Officeworks is Australia’s leading retailer and supplier of office products and solutions for home, business and education needs.

Officeworks caters for a broad range of customers that include small-to-large size businesses, students and teachers, health-care services, private, public and government organisations as well as personal shoppers.

We provide our customers with three easy ways to shop – via a national network of more than 125 retail stores, online at www.officeworks.com.au, or by telephone/fax at our call centres.

Officeworks aims to provide customers with the widest range of catering and cleaning supplies, office supplies, ink and toner, technology, furniture, and photo, print and copy services at the lowest prices, every day. Officeworks also continually strives to provide great service to our customers while ensuring we deliver a safe, rewarding and compelling place of work to our more than 5,500 team members. Our Taking Care policy is our commitment to corporate and social responsibility which links our values about the environment, our community, ethics and diversity to our business strategy and contributes to our success.

Harris Technology is a part of the Officeworks portfolio, which caters predominantly for small-to-medium businesses and early adopters of technology. Harris Technology has call centre and internet operations with a small retail store presence across the nation.

Operating revenue for the Office Supplies businesses was $1.4 billion for the full year. Earnings before interest and tax were $74 million.

Officeworks commitment to environmental sustainability continued throughout 2009/10. We continued to run the trial of the innovative e-waste recycling project, Byteback, through our Ballarat and Dandenong stores in Vic, in conjunction with Sustainability Victoria, the Australian Information Industry Association and the Byteback Partners (www.bytebackaustralia.com.au) as well as embarking on additional trials and launching new programs.

During 2009/10, Officeworks supported the community in a variety of ways through direct donations and sponsorships of more than $500,000. The beneficiaries included kindergartens, schools, and various other not-for-profit organisations.

Our main energy use during the year was primarily the electricity consumption at our stores. Our total electricity consumption was 54,969,197 kilowatt hours as part of total energy use of 208,184 gigajoules. Further, the Office Supplies’ greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for electricity, gas and fuel usage is 63,362 tonnes CO₂e.

Due to the nature of our operations, in particular the location of the majority of our stores in centres owned and operated by external parties, we are unable to report in detail on our water consumption. Using the consumption data available at one of our free-standing sites we have extrapolated an estimated consumption of 51.61 megalitres. We intend to refine our data capture procedures for water to provide detailed consumption results next year.

Our business is determined to look after our team and make Officeworks a great place to work.

In 2009/10 we improved our safety performance in the following ways:

• All Injury Frequency Rate (AIFR) reduced from 63.90 to 46.90 (26.6 per cent).
• Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) reduced from 12.30 to 11.95 (2.8 per cent)

The Officeworks Health and Safety System was updated to bring it into line with our culture of leading and driving safety change through our behaviours. In line with our Stay Healthy program we offered a wide range of health and wellness initiatives, including influenza vaccinations, team member health checks and the launch of a Stay Healthy internet site.

Team member engagement activities during the year included the opportunity to salary sacrifice purchases such as digital cameras and laptop computers. Over 80 per cent of eligible team members are now Wesfarmers shareholders through the Wesfarmers Employee Share Ownership Plan. Officeworks is also partnering with some of our key service providers to offer team members discounted products and services to continue to make Officeworks a great place to work.

The first annual Climate Survey was conducted during the year in order to measure how our team members feel about working at Officeworks and identify potential opportunities to make it even better.

We are committed to the growth and development of our people. Our team members completed a further 87,973 hours of facilitated and online training during the year, with programs including product knowledge units, customer service, safety, international best practice and leadership capability development.

Officeworks is committed to providing equal opportunities for its team and encourages diversity. At year end our workforce was comprised of 49.1 per cent women and 50.9 per cent men.

During the year our Ballarat and Dandenong stores, with the assistance of one of our logistics providers, the TIC Group, continued the facilitation of the free of charge computer and accessories take-back scheme, Byteback, resulting in a further 34,022 kilograms of e-waste being recycled and diverted from landfill. Officeworks was also invited to participate in the E-Waste Committee run by the Western Australian Waste Authority with a view to developing and implementing a similar e-waste recycling service in WA. Work to implement a similar scheme on a national basis is still underway.

Officeworks also became partners in the mobile muster program, the official recycling program of the Australian telecommunications industry resulting in 503 kilograms of mobile phones and accessories being collected and diverted from landfill.

Working with Sustainability Victoria, Officeworks stores at South Melbourne, Bundoora and Preston participated in the Batteryback trial to collect and divert batteries (with the exception of vehicle batteries) from landfill. Over 150 kilograms of batteries were collected through Officeworks for the trial between October 2009 and April 2010.

The year also saw the development and roll-out of our recycling collection units to all Officeworks stores in Australia. These units were specifically designed for Officeworks as an extension to the existing Cartridges for Planet Ark (C4PA) collection model facilitating the collection of used ink and toner cartridges, as well as in support of the introduction of the mobile muster program. Over 94,280 kilograms of ink and toner cartridges were collected for C4PA and diverted from landfill during the reporting period.

A number of sustainability initiatives were also undertaken by the Officeworks Store Development Team this year. These included rainwater harvesting, power factor correction and recycled carpet tiles for office areas at store sites. Initiatives under review during the period include the trial of an energy saving Hypermiser system and solar car park lighting.

Officeworks ceased providing single-use plastic bags to customers in December 2008 and introduced reusable alternatives for sale. During 2009/10 revenue ($27,624) from the sale of these reusable bags was donated to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC). AWC acquires land, and works with other landholders, to establish sanctuaries for the conservation of threatened wildlife and ecosystems. AWC now owns 20 sanctuaries covering 2.5 million hectares in places such as north Queensland, the Kimberley, western New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia’s south west.

Our major community involvement activities during the year included:

• Partnering with the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation’s (ALNF) ’Share-A-Book’ campaign (www.alnf.org) during February and March in 2010. This partnership saw the collection of new and pre-loved children’s books in every Officeworks store around Australia. The ALNF use these books to support and implement their vital literacy programs in indigenous, refugee and marginalised communities around Australia. Thanks to our team and customers, Officeworks was able to provide 20 pallets of books to the program.
• Supporting the Whitlam Institute’s (www.whitlam.org) ‘What Matters?’ creative writing competition for students in years five to twelve in NSW and the ACT for the second consecutive year. 2010 resulted in a record number of entries with 2,525 children from over 200 schools putting pen to paper on a wide range of issues from global to the very personal.
• Working with our customers to contribute over $64,490 to the ANZAC Day Commemorative Committee in Qld and to the Returned and Service’s League nationally through the sale of fundraising badges in our stores to commemorate ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day.
• Celebrating the opening of new Officeworks stores with a $1,000 donation each to a local school and a not-for-profit group.
• Contributing in excess of $314,000 to local communities through various donation and sponsorship activities organised through the national Officeworks store network.

During the year, six new Officeworks stores were opened and twelve Officeworks stores were totally upgraded. At year end, there were 128 Officeworks stores and five Harris Technology business centres operating across the country.
For further details on our sustainability performance please go to our website at www.officeworks.com.au