Alignment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

As a Group, we continue to align our sustainability priorities with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) so that our actions can contribute to a more significant, shared impact. By actively pursuing our business objectives, we are addressing a wide spectrum of societal challenges, which include issues like climate change, fostering decent work and economic growth, and promoting responsible consumption and production.
 
The SDGs or Global Goals are a call to action for stakeholders worldwide to come together and address the environmental, economic, and social disparities that affect global populations and society.
 
Achieving these goals necessitates the support and collaboration of governments, businesses, and individuals. As the role that businesses must play becomes apparent, the SDGs are becoming an increasingly important tool for assessing the impact of companies on society.  

Our suppliers

We realise that our suppliers play an important role in our business, and we expect them to act ethically, and share in our commitments to maintain sustainable business practices using the SDGs as a shared framework for defining the way we work together (SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals, which refers to the need for collaboration in pursuit of all the goals by the year 2030).

Given that a significant amount of our environmental impact comes from our third party suppliers, we have dedicated substantial effort to ensure a consistent evaluation of our supply chain with respect to internationally recognised Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) standards. We collaborate with our suppliers and business associates as we work together towards achieving the SDGs most pertinent to our business.

As a Group, our focus remains on:

• creating decent workplaces in our pursuit of establishing equitable and respectful workplaces where our colleagues are treated fairly
• conducting business ethically and lawfully ensuring that our operations are conducted with integrity
• responsible sourcing, consumption, and production practices that align with our sustainability principles. Specifically, we work with our construction partners to ensure the development of our stores has a minimal impact on the environment and our local communities. For more details on our sustainable construction standards and Considerate Constructors Scheme (“CCS”) in the Environment section

As we are only as strong as our weakest supplier, our intention is to continue to demonstrate our commitment, actions, and progress towards the SDGs, and encourage our suppliers to work towards achieving similar goals as we head towards a more sustainable and inclusive future.