A different view of sustainability

We see sustainability as our core responsibility. For us it’s about working with our retail partners to minimise our environmental impact and making a positive contribution to people’s lives, to their communities and to society as a whole.

In 2007 we developed and implemented a new five-year sustainability strategy, key areas of which include:

• reducing energy consumption in our business and those of our retail partners, with the aim of lowering emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases
• reducing the distances travelled by our truck fleets through logistics planning
• delivering greater vehicle fuel efficiency
• increasing recycling and reducing waste at our facilities and those of our retail partners
• ensuring that we meet consumer expectations in respect of the provenance and nutritional value of our own-brand foods
• the optimisation and reduction of consumer packaging.

In addition we have brought in consistent policies and clear targets for every aspect of our business, as well as mechanisms to continuously measure and report performance.

The figures on this site are from our latest Sustainability Report and detail our performance for 2006 and 2007. Our continued commitment to sustainability and to transparent reporting was recognised when our last report won the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ (ACCA) (Ireland) Sustainability Reporting Awards in 2006 and the President’s Award for overall outstanding achievement in Corporate Social Responsibility at the 2007 Chambers Ireland Awards. Similarly, our retail partners have been prominent winners of a number of high-profile trade awards in the areas of sustainability, quality and food hygiene.

We have also invited three experts to comment on an area of the sustainability agenda, providing a barometer of real sustainability issues and a benchmark for our own efforts. We are grateful to Professor Leigh Sparks of Stirling University,  Dr Elizabeth Arnett of the Irish Government’s Change Campaign and dietician Sarah Keogh of the Albany Clinic in Dublin for their perspectives.

We are, as ever, indebted to the numerous individuals from across our business and among our retail partners for their contributions to our performance and for their assistance in providing information for this report. We hope you will enjoy reading this report and gain an understanding of what we are doing to incorporate sustainability into every aspect of our business activities.

If you have any views or suggestions please let us know by emailing group@musgrave.ie