Strategy

We have completed our second carbon footprint and our first water footprint for the group. We’re now examining the opportunities and priorities in these areas to include in our environment strategy.

We’re also using the learnings from our voluntary packaging stewardship initiatives in New Zealand to raise the level of voluntary product stewardship in Australia. We will customise the programs to deliver on the needs of those geographies where we are most strongly committed to improving our performance. These voluntary initiatives reduce litter and waste and increase the rates of reuse and recycling.

Earth Hour is a useful awareness raising exercise and all sites across Australia and New Zealand participated in the event on Saturday, 27 March 2010.

Educating stakeholders is an important step in our drive towards environmental sustainability. We held information sessions at two of our National Foods sites to educate the community on initiatives we’re undertaking to improve the local environment, and to engage with them to ensure we’re doing the right thing, particularly with regards to our environmental performance. An environmental hotline was established so we could improve this engagement and continue to reduce our environmental impact around these sites.

We held a series of Green Home Sustainable Living workshops at our head office in Sydney, facilitated by the Australian Conservation Foundation. These sessions covered topics such as: reducing energy consumption and costs in the home, solar technology and water reuse (including rebates), and no-dig gardening.

Our Sustainability Ambassadors program did not achieve the attention it did in the previous year due to the focus on integration. Nevertheless, our ambassadors continued to do an excellent job in raising awareness internally. Initiatives they have developed include:

• publishing monthly environmental hints, tips and acts
• organising quarterly interactive team challenges to educate in a fun and inspiring way
• presenting on sustainability to new team members at their induction programs to get them thinking green right from the start
• recording paper usage

We continued to embed environmental sustainability in our corporate culture through ISO 14001. Castlemaine Perkins, James Boag’s and Speight’s breweries have now achieved ISO 14001 accreditation, resulting in 12 out of our 18 Lion Nathan manufacturing sites now being accredited. Swan Brewery and Malt Shovel Brewery will be seeking accreditation during 2011. We aim to have all Lion Nathan manufacturing sites accredited by 2013 and all National Foods sites progressing to accreditation of ISO 14001 standard.

Accreditation comes from external auditors and confirms that the site’s environmental management system meets legal and best practice requirements and addresses any identified environmental aspects and potential impacts.

Compliance (complaints & incidents, fines, breaches)

We log all complaints, incidents and near misses, regardless of size or severity, using an incident management system. It is mandatory for corrective and preventative action to be taken and all outcomes must be validated to ensure relevant standards are met. During FY10, Lion Nathan’s incidents were minor. None were classed as significant. Only four complaints were received compared to 10 in the previous year. Two involved odour emission, one noise and one particulate emission. This is a very good performance for 15 manufacturing sites in Australia and New Zealand.

During 2010, National Foods received three complaints regarding odour. In response to one we spoke directly with the neighbour concerned to resolve the issue and rectified it immediately. For the others we held information sessions at Wetherill Park and King Island to explain to community members how the odour was created, what was being done to eliminate it and what we were doing to prevent it reoccurring.