Wesfarmers launches new sustainability website

15 October 2019

Wesfarmers launches new sustainability website

Wesfarmers today launched a new sustainability website dedicated to providing enhanced information and more frequent updates on areas and issues critical to the Group’s continued long-term performance.

The new website complements the significantly expanded disclosures on sustainability performance in the 2019 Wesfarmers Annual Report, released on 25 September 2019, which included a substantial increase in climate-related financial disclosures.

The website content and the annual report disclosures reflect Wesfarmers’ 10 sustainability principles in the areas of people (safety, people development and diversity and inclusion), sourcing (suppliers and ethical sourcing and human rights), community (community contributions and product safety), environment (climate change resilience and waste and water use) and governance.

In his welcome message to the website, Wesfarmers Managing Director Rob Scott said the company had remained focused on the long term throughout its 105-year history, and its core objective since publicly listing in 1984 has been to deliver satisfactory returns to shareholders over the long term.

“We believe it is only possible to achieve this if we manage our businesses in a sustainable manner and this means managing and understanding the impact we have on people and the environment and playing a positive role in the communities we serve,” Mr Scott said.

“As we approach 2020, we recognise that technology is transforming the way we work and the expectations of our customers. This will create new challenges and opportunities and there’s always more to do. I look forward to working with all our stakeholders to continue this journey.”

Mr Scott said sustainability highlights over the past year included:
• Climate change resilience: introduction of a climate change policy and the setting of 2025 emissions targets for divisions;
• Diversity and inclusion: the Wesfarmers leadership team achieved gender balance with 45 per cent women, but there remains room to strengthen balance in senior executive and management positions;
• Community: community contributions of $72 million including almost $20 million in direct contributions to community organisations;
• Ethical sourcing: improved transparency and continued relentless focus on sourcing products responsibly with approximately 3,800 factories in the Group’s supply chain audit program; and
• Safety: a 1.5 per cent reduction in the Group’s total recordable injury frequency rate to 13.5 for our continuing operations.

The new website, Over the long term, is at sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au