5 highlights from the 2022 ESG Report

We recently released our 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), which provides a great overview of the many things we’re doing to deliver on our purpose – helping Canadians Live Life Well^®. This is our 16th annual ESG Report and we encourage everyone to read the report, as it demonstrates our decades-long track record of leadership and meaningful action in our commitment to the environment, the social diversity that defines Canada, as well as reliable and ethical corporate governance practices.  

In case you don’t have time to read the report in its entirety, here are the Top 5 things we think you should know about this year’s ESG Report(Open in a new tab):   

• We’re continuing to reduce our carbon footprint – You’ve likely heard about our commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 and while that’s a few decades from now, since 2020 we’ve reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 8% when compared to our 2020 baseline and complete 250 carbon reduction projects last year alone. Some of these projects included, rolling out our first electric heavy-duty transport truck, replacing traditional lighting sources with LEDs and continuing to convert our refrigeration systems to help lower our impact.  

• Say goodbye to plastic – we’re well on our way to reducing plastic waste by making all control brand and in-store plastic packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025. This past year, we achieved 35% compliance relative to the Golden Design Rules for our control brand and in-store plastic packaging. We also initiated the phased elimination of plastic shopping bags and announced a new goal to transition 100% of Joe Fresh e-commerce packaging to recyclable materials by 2025.  

• We’re eliminating food waste – Last year, we successfully on-boarded 100% of our eligible corporate and franchised grocery stores, as well as associate-owned Shoppers Drug Mart stores and distribution centres to our food recovery program with Food Banks Canada and Second Harvest, ensuring stores were connecting with and actively donating to its local food recovery agency helping us to get one step closer to eliminating food waste sent to landfill by 2030.  

• Working to be Canada’s most diverse and inclusive employer – We increased representation of women in executive roles to 39% and are on track to achieve our 2024 goal of having 40%. We also achieved our 2024 goal of ensuring women represent 45% of management roles and 45% of our board of directors, as well as achieving our 2024 goal of ensuring visible minorities represent 28% of executive roles.  

• Supporting our local communities and the health and wellbeing of children and women – In 2022, we raised and donated more than $110 million to support research, charities, and non-profits across Canada. President’s Choice Children’s Charity fed more than 840,000 kids as part of its mission to tackle childhood hunger in Canada and feed 1 million kids annually by 2025. We announced a new commitment to Feed More Families^TM, with a pledge to donate 1 billion pounds of food to charities by 2028. Through partnerships in Ontario and Manitoba, LOVE YOU by Shoppers Drug Mart^TM (now the Shoppers Foundation for Women’s Health) provided 28 million period products.