Alliance Boots

Stakeholder dialogue

One of the themes to emerge from our consultation with stakeholders at the time the Group became privately owned was an expectation that Alliance Boots should continue to be an acknowledged leader in corporate social responsibility.

Looking to the future, stakeholders were also clear about the qualities they wanted to see displayed by Alliance Boots and the vital role of corporate social responsibility activities in building the trust which is central to our strategy. These included:

• Engagement
• Reputation
• Involvement
• Healthcare
• Confidence

We believe our new cross-business corporate social responsibility approach meets these expectations. This is based upon a consistent framework, is capable of accommodating varying levels of achievement across our two business areas and takes account of different social, environmental and economic priorities in the countries.

Our approach is based on four main areas: our community, our environment, our marketplace and our workplace, which all support our broader aim of building a truly sustainable 21st century business.

We believe the key to the success of our corporate social responsibility strategy is its adaptability: it is designed to allow different parts of the Group to move towards sustainability at their own pace – planning their own corporate social responsibility programmes and setting themselves stretching but achievable objectives, while remaining firmly within a consistent Group wide framework for measurement and reporting.

Throughout 2007/08 we have continued to engage with key stakeholders and have been open and transparent about our activities and progress. It is clear that climate change and global warming are the issues that most concern them. This is why we have continued our carbon reduction programmes which aim to reduce the carbon emissions of our deliveries, the embedded carbon in our products and the amount of energy we use in our business premises.