Our sustainable development charter outlines our commitment to the environment and to ethical trading. Included in the charter is a commitment to developing purchasing strategies to reduce our carbon footprint and our waste at source and to encourage our suppliers to implement our sustainable development standards.

The charter also commits us to measure suppliers' sustainable development performance capabilities through our first class suppliers' programme.

For more information please see the full version of our Sustainable development charter.

This year we have reviewed our environmental assessment of our supply chain to mirror the emphasis that is now being placed upon sustainable development nationally. Our commitment in this area is shown by the fact that 'sustainability' is now one of the seven main criteria for performance measurement of all the suppliers participating in our first class supplier award programme. The separate sustainable development award looks at the impact a supplier's industry is having and actions taken by them to reduce the effects on the environment.