Environment Overview
We understand the necessity of both local and global environmental stewardship, including the reduction of carbon emissions as part of JD Group’s obligation to help combat the challenges of climate change. During the period, a number of initiatives and reviews have been completed, resulting in a more detailed and comprehensive Group approach to sustainability and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) matters.
Independent verification of the Group’s continued progress towards reducing our environmental impact was provided by our December 2020 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) score. The Group progressed to an ‘A-’ grade for the most important category of ‘Carbon Management’, establishing JD Group within the ‘Leadership’ band for our approach to carbon management and reduction - the most integral components required to combat climate change. JD continues to out-perform both our category (Discretionary Retail) benchmark, and the wider European sector average score – this year by three grades.
The CDP is recognised as a platform where investors, companies and cities take action on sustainability by measuring and understanding their management approach and impact achieved. Our CDP participation enables the Group to benchmark performance against industry peers, ensuring our strategy on carbon reduction is independently reviewed against comparable businesses.
Beyond our CDP score achievement, we have continued our support of, and compliance with the UK Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment, including the new Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) regime. In previous years, the JD Group fulfilled all of its Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) and Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) commitments, assisting the reduction of our environmental footprint and improving resource efficiency across the UK and Europe.
After the Group’s FTSE100 entry, we made further commitment to improving our sustainability and environmental performance by establishing our ESG Committee. The Committee determines our ESG strategy and related objectives, whilst monitoring adherence to our existing documented ESG standards and commitments.ESG – Key achievements:
- We advanced our reputation as a sustainable organisation through increasing the number of environmental performance benchmarks that we measure ourselves against. These include joining RE100 (the world’s most influential companies, committed to 100% renewable power) to demonstrate our public commitment to renewable energy. In addition to our CDP-issued A- score for ‘Carbon Management’ we completed our second CDP Forests questionnaire, and achieved a fantastic ‘B’ score for our first ever CDP ‘Water Security’ submission, two grades above the average for the discretionary retail sector.
- As part of our measures to improve communication on our matters of current public and media interest (e.g. plastic usage, the Group re-launched its corporate website in late 2019. Our new site has served as a fantastic repository for our achievements and updates, garnering positive feedback from investors, brand partners and customers alike. All parties continue to benefit from greater transparency on our practices and we look forward to continuing to share our progress.
- Continuing our progress on moving JD European stores to 100% renewable energy usage, (consistent with our approach in the UK and Republic of Ireland). Our stores in Spain and Portugal are the latest to benefit from renewable energy supply. Through membership of the RE100, we have publicised our target of 100% renewable electricity use for our European operations by 2022, with the ambition for all existing global operations to be renewable by 2025.
Suppliers with ideas or innovations that would help to reduce our environmental impact are welcome to contact our Energy and Environment team via newsupplierenquiries@jdplc.com