Our CR strategy

We understand that our success comes from behaving responsibly and earning the trust of our customers, suppliers and stakeholders. There are many complex issues that we have to face on a daily basis, from reducing our environmental impact to ensuring consistent standards across our markets.

We manage all aspects of our business using our Steering Wheel – a balanced scorecard of the key elements of our business: Customers, Operations, People, Finance and Community. We use the Steering Wheel to emphasise that corporate responsibility (CR) is not a specialist function in Tesco – it is part of everybody’s job every day.

The Community segment of the Steering Wheel reflects our new Community Promises, which were launched this year in the UK and will be launched internationally in 2009:

• Actively supporting local communities
• Buying and selling our products responsibly
• Caring for the environment
• Giving customers healthy choices
• Creating good jobs and careers

Click here for larger version	We are integrating these principles into the day-to-day management of our business. Our staff from the shop floor to the boardroom are expected to apply them in everything they do from strategy setting, to decision making, to performance reviews.
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
We communicated our Community Promises to employees using specially produced leaflets, posters and pocket guides. This Report uses a similar structure so our progress can be followed easily.

Our Community Promises are reflected in the Community Plans in all of our markets. The Plans are designed to help us change the way we do business, for example by reducing our carbon emissions. Each Community Plan has the flexibility to reflect local priorities within the common framework of the Community Promises. We identify local priorities by talking to customers and other stakeholders in each region, primarily through Customer Question Times (CQTs), meetings and surveys. You can see a full list of Community Plan projects for each country in our Community section.

Community plan

Our Community Plans identify projects where additional resource and expertise can make a step change in our CR performance ...

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