For the foreign companies operating in China that make community outreach a cornerstone of how they interact with suppliers, customers, and employees, few are as active as B&Q. With over 10000 employees, 1200 suppliers, and 58 stores located in 26 Chinese cities, B&Q's commitment to transparency and community has expanded through the years.
Mark Ladham is Retail Managing Director of B&Q China, part of the Kingfisher Group. Having joined Kingfisher in 1999 he has been in China for two years, and along with his CSR guru Sabrina Gu, helps with oversight of these activities.
What type of global CSR initiatives does B&Q have, and how are those implemented in China?
CSR in B&Q covers a large scope in terms of environmental friendly products, business operations, vendor management and community activities. Different functional lines take ownership to implement the CSR projects in their specific areas and our CSR team based in the head office guides and monitors the process and results. The 12 key areas of CSR are:
- Supplier environmental performance
- Product environmental and social impacts
- Timber
- Chemicals
- Climate change
- Packaging
- Product disposal
- Transport
- Store waste
- Factory working conditions
- Respect for the diversity of people
- Store neighbours
What sort of relationships have you built with local government or NGOs to build community outreach programs?
B&Q works with local government when we open stores in the new city to launch children's education sponsorship programs. For cooperation with NGOs, Save the Children is one of the organizations we have been supporting. We also help some other NGOs, such as Hands on Shanghai, Home Sweet Home, and SCCA. We provide assistance in terms of fund raising, materials, and in-kind donations. The most important is staff involvement with business expertise: for example we help revamp old houses into activity centers and we help decorate elderly care centers.
For your China employees, what has been the effect you have witnessed in having them participate in community programs?
Our employees are proud to be the volunteers in community programs and that kind of activity also boosts employee morale and engagement. Ongoing local community projects are driven now by stores and the head office only initiates, while stores do the rest.
What type of advice do you have for other executives looking to start similar community programs in their own companies?
International companies must be seen to support local communities in which they trade. Time is as important as money if you are in for the long term.
For auditing of suppliers, what are some challenges and how are you working on fostering good growth among those partners?
The most challenging difficulty is how to gain the support from government to get suppliers' compliance. We take regular onsite audits and follow-ups. Meanwhile, we call on seminars/workshops to educate our suppliers to comply with our requirements of quality and social responsibility.
What type of companies do you work with to conduct audits and how does your Q&A team interact with them?
We cooperate with international branding third parties to conduct audits and workshops. We have partnered with SGS since B&Q entered the China market. ITS helped on our workshops delivery as well. We had 15 workshops and 301 vendors in 2006.
What does CSR mean to B&Q?
One of the important channels to realize return to society when B&Q creates business development and makes B&Q different from other peers in the market.
