The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) has published its first social report.
The 60-page document covers the co-operative’s food retailing business, and is largely based on research among 3500 stakeholders, including staff, customers and suppliers.
Due to the ‘size and complexity’ of CWS’s activities, another social report will be published next year looking separately at its non-food, funeral service and travel businesses – and a further one in 2002 will cover all its other operations. Each report is then likely to be published on a three-yearly cycle.
CWS, which is the world’s largest consumer co-operative and had a turnover of £3.4billion (€5.7bn) last year, compiled the report using an internal team guided by a steering group of senior managers. It was verified by New Economics, the consulting arm of the New Economics Foundation.
It shows that CWS is now the biggest UK stockist of Fairtrade Mark products and has become the first retailer to introduce a cruelty-free symbol developed by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.
It has also set up a ‘jury’ of customers who have the power to change labelling policies on Co-op brand products.
CWS contributed £1.1million (€1.8m), or 2.2 per cent of its trading profit, to the community in 1999.
However, the report also shows that CWS has yet to put its equal opportunity policies fully into practice. Only 31 per cent of its managers are women in a workforce that is 60 per cent female. Two per cent of its workers are from ethnic minorities, compared with five per cent in the general UK population.
The report says CWS has ‘recognised these problems’ by establishing a working group and relaunching its harassment code as a Dignity at Work policy supported by a group of volunteers and employee advisors.
However, only 36 per cent of staff who answered the stakeholder survey said they were aware of the policy.
The report points to progress on supply chain monitoring. Some 700 CWS suppliers are now subject to a code of conduct, which lays down requirements on issues such as child labour and health and safety.
CWS expects to have completed inspections of half its suppliers outside the European Union by the end of the year, but does not expect them to meet all of the code’s conditions immediately. However, it will drop a supplier if there are ‘serious breaches’ of the code.
New Economics said CWS had particular strengths in ethical trading and in tackling social exclusion through its community retailing, but warned it must make more effort to develop ‘appropriate’ social performance benchmarks.
In April this year CWS merged with Co-operative Retail Services to form a joint operation that trades under the CWS banner. Before the merger CWS employed 35,457 people. It now employs around 55,000.