Creating Value For A Better World

Following the release of our 2023/24 ESG Report last week, I am delighted to outline the strides we have made this year as we look to advance sustainability both within our business and for our people, customers, suppliers, communities and shareholders.

Navigating a changing world

In a year marked by weakness in global industrial production, the unwinding of unusual post-pandemic trading tailwinds and unprecedented geopolitical tension, we continued to push forward with activities to further strengthen our focus and growth. This included taking decisive action on our ESG agenda. While I am confident that these actions will continue to improve the fundamentals of the business, we must continue to monitor our key risks and opportunities to ensure that we remain agile, efficient and flexible into the future.

As an organisation, one of our biggest opportunities is to prioritise wins and execution by doubling down on what we are good at: providing industry-leading products and service solutions that delight our customers every day. In 2023/24, we aligned our strategic actions, simplified our operating model, enhanced our leadership team and clarified accountabilities to further strengthen our approach. In doing so, we are set up to deliver excellent, first choice outcomes for all our stakeholders to make amazing happen for a better world.

ESG as a commercial opportunity

For us, ESG isn’t just a nice to have – it is a commercial driver that helps us accelerate the achievement of our long-term objectives. As a differentiated distributor of product and service solutions, our unique position in the global supply chain enables us to better understand the needs of our customers to influence supplier choices and provide them with more sustainable alternatives. This in turn can help customers achieve their environmental goals, operational objectives, cost reduction targets and compliance needs in an integrated way.

As of March 2024, our range of around 30,000 Better World products are helping customers take direct action on sustainability. The range and its industry-leading claims based framework also includes 1,300 products that help our customers reduce energy consumption and generate renewable electricity. Our ambition is to grow the range to over 100,000 products and we are working closely with our supplier partners to make this a reality. Read more about this exciting development on pages 10 to 11 and pages 26 to 27 of our ESG Report.

We are also expanding our range of sustainability solutions which accelerate the achievement of customer goals, environmental progress and compliance needs. Our value-added solutions cover everything from MRO services to recycling, circular economy and health and safety support (see pages 28 to 29). These solutions are not only applicable to our existing industrial customers – they also support new and emerging low-carbon sectors like offshore wind and the electric vehicle industry. We are working with these sectors directly to accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy.

Taking action in our business

In our own operations, we are taking positive strides towards achieving our 2030 ESG action plan commitments. This includes taking action across our four global goals of: Advancing sustainability (pages 16 to 29); Championing education and innovation (pages 30 to 37); Empowering our people (pages 38 to 47); and, Doing business responsibly (pages 48 to 57).

As we continue to look to the future, we are not resting on our laurels. Our biggest risk is complacency, but we are ensuring strong momentum as we approach the mid-way point of our 2030 commitment period. We will take the opportunity to review these commitments in the year ahead to ensure they remain ambitious, aligned to our strategy and that they continue to deliver maximum value for all our stakeholders.

Our efforts will be enhanced by our new values and behaviours which were launched in 2023/24 – and in which I have been personally involved in shaping. They outline our approach to working as one team, who deliver brilliantly, by doing the right thing to make every day better. Read more about how these values are driving our high-performance culture on pages 12 to 13.

I am incredibly excited by the direction we are heading – not just in terms of how we are adapting in response to a changing world, but to how we are identifying and implementing solutions to make it a better one. We hope you enjoy reading our report and we invite you to reach out if you have any feedback, thoughts or questions.