About our business
Offering a unique combination of product, value and convenience, Target is a leading retail destination for fashionable clothing and homewares.

Our core product ranges include ladieswear, intimate apparel, menswear, childrenswear and nursery, accessories and footwear, homewares, electrical, toys and other general merchandise. The majority of clothing is Target-branded, with national brands and licences used to complement the Target range.

At year end, more than 24,000 team members were employed in 172 Target stores and 119 Target Country stores throughout metropolitan and regional Australia.

Year in review
Sustainability continued to be a strong focus for us. We advanced our team member training and safety; continued to review our environmental impact; and worked closely with our key community partners.

We introduced a new safety training package for management team members. We also continued to implement new equipment and modifications to reduce exposure to manual handling risks. This contributed to a reduction in workplace incidents and a decrease in our LTIFR from 7.97 to 6.96.

In 2010, we had a high response rate of 87.4 per cent to our ongoing team member survey.

A key highlight for the year was achieved in October 2010 when we reached $1 million dollars raised for The Alannah and Madeline Foundation's Buddy Bags Program since commencing support in 2008.

In the area of environmental performance, we continued to successfully reduce excess packaging from key merchandise areas in line with our commitment to the Australian Packaging Covenant (APC).

Material issues

• Improve communications, database management and reporting to better engage supply partners to comply with our Ethical Sourcing Code
• Support the safety of team members by reducing manual handling risks within our stores and sites
• Build strong relationships and improve communications with our stakeholders
• Continue to make a positive difference within the Australian community by partnering with organisations that support safe, happy families
• Minimise waste generated by our activities and through the life cycle of our products
• Improve data management and reporting that will further reduce energy use across our business

People
We continued our commitment to the safety and wellbeing of our team members, reducing our lost time injury frequency rate from 7.97 in the previous year to 6.96. A key initiative to improve the safety standards and increase productivity was a new carton conveyor system. After working with a materials handling equipment supplier, we redesigned an existing height-adjustable conveyor system to unload loose loads in shipping containers and trailers. The equipment has variable height and speed settings which eliminate the need to manually push cartons down the conveyor and reduce awkward body postures such as reaching, pushing and twisting.

Safety is important across our business. During the year, we introduced a new instructor-led safety course for all management team members participating in the Target Store Leadership program. This hands-on program complements our wide range of online health and safety training courses.

In August and September 2010, we held ceremonies to celebrate the 285 graduates from our inaugural Future Leaders program, the first stage of our development framework for store management team members. Graduates progress to the Target Store Leadership program in which 521 team members were enrolled in June 2011.

Following a pilot in 2010, we selected 30 high-potential female managers from across our business to participate in the inaugural My Mentor Women's Development program. We also held our first networking event 'Targeting Women in Leadership' to promote the representation of women in senior management and non-traditional roles. As at 30 June 2011, women represented 76 per cent of all our employees and 41 per cent of management roles were held by women.

We continued to roll-out initiatives from our diversity strategy and provided opportunities for eight Aboriginal people to undertake school-based traineeships in Western Australia and South Australia. Following the 2010 cultural awareness training conducted with store managers and the senior leadership team, we provided training to our stores in Fulham Gardens and Elizabeth in South Australia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

During the reporting year, two team members participated in the Jawun Indigenous Corporate Partnership Program in October 2010 and March 2011, each completing secondments to the East Kimberley region.

We celebrated and recognised the achievements of our team members at the annual Target Rondel Awards in August 2010. The 16 award categories included safety, customer service, leadership, community and sustainability.

Environment
In line with our commitment to the APC we continued to reduce excess packaging and develop sustainable packaging guidelines for key merchandise areas such as footwear. For example, by suppliers excluding cardboard inserts from slippers we removed 15.8 tonnes of excess packaging. In total, across footwear we saved more than 63 tonnes of packaging during the reporting period.

Team members participated in the third annual Target Green Week Challenge held in June 2011. The theme 'Rethink, redesign and remove' was about looking at how we can do things differently throughout the business to further reduce our impact on the environment. We conducted a survey in all stores to more accurately measure water use. This was estimated to be a total of 311 megalitres per year which equates to 82 litres per full-time employee per day.

Carbon and energy
Greenhouse emissions
Our total greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 244,995 tonnes of CO₂e, up 2.1 per cent on last year, and this equates to 64.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide per million dollars of revenue, up 2.5 per cent on last year. Our greenhouse gas emissions were largely due to electricity consumption at our stores, distribution centres and support centres (approximately 88.4 per cent), synthetic gases used in our air-conditioning (approximately 3.6 per cent) and waste disposed off-site (approximately 3.5 per cent).

Energy use
Our main energy use during the year was electricity consumption for lighting in our stores. Total energy consumption was 820,520 gigajoules, down 2.4 per cent on last year. Our total energy consumption per million dollars of revenue was estimated to be 216 gigajoules, down 1.9 per cent on last year. This energy use was mainly 87 per cent electricity and seven per cent fuel.

Energy efficiency initiatives
We continue to evaluate and implement the recommendations from our EEO representative assessments for improving energy efficiency where these are cost effective to the business. Following an energy efficiency trial conducted in May 2011 at selected sites, we identified an opportunity to reduce our energy consumption by changing the temperature settings within stores.

In June 2011, we started a program to adjust the temperature settings by between one and two degrees.

At our purpose-built storage facilities servicing multiple stores we have introduced light sensors that switch off unnecessary lighting and reduce energy consumption. In these sites we have installed large ceiling mounted fans which enable significant volumes to be circulated efficiently. We also retro-fitted existing compactors with new feeders at six sites to accommodate plastic recycling balers.