Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety (WIS) is Australia and New Zealand’s leading supplier of industrial and safety consumables. We provide engineering products and industrial consumables, safety, packaging, materials handling and lifting products and services to industry and government. We operate a multi-channel distribution model, servicing customers through a network of branches, sales representatives, eBusiness, websites and telesales.

With more than 230 outlets, we trade in Australia as Blackwoods (incorporating Atkins Electrical and Bakers Construction and Industrial), Bullivants, Motion Industries, Total Fasteners and Protector Alsafe, and in New Zealand as Blackwoods Paykels, Packaging House, NZ Safety and Protector Safety. As at 30 June 2009 we employed 3,214 people.

The pursuit of sustainable outcomes within our operations continues to be a focus of our business. These outcomes must be economically viable, socially responsible and minimise any adverse impact on the environment.

As part of this commitment, in 2009 we continued to:

• improve our health, safety and environment (HSE) planning processes through the introduction of improved guidance material and risk profiling for site-level HSE action plans; we also report and review safety performance and HSE plan progress in our monthly ELT meetings; this ongoing focus resulted in the majority of our branches completing their HSE actions and we had a 48.1 per cent reduction in LTIs across the business;
• encourage employee engagement and participation through our in-house development programme, introducing a formal qualification aligned to our GetSAFE management system principles for warehouse employees, and continuing with the implementation of our succession and development plan; and

• focus on reducing the amount of paper used by the business through the introduction of online salary payment details, development of wireless warehousing functionality, and the further development of electronic purchasing capability.

Health and safety

Compliance to our health and safety management systems is a primary focus in all of our businesses. Major achievements in 2009 include:

• completion of a comprehensive gap analysis of our GetSAFE health and safety management system against the national audit tool;
• continuation of our internal health and safety self assessment programme in Australia and New Zealand with 361 self assessments completed;
• formation of a pandemic planning team and the development of an action plan;
• the continuation of WIS New Zealand’s certification by the Accident Compensation Commission’s Workplace Safety Management Practices at the tertiary (top) level.

Training and employee engagement

During the year our major achievements included:

• enrolment of 151 employees in a Certificate III Warehousing and Logistics training programme, and completion of a Cerificate IV Frontline Management training programme by 40 employees;
• ongoing facilitation of a five-day residential branch and area manager development programme, with two programmes training 33 employees;
• development and implementation of a five-day residential ‘Sales Academy’ training which has involved 190 employees to date;
• successful completion by 12 high potential employees of our internal development programme (WISDP); and
• conducting our third Fit 4 Future (‘F4F’) survey which seeks feedback from all employees on our business, leadership behaviours and suggestions for improvement. This year’s response rate of 83 per cent was an 11-point improvement on our 2008 survey.

During the year our major achievements were:

• the development and successful implementation of wireless warehousing to reduce paper usage in our warehousing activities;
• the purchase of 351 LCD monitors to replace CRT monitors;
• increasing the number of LPG fleet vehicles by 22.6 per cent from last year; and
• developing an action plan to reduce product packaging and increase recycling levels as part of the Wesfarmers signatory agreement to the National Packaging Covenant.

Greenhouse emissions

Our total greenhouse gas emissions were estimated to be 25,231 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), down 24.8 per cent on last year, and this equates to 19.5 tonnes of CO2e per million dollars of revenue, down 23.8 per cent on last year.

Energy use

Our main energy use during the year related to electricity for office and warehouse operations. Total energy consumption was estimated to be 190,890 gigajoules, down four per cent on last year. Our total energy consumption per million dollars of revenue was estimated to be 147.5 gigajoules, down three per cent on last year. This energy use is broken down into vehicle fuel (69.8 per cent of total energy consumption) electricity (29.0 per cent) and natural gas (1.2 per cent).

We remain committed to ensuring that WIS and our suppliers (products and services) are compliant with appropriate legislation and WIS values. Focus areas for 2009 included:

• continuing to educate relevant employees and audit freight companies on chain of responsibility requirements under the National Transport Commission (Road Transport Legislation Compliance and Enforcement Bill) Regulations 2006, in Australia;
• improving our capability in capturing and reporting of energy and greenhouse emission data in line with the National Greenhouse Energy Reporting scheme (NGERs) requirements; and
• continuing to conduct onsite organisational quality audits on our global product suppliers, and domestic supplier online surveys.

We continue to invest in the community in the areas of emergency relief, education, charitable fundraising and sport. Our total direct contribution for 2009 was $128,678 across Australia and New Zealand which included $44,872 in cash contributions plus an additional $82,336 of in-kind contributions and some employee time. In addition, $44,352 was contributed by employees.

Our sales revenue in Australia and New Zealand was $1.3 billion for 2009 with wages and salaries of $140 million. We continued to invest in the development of our network and people during the year with the following highlights:

• continued investment in the construction of new purpose built distribution centres for Blackwoods in Perth and Blackwoods Paykels in New Zealand with combined expenditure of $1.9 million during the year;
• investment of $2.0 million in our sales force by providing them with training and improved systems and tools (including laptops); and
• targeting sales growth in the government, infrastructure and oil and gas sectors by focusing sales resources and adding new production capabilities at a cost of $1.9 million.