WALGREENS BOOTS ALLIANCE forward-facing company-wide strategy on environmental and social issues , while overhauling its management strategy .
“ We made a commitment to expand our understanding of climate-related risk and the opportunities around that . And we ' re on track to reduce our absolute scope two emissions through some of our initiatives ,” Townsend states proudly . “ 60 % of WBA waste is recycled – we ' ve increased that by 6 % since 2019 , while also reducing our carbon emissions by almost 15 % compared to 2019 .
“ Within the Boots UK arm of the business , less than 1 % of our waste went to landfill for the third year in a row . About 6.3 % of energy consumed across the organisations comes from renewable sources . We have a strong focus in this space and a very clear clue around where we ' re heading , from an ESG perspective .”
This attitude of constantly doing better and dedicating yourself to the betterment of others is core to Townsend ’ s personal approach . He feels that , while a good leader should be driven , focused and courageous , it is more important to be authentic , grounded , fun to work with and , above all , genuinely caring – attributes that have had a significant hand in WBA ’ s transformation and future focus .
“ Why would anybody want to work for somebody that ' s not authentic ?” Townsend questions , hitting the nail on the head in terms of identifying the company culture that potential employees and customers are looking for these days .
So what ’ s in store for WBA ’ s procurement team in the next couple of years ? Well , it ’ s guaranteed that ESG initiatives and strategies will be central in the company ’ s future plans .
According to Townsend , this will be joined by a commitment to being “ customerfocused ”, “ socially responsible ” and , to some degree , “ technology-led ”.
He concludes : “ We thought through where we want to be , and it was around end-to-end digitalisation and being insights driven . We ’ ll continue to build out our new operating model to extend the value cycle and broaden the scope of what procurement is about within our organisation , while building an even stronger team with specialised talent .
“ As part of that , we ’ ll continue making WBA an even better place to work .”
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