Water
All divisions strive to use water more efficiently. Bunnings and WesCEF extend this focus on water management to including consideration of the sustainable supply and quality of the water resources relied on for their operations. This year, WesCEF reduced their water consumption by 1.7 per cent to approximately 4,339 megalitres.
Bunnings
Water management is key for Bunnings as greenlife in every store nursery requires regular watering to maintain product quality.
To ensure water is used more efficiently throughout the network, during the year Bunnings trialled automatic watering systems for the nurseries across three stores in Victoria. The aim was to reduce water waste and greenlife loss, whilst reducing team member time spent on watering and related safety incidents. With pleasing results from the trial, the watering system has been recommended to roll out to Australian and New Zealand stores in the coming years. Data and analytics will be used to achieve best practice watering for each greenlife range sold at Bunnings, taking into account different climate zones and seasons.
Bunnings also aims to replace mains water with collected rainwater, reclaimed or recycled water where possible. Water tanks are a standard inclusion for all newly built stores and are used for watering store nurseries and flushing store toilets.
Kmart Group
As a large retailer that uses a significant amount of water in producing its products, Kmart Group accepts its responsibility to minimise water impacts.
Most of Kmart Group’s water usage is in the production of clothing, towel and bedding products, with the largest proportion in raw materials – in particular cotton – and the wet processing facilities used in production, such as fabric mills and dying facilities. Accordingly, by July 2023, Kmart Group has committed to capture total water usage data and implement a water efficiency improvement plan with 100 per cent of the wet processing facilities (fabric mills, laundries) used by strategic supplier factories to manufacture own brand clothing, towel and bedding products.
In order to meet this commitment, Kmart Group businesses, Kmart and Target, have joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and aim to use the HIGG Index facilities management tool to capture total water usage data. This data will be used to inform long-term target setting and to develop water efficiency improvement plans in partnership with suppliers, such as investments in water-saving technologies and processes.
Kmart and Target have also joined the Better Cotton Initiative as a further aspect of their response to water scarcity. Better Cotton seeks to encourage cotton farmers to work on continuous improvement in water efficiency and management.
Chemicals, Energy and Fertilisers
Water security - consisting of both supply and wastewater - is a business-critical risk at CSBP's Kwinana site with current and future threats to availability, reliability and cost of traditional water supply and wastewater treatment options. Failure to mitigate these risks could lead to an increase in cost and regulatory risk, and negatively impact plant reliability and business growth opportunities.
A review of water source options concluded that increased Kwinana Water Reclamation Plant (KWRP) allocation was the optimal water supply option for CSBP Kwinana based on current and near-term needs. Contractual discussions with the Water Corporation are ongoing to ensure adequate additional supply is secured as part of their planned KWRP expansion project.
When the KWRP expansion project is completed, provisionally by mid-2025, it is anticipated the majority of the site’s projected water needs will be sourced from KWRP. This transition will lessen the reliance on the site’s existing groundwater bores that are at risk of aging infrastructure, reduced abstraction limits and contamination plumes emanating from offsite.
With most of the site’s projected water needs to be sourced from KWRP, it has redefined one of the objectives of the CSBP Kwinana Wastewater Recycling Plant project. Additional funding has been approved for the project team to reassess the technical requirements and business needs of various options previously considered. Implementation of the Wastewater Recycling Plant will ensure sufficient wastewater management capability is expanded in line with business growth as well as improving diversity of water supply to CSBP Kwinana.
An updated Water Strategy is being developed for endorsement that will map out the short to long term plan for water supply and wastewater management. A key input requiring greater focus will be increased internal flow metering at CSBP Kwinana to better understand the water balance within various business units, which will help inform opportunities for increasing water efficiency.
GRI 103-1, GRI 103-2, GRI 103-3, GRI 303-1, GRI 303-2, GRI 303-5