The company has made some major commitments to sustainable sourcing as part of its aim to “sell products that cause the minimum of harm to the natural world in the way they are made,” including engaging with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to ensure that its wild-caught seafood comes from sustainable fisheries, as well as with Fairtrade and UTZ Certified to ensure that its coffee and cocoa are traceable and harvested using good practices. Woolworths was also the first African retailer to strike a broad, multi-faceted partnership with an environmental NGO (WWF-South Africa) in order to be certain that its sustainability efforts are on the right track.
One of the people behind Woolworth’s Good Business Journey, Lucy King, spoke to us about why Woolworths is using sustainability standards and what they look for in a credible standard.
Can you tell us a bit about Woolworths and its sustainability goals?
We’re a diversified retailer in South Africa, selling clothing, homeware and food, most of which is our own private label, though we do sell other brands as well. We were established in South Africa, but increasingly we’re expanding throughout Africa and to other parts of the world like Australia.
We've been on our ‘Good Business Journey’ since 2007 and have identified six key focus areas that we set our targets around: sustainable farming and fishing; water; energy; waste; social development; and transformation. Going forward we will be extending our focus on ethical sourcing, and health and wellness.
We strive to be a leading responsible retailer, by embedding sustainability into the way we do business, whether in our own operations or in our supply chain. This is why we’ve set a target for 2020 for 100% of our products to have at least one sustainability attribute. This might mean that the product is farmed sustainably, or the packaging is recyclable, or that water and energy use has been reduced in production, and we’ve developed a product matrix with a set of criteria to determine what “counts” as a sustainability attribute. Third-party certification is included here as well. We are looking at every product that we put on our shelves to ensure that some consideration for sustainability has taken place.
And what about Woolworths engagement with sustainability standards?
The MSC was one of the first certification schemes we started working with back in 2008, when we introduced our Sustainable Seafood Policy. Early on we also started working with Fairtrade on the coffee sold in our in-store cafes, and by 2012, all of the coffee beans used in our cafes were Fairtrade certified. We’ve since started working with UTZ Certified on sustainable cocoa sourcing and aim for 100% of the cocoa used in our private label chocolates to be UTZ Certified by 2016, and 100% UTZ Certified cocoa to be used as an ingredient in all private label foods by June 2018. (Learn more about Woolworths' sustainable cocoa journey with this video) More recently we’ve become members of the Better Cotton Initiative to improve the sourcing of cotton for the clothes we sell.
What are some of the main drivers behind your sustainable sourcing and use of standards and labels?
In some ways using standards has been a natural transition. We always knew where the coffee beans used in our cafés were coming from, but when we started working with Fairtrade we realised that a large portion of these were already Fairtrade certified. Having that base made it easier to move towards 100% Fairtrade certified coffee beans. At the time in 2012, awareness of Fairtrade in South Africa was still quite low, but today we are seeing an increase in consumer awareness and more retailers selling Fairtrade certified products.
Even as one of the first major retailers in South Africa to start carrying certified products, we’re still learning as we go and refining our strategy. We haven’t been using standards long enough to see long-term results yet.
Our customers are very educated and want to know where their products are coming from. They are asking more questions and want to be able to trust that the products they are buying and their ingredients are sourced from responsible suppliers. We need to deliver on that, whether through sustainability standards or other tools.
Linked to this is traceability and transparency. When it comes to products or commodities where we don’t have a direct relationship with the producers, we depend on standards and certification bodies to provide the assurance that we can’t provide ourselves. This is why UTZ and Fairtrade have been so important to us in the commodity space. They can help us ensure traceability and improvement in our supply chain.
You use other sustainability tools, besides standards – can you tell us more about them?
For us, when we choose tools, it's about understanding the issues we're trying to tackle and our strategic objectives, and identifying where we can work directly with our suppliers to drive improvement, and where we need to partner with an organisation who can help us drive improvement on the ground.
Woolworths has always placed importance on working in partnership with our suppliers and our flagship programme to advance sustainable agriculture, ‘Farming for the Future,’ is built on this engagement. It’s a holistic and scientific approach to growing food sustainably so that South Africa’s farms will be able to provide enough food for future generations. Focused on building soil health, reducing chemical and water use, integrated pest management and restoring ecosystems, the programme is helping farmers become more resilient and adapt to climate change. With exception to our organic suppliers, all our primary produce suppliers are farming using Farming for the Future principles.
How is the Farming for the Future initiative different from international sustainability standards?
The biggest difference is the relationship we have with our South African suppliers. When it comes to produce, we know who the farmers are and we’ve always had a strict set of standards they have to meet. We don’t source from the open market. We knew that we had to change the way we farmed and having a close relationship with our suppliers meant that we could partner with them to adopt a new approach.
But while we wanted to develop our own approach to sustainable farming that was relevant to the South African context, this is not something we did alone. We engaged with our suppliers and WWF-South Africa to develop our Farming for the Future standards and like other sustainability standards, suppliers are assessed against these standards by a third-party auditor, Enviroscientific.
In terms of engaging with standards, what makes them credible?
We consider a number of things. First we look at the technical components of the standard as well as its vision, and whether these align with what we’re trying to achieve. We're not only concerned with one of social, or environmental or economic - we're looking at all three.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is that it’s not all about the label. Sustainability standards role in reducing supply chain related risks for businesses is becoming increasingly important. We’re not just using certification schemes as a marketing tool, but also as a way of ensuring traceability and transparency and thereby mitigating risk.
We also look to learn from what others are doing, particularly leading retailers and brands in Europe.
If people are entrusting companies more and more to do the right thing, how does this affect the responsibility of retailers like yourself?
We want to lead customers on a sustainability journey and enable them to make more sustainable choices. Eco-labels and sustainability standards are one way of doing this, but there are a variety of other ways that we as retailers can take responsibility. One is engaging our consumers, educating them about key sustainability issues – as we do with our in-store displays – and rewarding their behaviour. In working with other organisations, like certification schemes, it’s about understanding the unique value and credibility they bring to what you’re doing.
You can read more about the Good Business Journey in this 2013 report. Lucy also participated in a session at the 2014 Global Sustainability Standards Conference and you can download her presentation here.
Watch a video about Woolworth's sustainable cocoa journey below
Lucy King, Good Business Journey Analyst, Woolworths South Africa
Lucy plays a role in entrenching company-wide commitment to the Good Business Journey (Woolworths’ sustainability programme) and ensuring that all the enablers for achieving the South African retailer's sustainability commitments are in place. She has extensive experience in driving sustainability through the value chain and marketing sustainable product choices. Lucy recently played an advisory role to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the 10YFP Consumer Information Programme (CIFP). Lucy holds a degree in Value and Policy Studies and a Bachelor of Philosophy in Sustainable Development Planning and Management from the University of Stellenbosch.