Boots - Environmental logistics

A Beacon company case study

Boots is the leading pharmacy-led health and beauty group in Europe. It aims to prevent the generation of waste whenever possible. Where this is unavoidable, it applies the waste management hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recover, recycle and dispose.  It also works with its suppliers to reduce the environmental footprint of its whole supply chain.

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Processes

Warehousing waste management
In 2003/4, stores and logistics operations generated 39,041 tonnes of waste. 34% of this waste was recycled by Boots and an estimated 16% was made available for shopping centre recycling schemes – resulting in a total rate of recycling of 50%.

When commenting on performance, Boots quotes its ‘total waste’ (waste disposed plus waste recycled). The company aims to reduce ‘total waste’ as this is a more transparent measure of its environmental impact.  Therefore, the best outcome is for total waste, waste disposed and waste recycled all to be reduced.

Supplier verification
Since May 2003, Boots has been a member of the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), which promotes best practice amongst labour codes worldwide.  Boots Supplier Verification Programme works with key business requirements to create growth and produce value. Through a defined, robust process based on the principles of continuous development, Boots assesses its suppliers against standards set within the company’s code of conduct. All external Boots brand suppliers have been fully assessed since April 2006 and the company has already identified over 2500 actions against its code of conduct since the programme began.

Impact

  • Recycling currently saves Boots around £1.2 million per year. For example, the Strepsils manufacturing area has seen a reduction in process waste of approximately one-third (around 200 tonnes) with equivalent cost savings of around £220,000 per year through improved process consistency and control.
  • Many companies have been through the Supplier Verification Programme and been signposted to other initiatives, like the Envirowise Retail Therapy Supply Chain Partnership. Through Retail Therapy, Boots provides specific environmental information to suppliers to help them improve their own environmental performance.
  • Boots gain from having compliant, more efficient suppliers which can help meet the company’s targets. Several suppliers have reported increased efficiency in their operations by reviewing their processes.

See also