this works with the European Works Council. 
  
  Completed. We now have forum representation in all areas of the merged organisation, Boots UK.  Four of our representatives are part of the European Works Council and will meet annually. Our forum will continue to work with our people and our leaders to help to make Boots a great place to work and a great place to shop.
   
• Implement a new Accident Support Help line for telephone reporting of accidents/incidents in Boots stores, together with a revised investigation process for stores
  
  Achieved. A new accident support system process fully implemented covering all stores. In addition a new management structure has been developed to monitor: accident performance, the response to accidents/ incidents and the response to involvement with the enforcing authorities. A new and comprehensive one-day safety training course has been produced for all store managers.
   
• Deliver employee health promotion activity that is integrated into our core marketing campaigns.
  
  Achieved. People packs for employees supporting them in getting fit and stopping smoking delivered in January 2008 alongside our Change One Thing campaign for customers.