About our business
Officeworks is Australia's largest retailer and supplier of office products and solutions for home, business and education. Harris Technology caters predominantly for small-to-medium businesses and early adopters of technology, and is reported here as part of the Office Supplies portfolio.

Employing more than 5,000 team members, we cater 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 ways to shop: a national network of 140 retail stores; online at www.officeworks.com.au; or by telephone/fax at our call centres in Melbourne, Victoria and Sydney, New South Wales.

Year in review
During the year, 10 new Officeworks stores opened, including two relocations, and six stores were fully upgraded. At 30 June 2011, there were 135 Officeworks stores and five Harris Technology business centres operating across Australia.

We remain determined to look after our team, with a focus during 2010/11 on taking personal responsibility for safety and wellbeing. We have had a pleasing improvement in our safety performance from an AIFR of 47.20 in 2009/10 to 36.22 this year.

Officeworks' partnership with Mobile Muster, the official recycling program of the Australian mobile telecommunications industry, resulted in the collection of more than 1,400 kilograms of mobile phones and accessories for recycling.

We continued our participation in the Cartridges for Planet Ark program with more than 135,800 kilograms or 596,400 units of used ink and toner cartridges diverted from landfill. We achieved a significant milestone of more than two million units collected cumulatively since we first participated in this program in 2005.

Many local community organisations were supported during the year, with gift cards, products and team member time contributed to primary schools, sporting clubs, aged care facilities, kindergartens, hospitals, Rotary clubs and Lions clubs. Nationally, we supported Australia's Biggest Morning Tea for the Cancer Council and sold fundraising merchandise for Remembrance Day and ANZAC Day. Funds raised from those sales went to the Returned and Services League (RSL) and the ANZAC Day Commemorative Committee (ANZAC DCC).

Our business' contribution to our local communities during 2010/11 was more than $1.35 million.

Material issues
Material Issues for our stakeholders include our continued contribution to the wellbeing of the communities in which we operate; the continued development of our waste and emissions data capturing systems; looking after our team and making Officeworks a great place to work; continued reduction of our waste to landfill and increased rates of recycling; and further improvement of the sustainability of our sourced products.

Officeworks is committed to and has robust policies in relation to the responsible sourcing of forest products to ensure pulp and paper products are procured from legal and well managed sources. Officeworks maintains an ongoing dialogue with credible independent groups in reviewing those policies and outcomes. Recently trading was suspended with a supplier pending unresolved sustainability concerns.

People
During the year, our Health and Safety Team reviewed the Stay Safe reporting system to ensure it better reflects our safety culture. The team also risk-profiled our business, resulting in the development of risk registers and updating all of our safe work practices.

Safety leadership training was also launched during the year, aligning our safety culture with our leadership model, providing our leaders with the tools required to drive safety in their teams.

More than 99 per cent of team members are shareholders through the Wesfarmers Employee Share Ownership Plan.

We continued to partner with numerous suppliers and service providers to give team members access to discounted products and services. Our second annual Climate Survey was conducted, this time including a focus on team member demographics. This survey allows us to measure how our team feel about working for the business and to identify potential opportunities for improvement. Importantly, the survey now provides us with information about the diversity of ages, culture and life experiences of our team members.

At 30 June 2011 our workforce was equally represented by males and females, with the Climate Survey data showing 30 team members participating in the survey self-identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

'OTV' was launched on our intranet during the year, providing a library of training videos for team members to easily access at store level and designed to provide short, simple help and advice to frontline team members on the range of products and services available in our business.

More than 94,600 hours of facilitated and online training were delivered during the year with programs including induction, safety, product knowledge, customer service and leadership capability development.

Environment
The collection of e-waste continued at our Ballarat and Dandenong stores in Victoria, with 39,790 kilograms of e-waste diverted from landfill and recycled with the assistance of our reverse logistics service provider TIC Group.

The roll-out of rainwater harvesting tanks at our stores continued. Our total water use during the year was 50 megalitres. Water consumption is estimated again in 2010/11 using the consumption data available at one of our free-standing sites.

As a result of a successful trial during 2009/10, power-factor correction devices, which allow us to make better use of the available electricity, are now standard in our new store design specifications.

We stopped providing single-use plastic bags in December 2008 and have reusable alternatives for sale. Proceeds from the sale of these bags go to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) to assist it to establish sanctuaries for the conservation of threatened wildlife and ecosystems. During the year, $14,378 was donated, taking our total contribution to AWC since 2008 to almost $90,000.

Our greenhouse emissions during the year were 65,000 tonnes with the major contribution to this being electricity use in our stores. Our total energy use was 211,539 gigajoules.

Community
For the first time in 2010 we supported Blue September, an event designed to raise awareness about men's cancer and funds for the Australian Cancer Research Foundation and Bowel Cancer Australia. Our team members and customers across Australia supported the cause, and we ultimately contributed almost $100,000 to the campaign, including in-kind assistance and more than $84,000 in funds.

In January 2011, we added to our range of reusable bag alternatives with the Helping Kids Grow bag which is manufactured from jute. We donate one dollar from every unit sold to the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) to assist with indigenous and marginalised children's literacy programs. Since January 2011, more than $35,000 has been donated to the ALNF from the sale of these bags.

Once again, we supported the Whitlam Institute's 'What Matters?' creative writing competition for students in years 5 to 12 in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The 2011 event received more than 1,800 entries, with children from 176 schools submitting works explaining what matters to them.

Our team members and customers contributed more than $61,000 to the ANZAC DCC in Queensland and the RSL nationally through the sale of fundraising merchandise in the lead-up to ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day in the reporting period.

In addition, $574,831 was contributed to local communities through donation and sponsorship activities conducted by our stores.

Economic contribution
Operating revenue for our businesses was $1.47 billion for the full year. Earnings before interest and tax were $80 million.

Office Supplies – 2012 priorities

• Continue work on our ethical sourcing program, in particular the transparency of our forest products supply chain
• Provide customers with information about products and services which lower their environmental impact and help them to make environmentally preferable purchasing decisions
• Further improve our waste and emissions data collection systems
• Maintain our contribution to improve the social wellbeing of the communities in which we operate
• Continue work to reduce the use of unnecessary packaging in our products