Responsible Business
We are building a business we are proud of, where all our colleagues can feel at home and are empowered to support their communities and customers; by supporting the fight against climate change and taking action to protect the natural environment; and by helping our customers to save energy and reduce the carbon footprint of their homes. At Wickes our purpose is to help the nation feel house proud. We believe we have an important role to play in society, from the products we sell, to the stores we run and the infrastructure we use to service our customers.
Built to Last
We launched our Responsible Business Strategy ‘Built to Last’ in 2022, after talking to our key stakeholders to help us understand which sustainability topics are most material for our business.
Our strategy has three core pillars: People, Environment and Homes which cover the sustainability topics where we can create most impact. These are underpinned by our Foundations: the sustainability topics we measure and manage to ensure we continue to operate responsibly through our business and supply chain activities.
Governance of our Responsible Business Strategy
Our Responsible Business strategy is embedded within the business and a governance framework provides Board level oversight and assurance of ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) matters. Our Responsible Business Committee is chaired by our Non-executive Director, Sonita Alleyne and meets quarterly to review, approve and monitor progress against our Responsible Business strategy. It is supported by the Executive Board and our Responsible Business Working Group, which is comprised of members representing key areas of the business who are delivering the targets.
Disclosures
We recognise that disclosing our performance is an essential part of building trust with our stakeholders by demonstrating how we are doing. We provide updates on our ESG performance in our annual financial report and by reporting against key external benchmarks.
We align our climate-related disclosures with the UK’s current requirements based on the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in our annual financial report.
- We report against the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standard for our sector in our annual financial report.
- We show how our targets directly support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in our annual financial report.
- We submitted our second response to CDP in 2023, and we achieved ‘B’ for our Climate Change response, ‘A-’ for our Supplier Engagement Rating, and ‘C’ for Forests.