Chalhoub Sustainability Report 2021

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Sustainability is at the core of
our Chalhoub Impact

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PEOPLE
We are committed to diversity,
equity, and inclusion

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PARTNERS
We are committed to building
long term partnerships for
common goals

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PLANET
We are committed to tackling
climate change

Home page

Sustainability is at the core of our Chalhoub Impact

Home page - people

PEOPLE
We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion

Home page partner

PARTNERS
We are committed to building long term partnerships for common goals

Home page -planet

PLANET
We are committed to tackling climate change

Group President Message

It gives me pride to present to you our Chalhoub Impact Sustainability Report 2021 to show our ongoing business commitment to positively impacting our People, Partners, and the Planet.

With 2021’s United Nations Climate Change Conference being described as “the last chance to save the planet,” it’s become clearer than ever that all of us around the world must be even bolder with our moves to operate more sustainably.

You’ll find that at Chalhoub Group, we are seizing all opportunities to help mitigate climate change and pave our way to achieve net zero emissions across all our operations by 2040.

First Mobile

This past year, we focused on better assessing and reducing our carbon footprint. We continued to transform our buildings across the region to become as energy efficient as possible, consumed more responsibly while minimizing waste and opened dialogues with our partners to adopt principles of the Circular Economy to maximize the lifecycle of our products.

Our people remain central to everything we do. In 2021, we drove forward programmes and initiatives to continue nurturing everyone’s talents. Our current emphasis is on gender balance and integrating People with Determination into our workforce. Our transition to servant leadership has also gained momentum, and our IBTIKAR programme, which promotes innovation and creativity, is growing to provide our employees with increased support to realize their full potential.

In addition, we are offering the next generation of entrepreneurs more opportunities to succeed through our Greenhouse, which incubates emerging disruptors in our fields.

We are, of course, also working with our partners and suppliers to encourage them to adhere to the same principles we do.
As committed members of the UN Global Compact, we continue to measure the progression of our Environmental, Social, and Governance performance ensuring alignment to local and global agendas.

Our 2021 sustainability report outlines the details of how we are progressing on all those fronts. I would like to thank our dedicated teams and our trusted partners for making it all happen. All of you are integral to making us the Chalhoub family that we are today.
I hope you enjoy the read.

Patrick Chalhoub
Group President

First

In addition, we are offering the next generation of entrepreneurs more opportunities to succeed through our Greenhouse, which incubates emerging disruptors in our fields.

We are, of course, also working with our partners and suppliers to encourage them to adhere to the same principles we do. As committed members of the UN Global Compact, we continue to measure the progression of our Environmental, Social, and Governance performance ensuring alignment to local and global agendas.

I hope you enjoy the read.

Patrick Chalhoub
Group President

Group President Message

It gives me pride to present to you our Chalhoub Impact Sustainability Report 2021 to show our ongoing business commitment to positively impacting our People, Partners, and the Planet.

You’ll find that at Chalhoub Group, we are seizing all opportunities to help mitigate climate change and pave our way to achieve net zero emissions across all our operations by 2040.

First Mobile

In addition, we are offering the next generation of entrepreneurs more opportunities to succeed through our Greenhouse, which incubates emerging disruptors in our fields.

Patrick Chalhoub
Group President

First

Our people remain central to everything we do. In 2021, we drove forward programmes and initiatives to continue nurturing everyone’s talents. Our current emphasis is on gender balance and integrating People of Determination into our workforce. Our transition to servant leadership has also gained momentum, and our IBTIKAR programme, which promotes innovation and creativity, is growing to provide our employees with increased support to realize their full potential.

In addition, we are offering the next generation of entrepreneurs more opportunities to succeed through our Greenhouse, which incubates emerging disruptors in our fields.

We are, of course, also working with our partners and suppliers to encourage them to adhere to the same principles we do. As committed members of the UN Global Compact, we continue to measure the progression of our Environmental, Social, and Governance performance ensuring alignment to local and global agendas.

I hope you enjoy the read.

Patrick Chalhoub
Group President

Chief Sustainability Officer Message

“We’re further embedding Environmental, Social, and Governance principles into the core of our operations under the umbrella of Chalhoub Impact, which is tangibly improving our Group’s sustainability performance. Simultaneously, our employee engagement activities will continue to improve our communities’ access to quality education, offer humanitarian relief, and support cancer patients as part of our Chalhoub family philanthropy initiatives.”

Florence Bulte
Chief Sustainability Officer

Our Commitment to Sustainability

We strive to create a positive impact on People, Partners, and the Planet in 8 countries where we have a direct presence to contribute to national and global agendas to help best meet local environmental and societal needs. This is our Chalhoub Impact.

CHALHOUB IMPACT

Sustainability Report

Sustainability has been rooted in the Chalhoub Group since our beginnings nearly 70 years ago. While the word itself was yet far from representing what it does in the business world today, the concept of giving-back to society was always entrenched in the hearts of our founders Michel and Widad Chalhoub.

The Chalhoub family began selling luxury goods in Damascus in 1955 before moving to Beirut in 1965 and Kuwait in 1975. We then settled our global headquarters in Dubai in 1990 where we’ve been based since.

All the while, we’ve ensured that the success of our organization is shared with communities where we operate by helping to improve access to quality education, providing humanitarian relief, and supporting cancer patients. These initiatives were boosted with employee volunteering, monetary and in-kind fundraisers over the years and have been conducted since 2009 under the umbrella of Chalhoub Impact – our sustainable engagement strategy. They will continue going forward through Chalhoub family philanthropy.

second

Now with a global footprint and home to over 12,500 employees, our Group has been placing increased focus over the last few years on measuring our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) progress to strategically embed sustainability across our value chain, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Our actions are driven by our values of Respect, Excellence, and Entrepreneurial Spirit, and help us meet our purpose to Inspire, Exhilarate, and Delight.

As a board member of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, our Group President Patrick Chalhoub is personally invested in all aspects of our journey to further uphold the UNGC principles of human and labor rights, anti-corruption, transparency, and protecting the environment.

Our business model, which includes managing our own concept brands, franchises, and joint ventures, means that we can most influence sustainability practices where we are most directly engaged: in running our offices, warehouses, distribution networks, and stores; as well as our own product manufacturing.
We strive to create a positive impact on People, Partners, and the Planet in the 8 countries where we have a direct presence to contribute to national and global agendas to help best meet local environmental and societal needs. This is our Chalhoub Impact.

Sustainability Framework

Business Ethics & Integrity

Everything we do at Chalhoub Group is founded on firm principles of ethics and integrity.
As signatories of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the Women Empowerment Principles (UN WEP), we respect and adhere to the principles of human rights as proclaimed in the UN Declaration.

We are committed to upholding human rights across our operations and supply chain. This includes instilling the right processes, tools, and mindsets to nurture diversity within our Group, including that of gender, nationality, personality, age, and physical abilities. We make sure our people feel a sense of belonging by promoting equity and inclusion, health and safety, people experience and wellbeing.

Third

We protect our people by ensuring we have a healthy and friendly work environment. Our servant leaders lead with empathy, care, and full transparency to empower our teams to deliver results within a flexible and psychologically safe space that is built on trust.

Our exemplary health and safety record of zero injuries in 2021 demonstrates our commitment to providing a safe and secure environment.

Protecting our people also requires strong internal frameworks which bolster ethics and transparency throughout our organization. These include regular updates of our Code of Ethics (CoE) which all employees are mandated to review annually.

Team members can safely and anonymously express opinions and complaints on our Speak Up platform.
In an ever more digitized world, our purpose to Inspire, Exhilarate, and Delight can only be met with us becoming a hybrid retailer that brings luxury to the fingertips of people everywhere. As we future-proof our business in the process, our Customer Experience team has developed tools for us to maintain human to human connections, and we’ve strengthened our Muse loyalty programme to cover all our online and offline offerings.

We do this while continuing to provide unique in-stores experiences – and actively investing to expand into new emerging markets with our business model which encompasses managing our own brands, those of others we represent, as well as global joint ventures and partnerships.

Building a solid foundation of ethics and integrity is crucial for the sustainability of our business and to us implementing our commitments to create positive impact on People by strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion; Partners, by adhering to responsible and transparent business practices; and to our Planet, by tackling climate change.

We at Chalhoub Group introduced our third-party managed and General Data Protection Regulation-compliant Speak Up platform in 2019 to make it easier for our employees to anonymously report breaches of our Code of Ethics (CoE).

Speak Up has been allowing us to devise targeted preventive measures by concisely analyzing ethics breaches, and detecting trends, violation types, and activities of concern in different countries.

We’ve also learned that many issues raised on the platform do not qualify as CoE breaches, though these complaints help us better listen to our employees and allow different units and departments to review policies and procedures to improve our systems.

All these practices are upheld in our Code of Ethics for employees and shared with everyone we work with, including brands, partners, and suppliers.

PEOPLE

We strive to create an enabling work environment for all, irrespective of gender or other personal characteristics.

PARTNERS

We’re nurturing Servant Leadership, promoting nationalisation, and enabling in-house innovation.

PLANET

We aim to support young talents through initiatives and financial assistance that endow them with the knowledge, skills, and experience that are necessary for success.