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OUR HIGHLIGHTS

• Waitrose and John Lewis both met and exceeded their 2010 target to improve shop energy efficiency by 20% since 2003/04.
• Achieved BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating and Considerate Constructors Scheme ‘Beyond compliance’ performance at Waitrose Wellington.
• Purchased 90 multi-deck trucks for consolidating Waitrose store deliveries.

OUR CHALLENGES

• Minimising our indirect emission impacts, including those embedded in products or associated with Partner and customer transport.
• The effect of business growth – more shops in new locations, more home deliveries – on the carbon footprint of our transport operations.
• Our anaerobic digestion scheme is limited by the number of plants available.


(Diagram: PARTNERSHIP CARBON fOOTPRINT (%) 2009/10)


CLIMATE CHANGE

The carbon challenge

Climate change is the biggest environmental challenge we face today. We remain committed to developing policies and initiatives to support the UK Government’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, and the EU’s commitment, agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020.

Reducing our carbon footprint

We have already made significant cuts in our CO2e (CO2 equivalent) emissions, relative to the size of our business. Sales grew by 7% in 2009/10, but our total emissions increased by less than 2%, to 516,697 tonnes, during the same period. This equates to a 30% like-for-like reduction in CO2e emissions, on a normalised basis, from 99 tonnes CO2e per £million of sales in 2001/02 to 70 tonnes in 2009/10.

During the next decade, we are looking to double the size of our business so the real challenge is for us to decouple growth from carbon emissions. Rising to the challenge of absolute reductions will require investment and innovation and there will be a strong need to focus on improving our existing estate as well as building more efficient stores.

In 2009/10, we committed to making an absolute reduction in our overall CO2e emissions, and started to develop a carbon footprint reduction programme to deliver this. At a scoping workshop in May 2010, we considered future options for carbon footprint reductions, highlighting possible routes to take, the activity schedule needed and the potential costs and emissions savings. This ongoing work will enable us to make an informed decision as to the size and scope of the Partnership’s commitment.

Our carbon footprint reduction programme also reflects the need to better promote the opportunities for all our Partners to make a difference. However, we also believe that there is a need for ‘big solutions’ that will require Government and businesses to work together over the long term, and successfully combine ambitious objectives with practical action. To this end, we are a member of the UK Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change and have contributed to the development of its 2010– 2012 strategy.


John Lewis Partnership GHG emisions

Tonnes CO2e
2001/02 2008/09 2009/10
Scope 1* 183,015 186,518 187,986
Scope 2* 199,313 264,879 274,960
Scope 3* 60,445 55,778 53,752
Total 442,773 507,175 516,697

*See page 24 of our 2009 CSR report for descriptions of scope boundaries