4 minute read
Florence Bulte, Chalhoub Group
Florence Bulte
Chief Sustainability Officer
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Chalhoub Group
What is Chalhoub Group's vision towards sustainability, and what steps are being taken to achieve the Group's sustainability goals? How do you engage employees in sustainability efforts?
At Chalhoub Group, as a family business, sustainability is not only part of what we do, it has always been a way of life and at the heart of how we run our business. Our sustainability strategy has been developed through rigorous stakeholder engagement, making sure it is relevant to our business and integrated in our Group core strategy. As a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact and reporting publicly since 2014, our strategy is aligned with the Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as regional sustainability agendas.
Ensuring we reach our sustainability goals allows us to improve our sustainability performance across our value chain, while positively impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and communities. Our sustainability objectives are based on the Group material issues and aligned with SDGs. They consequently are distributed across our sustainability pillars, Leadership, People, Planet, Partners, Impact and scaled down for implementation with the support of relevant business units across the Group. This allows us to drive a local impact on the SDGs in all the countries we operate.
It is important to note that in the end all SDGs are interconnected so by having a clear focus on some, more relevant for the Group, it will indirectly contribute towards achieving other SDGs.
As an example, and to illustrate our sustainability goals, let me highlight some of our points of focus and related projects. Luxury Retailers play a crucial role in balancing their contribution to meeting expected increase in consumer demand and ensuring sustainable use of our natural resources. In that context, we focus our strategy on aligning with responsible production and consumption (SDG 12) & Climate Action (SDG 13). To support this vision, we have several ongoing programmes. One is our shift to renewable energy agenda aiming at installing solar panels across our facilities. We are completing the 4 th phase of installation in our premises in the UAE. For our retail network of stores, in 2017, we developed and launched our internal auditing tool, Store Towards Earth Protection (STEP), to assess our stores’ carbon footprint across the region, which is a great tool to make the necessary upgrades if required.
When it comes to our People pillar, we align our direction with Gender Equality (SDG5) & reduce inequalities (SDG 10). We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace and to reduce inequalities. Part of our “One Team One Culture” project, we have a specific focus on Inclusion & Diversity and developed programmes customised for the Group, such as ‘Empowered to work” to accelerate and facilitate the integration of people with determination. We have created Inclusion and Diversity dashboards which are shared and monitored by our managers and people partners allowing us to make data driven decisions. This year, we will launch a Women Leadership Programme to support women accessing senior position roles in the Group, with an objective of achieving gender parity.
In alignment with our Group values and vision, we are supporting Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (SDG16). It is crucial for us to establish trust, transparency, and ethical business standards with our partners and stakeholders. In 2020, we updated our Code of Ethics and launched a third party Speak Up platform to allow our team members to raise ethical breaches they might come across. We have built a strong compliance framework to manage cases and are committed to communicate on the subject in our 2020 Sustainability Report in full transparency.
As a last example, I would like to mention our support to Quality Education (SDG4). We strongly believe in the potential of education to meaningfully impact communities. We have a strong focus on education for our team members through our Retail Academy, Leadership Programmes, and Chalhoub University, and externally, through our Chalhoub Impact strategy, we support primary education, university students, and entrepreneurship.
Our team members are involved in every step of the way, all the projects are done in collaboration with the relevant subject experts or operational business units, and scaled down to every individual. For example, when it comes to Inclusion and Diversity, we have a committee that is guarding the strategy and ensuring its implementation and ongoing monitoring. It is driven by an I&D champion and rolled out by I&D ambassadors throughout the group and across countries.
We are also giving our team members regionally regular opportunities to engage and give back to the communities. Last year, over 5,000 of our team members were engaged in community giving activities, supporting over 22,0000 people in need, and in the midst of a very challenging pandemic situation.
The pandemic presented many challenges this year. However, for sustainability, it has also presented many opportunities. Our people’s dedication to the long-term vision of our Group has meant that we have continued to make progress in issues like human rights, diversity and inclusion, carbon emissions reduction, and renewable energy integration.
Ensuring we reach our sustainability goals allows us to improve our sustainability performance across our value chain, while positively impacting the lives of our employees, customers, and communities.
