Download the 2009 CR Review PDF 6.73MB - Tesco PLC

managing CORPORaTE
RESPOnSiBiLiTY
Public policy
Business can often play an important
and legitimate role in shaping public
policy. Where appropriate, we work
with governments to share our expert
knowledge and our experience, in order
to help shape effective policy.
We are open and transparent in our
engagement with governments.
We do not make donations to political
parties or employ consultants to lobby
on our behalf. When we engage with
governments we focus only on those
issues of most importance to our business,
employees and customers.
In 2008, key issues included the
environment, alcohol, health and
nutrition, planning and regeneration,
and productivity and skills.
Stakeholder engagement
and issue identification
Our business exists to serve our
stakeholders, who have a wide range
of expectations. Sometimes these
expectations can conflict. We listen
to the views of all our stakeholders and
take them into account when trying to
balance different considerations.
Feedback from our stakeholders is used
to review the issues on our CR agenda
which we adjust when new issues of
significance emerge. Our Community
Plans are developed to respond to local
stakeholder priorities.
For more information on our stakeholder
engagement see the table on page 52.
48
Tesco PLC Corporate Responsibility Report 2009
Engaging
OUR CR
STaKEHOLDERS
In 2008, we held two independently
facilitated focus groups with CR
opinion formers including journalists,
socially responsible investors, suppliers
and academics, representatives from
local and national government and
non-governmental organisations.
We asked for feedback on whether we
have correctly identified the material
issues, our strategy and performance,
and the quality of reporting in our
2008 CR Review.
Key recommendations of the focus
groups, which we hope we have
addressed in this Report, were:
• More strategic focus in the
printed Report with more detail
on the website
• More candour about good and
bad performance
• A willingness to acknowledge
other people’s views
• Greater clarity about the
methodologies we use to
calculate data
• Better explanation of standards
and codes such as Nurture
• More coverage of the international
business
• More data, and more external
benchmarks to provide context
for Tesco’s performance
COmmUniTY
PROmiSES
This year we launched our Community
Promises in the UK to engage staff
and build their understanding of the
Community Plan in order to make our
Community activity come to life in
stores. The new Community Promises
sit alongside the People, Customer, and
Operations Promises, which we use to
communicate our core Steering Wheel
objectives to staff.
Through an integrated campaign
including literature, staff payslip offers,
competitions, events and in-store
activity, we achieved a recognition
rate of 45%.
Following the success of the launch in
the UK we will launch the Community
Promises internationally next year. In
2009 we will start to bring this activity
to life in our stores for customers.