Uniross, the rechargeable battery manufacturer endorsed by the WWF, is one of only nine suppliers to have scored in the range of 74% to 94,44% in a Massmart/Walmart environmental survey.
A total of 500 Massmart suppliers were invited to complete the survey and in total 268 responses were received, equating to a 53% response rate, more than double the response received in previous years.
Based on survey feedback; 38,8% of respondents were from the general merchandise category, 19% from the food category, a combined 21,6% from the building materials and home improvement category, 10% from the non-edible food category, 4,7% from the liquor category and 11,4% of respondents were multiple category suppliers.
Massmart focused on five key issues covered in the survey: energy consumption; water consumption; logistic efficiency; environmental attributes of product packaging; and the environmental attributes of products supplied to Massmart.
A total of 40% of respondents made no progress in reducing energy consumption at the manufacturing facilities that produce their products.
Encouragingly a combined 48% of suppliers have either invested in the energy saving practices and technologies to improve energy efficiency.
Uniross manufactures and distributes a range of rechargeable batteries. Recently the WWF entered into a partnership with Uniross enabling the WWF logo to be used on all Uniross batteries.
“One of the aims of the partnership is to educate South Africans about the environmental benefits of using rechargeable batteries. The goal is to educate and encourage consumers to start using rechargeable batteries instead of ‘single-use’ batteries,” says Michael Rogers, MD of Uniross.
“WWF has a set of environmental criteria that must be adhered to before partnering with an organisation. A percentage of sales go to WWF South Africa in support of their environmental initiatives and conservation work,” he adds.
“Uniross’ compliance covers its battery manufacturing process, the chemical composition of the batteries, packaging and recycling programme.”
While the Massmart Supplier Environmental Survey currently yields a high response from suppliers, the company says respondent performance was disappointing. Approximately 85% of survey respondents scored less than 50% for the survey: of these respondents, 23% scored less than 10%.
“This is concerning as it indicates that a large number of our suppliers are doing little to minimise the environmental impact of their operations and products,” says Rogers. “Not only is environmental impact mitigation crucial in ensuring long term business sustainability but also represents an excellent opportunity to evaluate and reduce rising operational costs.”