WoolWorths holdings limited 2013 good BUsiness JoUrneY report

SETTInG out
GOVERNANCE
OF SUSTAINABILITY
The Social and Ethics committee, a formal
sub-committee of the Woolworths
Holdings Board, integrates the work of the
Sustainability committee and the outputs
of the Woolworths Trust, providing a
single point of view and direction for all
Woolworths sustainability focus areas.
The Sustainability committee is chaired
by a non-executive director and meets
quarterly to oversee progress in achieving
all aspects of the Good Business Journey
programme. The Group chief executive
officer and Managing director: Food are
members of the committee, together with
three independent directors, one of whom
chairs the Social and Ethics committee.
These independent directors each have
significant expertise and experience
in a range of corporate sustainability
issues. (see the "Our Board and Our
Key Executives" sections of the Integrated
Report)
The main purpose of the committee is to
ensure that the sustainability strategy
and objectives are effectively integrated
into the business. The committee has
considered the contents of this report.
Progress towards meeting 2015 targets
and the related one-year goals, is
monitored at an operational level by
the executive committee and championed
by the Group director: Marketing.
SUSTAINABILITY and OUR
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
Sustainability is one of our strategic focus
areas as a business and is integrated
into the strategic planning cycle and
balanced scorecard process. To ensure
consistency across our operations, each
business unit has a set of Good Business
Journey objectives against which they are
measured twice per annum. This includes
Country Road Group and Woolworths
Financial Services (Proprietary) Limited.
PROGRESS MEASUREMENT
2013
The Good Business Journey index has
been reviewed during the current year
to ensure the ongoing applicability of
the sophisticated weighted system that
prioritises all 200-plus indicators and
provides a score across each focus area
of the Good Business Journey, as well as
for each business unit in achieving their
specific targets.
Updated targets were set across the
business through to 2015 as part of our
Good Business Journey – Beyond 2012
programme. Work will start soon on
defining a revised set of targets through
to 2020.
The index score is a key tool in driving
changes in behaviour in the business
units as well as providing comparable
scorecard data and monitoring progress
to one- and four year targets.
The total sustainability measurement
score for the year 2013 was 90%
(2012: 85%). This shows that good
progress has once again been made.
The progress to the 2015 score of 72%
(2012: 65%) is by necessity lower than the
2013 score, because more stringent targets
apply for many of the measures.
We had set 80% as a benchmark for
good performance and are pleased to
continue to score above that benchmark.
Steady progress has been made over
the lifetime of the Good Business Journey
programme, and the targets have been
well integrated into our strategy and
balanced scorecards.
The scores per factor are shown below.
The biggest challenges lie within the
environment factor for 2015.
Corporate score over time
factor scores
95
90
86
85
85
90
100
95 94
90
80
71
60
87
75
2013 2015
90
89
80
59
80
77
79
81
40
75
20
70
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
0
Economic Governance Social Transformation Environment
WHL 16 / 2013 GOOD BUSINESS JOURNEY