MR PRICE Group continues to gain momentum, with the business making meaningful sustainable progress in the 2022 financial year.
The group has been driving more responsible environmental, social and economic practices for the past decade, under a strategy termed ‘Together We Do Good’. While the group recognises that this journey is ongoing, its FY2022 sustainability impact attests that sustainability is achievable for value retailers.
“There is a perception that only high-margin retailers can focus on sustainability. However, our results continue to show that value retailers can pursue sustainable and responsible growth in a cost-effective way,” said Mr Price Group CEO Mark Blair.
The group recently released its FY2022 Integrated Report (4 April 2021 to 2 April 2022), which includes a stand-alone Sustainability Report. Blair said: “The sustainability team has been at the forefront of our contribution to build a more sustainable company and country, both directly and by coordinating our trading efforts through various focused operational working groups. These sustainability initiatives address real issues on the ground.”
The group’s FY2022 environmental highlights include removing 29.2 million plastic bags from circulation to reduce plastic waste entering the oceans and environment, increasing the use of sustainable materials in products, and continued reduction of its carbon footprint.
On the socio-economic side, the group demonstrated its ongoing commitment to transformation and local development. Highlights include investing R21.3 million in small black-owned suppliers, providing support to small-scale South African cotton farmers, developing local suppliers and providing guidance on responsible practices, and donating R29.6 million to youth development and education through Mr Price Foundation.
The group boosted the local economy by sourcing 78.6 million units from RSA suppliers to a value of R4.3 billion and increased direct employment by 2,892 jobs.
Janis Cheadle, Mr Price Group ESG Director, said sustainability is one of the six strategic pillars of the group’s new strategy, launched in May 2021. The sustainability strategy is fully integrated into the group strategy and is tracked with a sustainability scorecard.
“Sustainability is driven business-wide across the group to ensure targets are operationalised in the business at all levels and actively pursued. These integrated targets are a contributing factor to both short- and long-term remuneration and incentives.
This is a clear indication that continuous improvement of business sustainability is important to us,” said Cheadle.
“The ‘Together We Do Good’ strategy aligns strongly with the business’s key value of Partnership.
Building a sustainable business requires positive action by all partners and stakeholders: from our
people to our shareholders, our customers and our supply chain. They are all part of the sustainability conversation – and part of the sustainability solution,” said Cheadle.
The group is pleased that its consistent sustainability efforts have been acknowledged.
Mr Price is the only fashion value retailer to be included in the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Top 30 Index and is the only RSA value retailer that has been member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) since 2013.
For more than two decades, ETI and its members have been a driving force in ethical trade, influencing business to act responsibly and promote decent work.
The group is also a member of WWF South Africa, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the KZN Clothing and Textile Cluster, and is a signatory to the Retail-CTFL Master Plan 2030, which aims to develop and grow the South African clothing, textile and footwear sector.
The group is committed to increasing local production to 100 million units by 2030, thus contributing to creating much-needed jobs in its South African retail operations and supply chain, and continuing to reduce the use of single-use plastics and its overall impact on the environment.
FY2022 Environmental highlights
• Zero single-use plastic shopping bags in Miladys and Yuppiechef stores
• 29.2 million single-use plastic shopping bags removed from circulation
• 35.9 million products sold containing sustainable materials
• 26.3 million products manufactured using sustainable cotton
• 100% of distribution centre (DC) water is supplied entirely from harvested rainwater
• Approximately 1.4 million kwh of head office and DC energy is generated by renewable energy (25% of all energy consumption)
FY2022 Socio-economic highlights
• R21.3 million invested in small black-owned suppliers
• 78.6 million units procured locally from RSA amounting to a local spend of R4.3 billion
• R32.9 million donated to Mr Price Foundation (Read Mr Price Foundation’s Integrated Annual Report 2022)
• R17.1 million invested in unemployed youth through Mr Price Foundation’s skills development programme
• R12.5 million invested in quality foundational education through Mr Price Foundation’s EduRise programme
• R5 million donated to disaster relief organisations following widespread civil unrest in the group’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal in July 2021
• 850,000 items of clothing donated to support approximately 1,200 entrepreneurs
• 99.7% of suppliers and manufacturers are mapped globally
