REPORT - Specsavers

Specsavers
La Villiaze
St Andrew’s
Guernsey
Channel Islands
GY6 8YP
Tel +44 (0)207 2020 241
specsavers.com
CORPORATE
RESPONSIBILITY
REPORT
2013 - 2014
Printed on recycled paper
Introduction
I am delighted to introduce Specsavers’
third corporate responsibility report, which
describes the progress that has been made
over the past year in terms of supporting
our local communities, trading ethically and
protecting our environment. It also sets out
our plans for the year ahead.
Corporate responsibility continues to be an
integral part of our values as the Specsavers
Partnership, just as it has been for the past 30
years since Specsavers was founded with the
vision of providing best value eyecare to everyone.
I hope you find the report useful and
interesting and welcome your feedback.
Please email gg.cr@specsavers.com.
Paul Fussey
Chief Financial Officer
Chair of the Specsavers Corporate
Responsibility Steering Group
Contents
Supporting
our local
communities
Trading
ethically
Protecting
our
environment
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16
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Our position
Our progress
Our plans
Our position
Our progress
Our plans
Our position
Our progress
Our plans
Supporting
our local
communities
Our position
At the Specsavers Partnership, we believe in
citizenship. We are passionate about giving back
to and working with our local communities,
wherever we operate in the world, as a supporter
of local and national causes. We are also committed
to supporting eyecare and hearing care projects
in developing countries.
We believe that it is our corporate responsibility
to pay the amount of tax legally due in the country
in which that liability arises and to comply with the
applicable rules and regulations in each country in
which we operate.
We recognise that tax payments make a vital
contribution to sustaining social welfare and
the government funding of policies that help
people avoid economic and physical hardship.
In addition, we generate and collect
a number of other taxes such as employee
and sales taxes. In 2013-14, the total amount
contributed to tax authorities around the world
as a consequence of Specsavers’ commercial
activities exceeded £430m.
Our stores provide employment for more than
26,000 local people, in whom our partners invest
with regular training and development, enabling
them to progress through Specsavers on their
chosen career path. The same is true for the
4,000 people who are employed in our support
offices and manufacturing and distribution
sites around the world.
In the past 12 months, we have raised
over £2 million across the world for
charities and good causes.
Last year, more than £60m of tax was paid
on profits generated by Specsavers businesses to
governments in countries in which we operate.
04 / 05
Supporting our local communities
Our progress
In 2013/14:
The United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland
• Our stores and support offices raised more than
£682,000 for various local charities and good
causes, including the Movember appeal, the
Lincs and Notts Air Ambulance, the Hampshire
Air Ambulance and Specsavers Children’s Charity.
• We opened two more outreach vision centres
in Zambia to add to the six already opened
through our long-standing partnership with
Vision Aid Overseas (VAO). We worked with VAO
to help make the vision centres self-sufficient,
contributing £156,000 to this end. Our stores
also donated more than a million pairs of
glasses for use in Zambia.
• We raised £260,000 to train 25 puppies for
Guide Dogs for the Blind in the UK, exceeding
our target pledge.
• In Ireland, we supported Irish Guide Dogs for the
Blind as well as a wide range of local charities.
• We sponsored road safety charity Brake and
handed out more than 50,000 high-visibility
vests to schoolchildren.
• Through our annual Spectacle Wearer of the Year
• We collected hundreds of unwanted hearing
aids for the hearing charity Sound Seekers,
who are dedicated to helping deaf people,
particularly children, in the poorest communities
of the developing world.
• Dame Mary and Doug Perkins, the founders
of Specsavers, donated £523,000 to various
national and international charities, including
building a new school in Haiti, supporting orphans
of AIDS victims in Tanzania through the Tumaini
Fund, sponsoring the Homeless World Cup,
the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme and
Vision Care for Homeless People.
'We are committed to supporting
eyecare and hearing care projects
in developing countries.'
• Almost 400 people in our support offices spent
time on local community or charitable work,
under our ‘Giving back to our local communities’
policy. This included street collections for the
Framework charity in Nottingham, building
and drainage work at UK Youth’s Avon Tyrrell
Outdoor Activity Centre in the New Forest,
building a pigpen for the Stonebridge City Farm
in Nottingham, gardening and redecorating at
Autism Hampshire in Southampton and beach
cleaning and clearing noxious weeds from the
cliff paths in Guernsey.
competition, we supported anti-bullying charity
Kidscape, raising £35,000 to help give confidence
back to bullied children.
• We continued to support Hearing Dogs for
Deaf People, sponsoring their annual awards
and raising £20,000 to train new dogs.
Store staff in Kidderminster raise money for Sport Relief
06 / 07
Supporting our local communities
Our progress
The Netherlands
• The Stichting Specsavers Steunt raised the record
amount of €421,800 (£349,200) for 218 local charities
in the Netherlands, almost double what was raised
in previous years. Country director Julie Perkins
handed donations to two charities, while 70 stores
followed her example by donating the money
during personal visits.
• Once again, we supported Veteranendag
(Veterans’ Day), which recognises the courage
of Dutch war veterans. White carnations, the
national symbol of appreciation for veterans,
were handed out in stores and, on the day, we
offered the veterans hearing tests and provided
our customers with discounted tickets to the
marine museum.
• We launched ‘Win a famous ambassador for
a day’, with 60 charities entering the competition.
The four successful ones were each visited by
a Dutch celebrity, who took part in activities such
as painting a clubhouse, playing football with
children and phoning local organisations to ask
for financial support.
• We organised volunteer days in October where
Australia and New Zealand
• Since launching our Australia and New Zealand
community programme in September 2013,
our stores have raised AUD 380,000 (£211,400)
for a range of local charities, including the
Fred Hollows Foundation, which aims to
prevent avoidable blindness.
In March 2013, we launched the first
Community Programme for our support
offices in Melbourne, Australia and Auckland,
New Zealand. This includes:
• Workplace Giving, where employees donate
to a nominated charity from their pre-tax salary
through the payroll system and Specsavers
matches the donations up to a maximum of
AUD 30,000 (£17,000) or NZD 30,000 (£16,000)
a year. The charities supported are the Fred
Hollows Foundation, the RSPCA, the Red Cross,
Cancer Council Australia and the Starlight
Children’s Foundation.
• Specsavers Grants, where staff can apply for
a grant of AUD 1,000 (£560) or NZD 1,000 (£520)
for a cause for which they have personally raised
the same amount.
• Corporate Volunteering, where staff give time
to environmental conservation projects, prepare
food for the homeless with FareShare and carry
out building, painting and cleaning work with
the Lighthouse Foundation.
store teams helped out at their local charity. Each
store appointed an ambassador as the first point
of contact for their local charities.
Netherlands country director Julie Perkins visits a bird
shelter in Naarden which has benefited from donations
08 / 09
Supporting our local communities
The Nordic countries
Across the Nordics, we gave an incredible amount
of support to develop eyecare in Tanzania.
• Danish stores collected 20,000 pairs of glasses
for the Louis Nielsen project and arranged seven
week-long eye camps in Tanzania, providing eye
tests and glasses to 8,000 people. We also teamed
up with the international organisation SOS Children's
Villages, providing eye tests and glasses for people
in two villages and raising DKK 10,000 (£1,100).
• Swedish stores collected more than 6,000 pairs
of glasses from customers and provided eye tests
and glasses to around 1,000 people at an eye
camp in Dar es Salaam. The donors are able to tag
their contact information to the glasses and can
find out more about the recipient, once a match
has been found.
• Stores in Finland collected more than 7,000 pairs
of glasses for the Tanzania project. The Finnish
Spectacle Wearer of the Year joined us on a visit to
Arusha, to the SOS Children’s Village, accompanied
by a journalist from ET magazine and a video
reporter from daily newspaper Iltalehti. Stores in
Norway also donated glasses.
24
10 // 25
11
Denmark
• Louis Nielsen sponsored Søren Grotum, the
first blind man to do the Team Rynkeby charity
bicycle race from Denmark to Paris for the Danish
Children’s Cancer Foundation. Our stores also
donated DKK 15,000 (£1,700) for Danish children
with cancer.
• Stores in Aarhus raised DKK 10,000 (£1,100) to
buy food and presents for underprivileged families
to help them celebrate Christmas.
Finland
• Specsavers Optikko donated 1,000 pairs
Sweden
• We began a new collaboration with SOS
Children’s Villages and collected more than
6,000 pairs of glasses during a three-week
fund-raising campaign.
bracelets and raised over SEK 19,000 (£1,700)
for a kindergarten in Mozambique.
• Almost SEK 72,000 (£6,500) was raised by
Specsavershanden, a group of volunteers at our
office in Gothenburg, for youngsters in need.
Spain
• All eight stores collected glasses for the Lions
• We provided eye tests and glasses to homeless
people in Kristiansand and Lillestrøm.
• Our Hong Kong office donated 10,000 frames to
two charities which help people in the developing
world: the Crossroads Foundation and the
Eyeglass Vision Friendly Foundation.
• Stores also sold SOS Children’s Villages
of glasses to the Veterans of War.
Norway
Hong Kong
Club charity and raised over €4,000 (£3,300).
• We donated glasses to the EMAÚS charity,
which improves conditions for the homeless.
• In collaboration with Trygg Trafikk (Safe Traffic),
we gave high visibility vests to young children
in schools in Mo i Rana and Bodø.
Manufacturing and distribution
• Vision Labs in Kidderminster launched a Community
had been donated. They also donated food and
a trolley to the Manna Food Bank in Staines and
to the Southampton City Mission’s Basics Bank,
for people who are feeling the effects of poverty.
They raised £1,200 for the Countess Mountbatten
House palliative care service to help furnish a
therapy room in its day centre. And they donated
IT equipment for the UK-based charity,
IT Schools Africa.
Matters initiative for staff to contribute to the overall
• Aston Labs employees held monthly fund-raising
wellbeing of the neighbourhood. More than 55
events to generate more than £12,000 for charities
volunteer days have been donated to local schools,
in the Birmingham area.
supporting children with their reading and craft
skills, taking part in cookery classes, redecorating
sports halls and canteens and clearing an overgrown • Staff at the Hi-Spec Lenses warehouse in
Kidderminster baked cakes to raise £120 for
section of one school’s grounds to create an outdoor
Macmillan Cancer Support.
learning environment.
• Staff at Airways Optical manufacturing lab in
Southampton donated toys worth over £1,000
to radio station Wave 105’s Mission Christmas
for disadvantaged children and helped out in
the warehouse to sort and box the toys that
• We provided free sight tests to people in Oslo
central railway station on World Sight Day.
'We support and encourage
as many staff as possible to be
involved in good causes.'
The team at the Szatmár Optikai manufacturing and glazing
site in Hungary deliver food to underprivileged families
12 / 13
Supporting our local communities
Our plans
In 2014/15 the Specsavers Partnership will:
In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland
• Support Guide Dogs for the Blind, Vision Aid
Overseas, Blind Veterans UK and Hearing Dogs
for Deaf People. Stores will continue to support
local charities and initiatives in their area.
• Collect unwanted hearing aids on behalf
of Sound Seekers to help with their work
in the developing world.
In Australia and New Zealand
• Celebrate the six month and one year milestones
of the Specsavers Community Programme and
support even more local organisations.
• Launch a limited edition Fred Hollows frame,
with AUD 25 (£14) from each frame sold going
to the Fred Hollows Foundation.
In the Nordic countries
• Continue work in Sweden for SOS Children's
Villages, extending the glasses collection period.
• A team from Norway will visit Peru and
Tanzania to provide sight tests and glasses
to impoverished people.
Store ambassador Danny Simons from Roermond
volunteers with a Dutch scout group
In Spain
In the Netherlands
• Donate £1 from every Spectacle Wearer of the
Year entry to anti-bullying charity Kidscape.
• Sponsor Road Safety Week in November. Our stores
are expected to donate more than 75,000 highvisibility vests to primary school children, to help
make sure they are seen more clearly in the dark.
• Raise at least €350,000 (£290,000) for Stichting
Specsavers Steunt in the Netherlands and do more
to inform our customers about what the donation
they make really means in their community. We will
continue our regular Stichting volunteer days and
donation visits.
• Support and encourage as many staff as possible
• Support one local charity for each of our 118 stores
to become involved in good causes through our
‘Giving back to our local communities’ policy.
and one overall national charity - Nationaal Fonds
Kinderhulp (National Help for Children Fund).
• Open the ninth and final clinic in Zambia,
ensuring eyecare is provided throughout the
country, and support these clinics to become
sustainable and self-supporting.
In Ireland
• Support the renovation of the eye clinic at Our
Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, through store
fund-raising and with €1 from every Spectacle
Wearer of the Year entry.
• We will continue to help charities across Spain,
including the Red Cross and ONCE, the lottery
charity for blind people and those who are
visually impaired.
Manufacturing and distribution
• Continue with fund-raising and local community
support initiatives at all our manufacturing and
distribution sites around the world.
• Start a project with Nationaal Fonds Kinderhulp
to donate clothing and glasses to hundreds of
children who are disadvantaged financially or
who experience difficult home situations.
• Inform and motivate our store ambassadors
and use our ‘Giving back to our local communities’
policy to support and encourage staff involvement
in good causes.
• Support Dutch veterans on Veterans’ Day.
Members of the finance shared service centre
paint a communal TV room for Nottingham
charity Framework which tackles the causes
and consequences of homelessness
14 / 15
Trading
ethically
Our position
We work to ensure safe and
healthy workplaces for the
people who make our products,
where human and civil rights are
respected. We also require
our suppliers to take the
necessary steps to protect the
environment. We are committed
to our global ethical trading
policy and ensure regular,
independent audits of all our
major suppliers outside Europe.
All those in Europe already
operate within globally recognised
regulatory environments. Wherever
possible we develop meaningful,
long-term relationships with our
suppliers, so that we can work
together towards our vision of
providing best value eyecare
and hearing care to everyone.
16 / 17
Trading ethically
Trading ethically
In 2013/14:
In 2014/15 the Specsavers Partnership will:
Our progress
• Our global, external auditor company carried out
66 supplier audits, of which half were on social
and half on environmental issues.
• Of the 33 suppliers that have been visited, 25
are frame manufacturers, two are laboratories,
five make optical instruments and the other one
makes furniture for our stores.
• Sixteen of the external audits were
of new suppliers.
Our plans
• Five companies had a low score on social audit
issues, such as inconsistent record keeping, and
eight on environmental audit issues, such as the
storage of waste. A corrective action plan was
agreed with each supplier and kept under regular
review. All the suppliers committed to improve
and work towards best practice.
• Follow up previous audits and assist our supply
chain partners in improving the social and
environmental impact of their businesses.
• Raise awareness among our staff of our global
ethical trading policy and of our anti-bribery
and corruption policy, which set out their
responsibilities when dealing with suppliers.
• Undertake new audits of our major
non-European suppliers.
• In addition to the external audits, the Specsavers
supply chain team continued to visit regularly and
monitor the performance and environment of all
our suppliers.
• All of the audited companies were found to
comply with the Specsavers supplier code of
practice (p21).
'Specsavers continually strives
to develop and promote high
standards of social and
environmental responsibility.'
18 / 19
Trading ethically
The Specsavers supplier code of practice
Specsavers continually strives to develop and promote high standards of
social and environmental responsibility. Since 2008, Specsavers suppliers
and their subcontractors have been required to operate in accordance with
our code of practice:
Obey all applicable laws
Commit to act in accordance with all the relevant laws, regulations
and industry standards in the countries in which suppliers operate.
Treat people with dignity and respect
Adopt the following best practices that promote healthy and
safe workplaces, where human and civil rights are respected.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Employment is freely chosen
Freedom of association and the right to collective
bargaining are respected
Working conditions are safe and hygienic
Child labour is not used
Living wages are paid
Working hours are not excessive
No discrimination is practised
Regular employment is provided
No harsh or inhumane treatment is allowed
Protect the environment
Recognise global and environmental responsibilities and take all
commercially reasonable steps to safeguard the environment.
Specsavers suppliers must be prepared to work towards:
1
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18 / 19
Complying with environmental legislation and regulations and
with standards such as ISO 14000
Committing to actions to restore and preserve the environment
Committing to reducing waste and pollutants, conserving resources
and recycling materials at every stage of the product life cycle
whenever possible
Developing and apply technologies for minimising pollutant emissions
Continually assessing the impact of their products on the environment
and the communities in which each lives and operates
20 / 21
Protecting
our
environment
Our position
We are committed to taking
steps to ensure we operate our
businesses in a sustainable way,
understanding the impact that
we have on our environment.
As a successful and growing
business, this means making
sure our operations are efficient
in the resources we consume,
minimising waste wherever
practical. This needs to be done
in a way that is consistent with
our values, the responsibilities
we have to our customers and
our people and our obligations in
the various countries in which we
do business.
Every part of our business
consumes energy and, in
recognising the importance of
the climate change debate, we
are making it our primary goal to
reduce the CO2 emissions relating
to our energy use across our
whole business.
22 / 23
Protecting our environment
Our progress
In 2013/14:
• More than 650 stores in the UK and Ireland
signed up to using energy from renewable
sources, mainly wind farm generation.
• We have entered into Climate Change Agreements
for some of our manufacturing sites in the UK.
• We carried out energy surveys at manufacturing
sites and stores.
• Our energy consultants worked with our
store partners on opportunities to reduce
carbon output.
Our support offices have continued to work on
carbon reduction. We held low carbon workshops
which have led to the following initiatives:
• Data centre – we installed cold aisle containment
and estimate there will be a reduction in emissions
of 54.5 tCO2 (tonnes of carbon dioxide) per year.
• Multifunction printing devices have been
• Work is underway to investigate the use of
combined heat and power in our Guernsey
office. We estimate there will be a reduction
in emissions of 8.3 tCO2 per annum.
• Further reducing our carbon output through
better control of lighting, heating, ventilation
and other building systems at our offices.
• Energy-efficient lighting is currently being
trialled in our Guernsey offices. If successful,
we estimate there will be a reduction in
emissions of 29.2 tCO2 per annum.
trialled and will be rolled out across our offices
in Guernsey and the UK. This will see the number
of printers drop by more than 100 and we estimate
there will be a reduction in emissions
of 32 tCO2 per year.
• Store guides have been produced to help focus
on where further energy savings can be made.
• We began a trial of energy-efficient
lighting for our stores.
'Our primary goal is to reduce the
CO2 emissions relating to our energy
use across our whole business.'
The purchase of more video conferencing units in each of our
offices is promoted as a good and viable alternative to travelling
24 / 25
Protecting our environment
Protecting our environment
Our progress
Sustainable manufacturing and distribution
Airways Optical in Southampton, which surfaces 50,000
lenses and coats 20,000 lenses a week, has had a focus
In addition to this:
• A waste-to-water food digester has been
purchased to remove all soft organic food going
into the waste stream. This will see the waste
being turned into grey waste water.
• Our newly formed green teams reviewed
recycling at our main offices in the UK and
Guernsey and introduced new facilities in prime
locations throughout the offices. We ran an
awareness campaign and introduced desktop
recyclers to support the recycling initiatives.
• We have continued to review ways of shipping
on the environment over the past few years.
freight from our suppliers and in the last year this
has increased to over 70% of shipments being
made by sea.
• The Danish support office in Aalborg set
up a green group to work on environmental
initiatives, such as recycling and energy saving.
Its first initiative was to establish a paper
recycling system.
• We carried out environmental audits
• Four years ago all waste went to landfill. Now all
general waste is incinerated for energy generation,
while 25% of waste materials are recycled.
• All wooden pallets, clean cardboard, plastic
containers, scrap metal and WEEE (waste from
electric and electronic equipment) are recycled.
• The site has undergone a major lighting
replacement programme, replacing old,
inefficient fluorescent tubes with modern
LED fittings. This has resulted in an 80-85%
saving on lighting costs.
• Even the picnic tables used by staff outside the
building are made from recycled plastic bottles.
of 33 of our major suppliers.
Lens Online
Our distribution centre for stock lenses
and contact lenses, based in Kidderminster,
installed a second compactor in 2013, enabling
all incoming cardboard waste to be recycled
(more than 60 tonnes a year). A small
compactor was also installed to recycle shrinkwrap polythene – around five tonnes in 2013.
A state-of-the-art water-handling plant for production
means a trade effluent account is no longer required
26 / 27
Protecting our environment
Our plans
In 2014/15 the Specsavers Partnership will:
UK to all our businesses globally.
• Appoint our first Environmental Manager to
give full-time focus to further developing our
environmental programme.
• Continue to increase the percentage
of energy used by our UK offices and
manufacturing sites, which has been
sourced from renewable supplies.
• Review our energy use at major locations
internationally, extend our reporting and
explore options that will help us to reduce
energy consumption.
• Work with our partners in a number of our UK
stores to explore and cost practical solutions for
reducing energy usage in store. These solutions
can then be offered to other partners.
• Extend the use of technologies
successfully implemented in the
A waste-to-water food digester will reduce the annual
amount of waste going into Guernsey's landfill
• Continue to investigate the most effective solution
for recycling water used in our in-store labs.
• Further develop a waste reduction and
recycling programme in our Guernsey and
UK offices and roll this out to other major
locations. Explore options for improving
waste management in our stores.
• Continue to switch from air freight
to sea freight wherever possible.
• Carry out environmental
audits of our suppliers.
• Identify other areas of environmental
impact for attention.