New year, new start for Sainsbury's

07 January 2008 00:00:00

All of Sainsbury's 150,000 colleagues are being encouraged to make a new start this year with help to change the world through simple, everyday actions.

Sainsbury's will be giving its entire workforce a specially produced copy of 'Change the World for a Fiver', written by social campaigning group, We Are What We Do, who were the innovators behind the popular Anya Hindmarch 'I'm not a plastic bag' re-usable shopper.

The tips in the We Are What We Do book are at the heart of the work Sainsbury's has been doing to encourage customers take positive action across a range of issues during its monthly 'Make the difference' days.

As a result of the days, 300,000 Sainsbury's customers have now signed up to making an energy-saving pledge to do their bit for the environment.

A third of customers (100,000) agreed to fit energy saving light bulbs. 73,000 customers agreed to start unplugging their phone charger, 70,000 customers committed to re-using their carrier bags more often, and a final 57,000 customers agreed to defrost their fridge freezer which will help it consume less energy.

Since the monthly Make the difference days started, Sainsbury's has given away 1 million energy-saving light bulbs, and 15 million re-usable carrier bags, which has resulted in a decline of free plastic carrier bag usage in Sainsbury's stores by 10%. This has saved of 85 million free disposable bags.

Gwyn Burr, Customer Director, Sainsbury's: "We have done lots to help inspire our customers with our Make the difference days since last April, but with such a large workforce, we wanted to do the same with our colleagues. This has never been done before on such a large scale, yet if all 150,000 colleagues start to make small, daily changes, we could see significant changes. We also hope the creative best-seller will equip colleagues with ideas of how to further enthuse our 16 million customers during the year ahead."

The best-selling 'Change the World for a Fiver', which has never been distributed to so many people at once before, contains 50 actions that inspire readers to change the world for the better. From declining plastic bags wherever possible, to having more meals as a family, and not over-filling the kettle, the book is hoped to motivate colleagues about what they can do to make practical but positive changes.

Eugenie Harvey, co-founder, We Are What We Do: " Sainsbury's was one of the very first companies to support We Are What We Do when they undertook to sell 25,000 copies of the newly published 'Change the World for a Fiver' on a strictly not for profit basis. Since then, we have worked together with Anya Hindmarch on the hugely successful "I'm not a plastic bag" project which has played such a key role in raising awareness of plastic bag usage in the UK and around the world. We are delighted that again, thanks to Sainsbury's support, we have reached our millionth book sold, but more importantly, we are excited by the potential impact of 150,000 Sainsbury's colleagues joining together to undertake the actions from the book. We are very much looking forward to working with Sainsbury's in the future."
The order has made a massive difference to the sales of 'Change the World for a Fiver', which along with 'Change the World 9 to 5' have subsequently hit the million books sold worldwide mark.

From this month, Sainsbury's will also be selling a re-usable shopper made by We Are What We Do, for £5. Made from organic cotton, the limited edition bag builds on Sainsbury's largest range of re-usable shoppers, and can be used for hundreds of shopping trips.

-ENDS-

Date: Monday 7th January 2008
Contact: Hannah Chance, Sainsbury's
Telephone: 020 7695 7295

Notes to Editors:
For further information about We Are What We Do, visit www.wearewhatwedo.org

Sainsbury's Make the difference days to date:
April 2007 Free 'Bag for Life' day
May 2007 Free 'Bag for Life' day
June 2007 FSC toilet roll
July 2007 Active Kids Get Cooking magazine with Jamie recipes
August 2007 Launch of the Sainsbury's Fair Development Fund
September 2007 Sainsbury's delivers cooking equipment to schools
October 2007 1 million energy saving light bulbs are given to customers
November 2007 Free 'Bag for Life' day
December 2007 Support of the Carers Appeal
January 2008 Make the difference with We Are What We Do book & bag