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Responsible manufacturing in the UK

We operate two manufacturing facilities in the UK - one at Runcorn in Cheshire and one at Howden in Yorkshire. Manufacturing at scale in the UK benefits our domestic workforce and the communities in which they live and work.

During 2011, our UK-based manufacturing teams produced over:

• 3.5 million kitchen cabinets;
• 860,000 kitchen worktops and breakfast bars; and
• 2.3 million kitchen frontals

and we continue to look for further opportunities to make use of our manufacturing knowledge and resources.

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Managing our impact on the environment

Wood

Manufactured product

As a supplier of kitchen and joinery products, wood obviously plays a central role in what we do. It is therefore our policy to always try and source wood in a way that is good for the environment as well as good for our business. Our preferred option is to buy wood which is certified by either the UK Forest Stewardship Council (UK FSC) or by the European Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). These respected, independent schemes enable us to source wood and paper products from suppliers that use sustainable methods to manage their forests.

To monitor the effectiveness of this policy, we set ourselves an annual KPI which is:

"To ensure that 100% of our wood product used in our manufacturing processes comes from certified sources"

In 2011, we used 209,000 cubic metres of chipboard and 13,000 cubic metres of MDF in our manufacturing process. As has been the case every year since 2006, all of this came from certified sources.

We also aim to source all our cardboard packaging from either recycled or certified sources. In 2011, we used 3,000 tonnes of cardboard packaging for our manufactured products, all of which came from recycled sources (2010: 3,300 tonnes from recycled sources). It is our intention to aim for a similar high standard in the future.

All of the kitchen ranges which are manufactured at our factories are certified by the UK FSC and over 99% of all products which we manufacture in-house are FSC compliant (2010: 99%).

Bought-in product

As well as manufacturing product in the UK, we continue to source joinery products and kitchen frontals from a range of suppliers in the UK, Europe and elsewhere in the world. Ethical and environmental sourcing is an important factor in our international supply chain, and we expect all our suppliers to exercise high standards in this area.

• In 2011, as in 2010, 92% of our European timber based product suppliers were certified as sourcing timber from a sustainable supply.
• Regular supplier audits and continuous improvement programmes have continued throughout 2011 in accordance with our schedule. Our Supplier audit programme operates across all our key suppliers and incorporates measures relating to environmental, health & safety and ethical performance, as well as including the latest legislation where appropriate, e.g. the Bribery Act. In 2011, all our key suppliers were audited and, as in 2010, all achieved an A rating in this programme.
• The increasing focus on environmental matters by our customers, particularly those working with local authority and housing association properties, means that we are constantly required to review our products, our supply chain and our logistical and operational processes to ensure that we address their concerns appropriately.
• Howden Joinery has been certified by the FSC and the PEFC since February 2008. At the end of 2011, 19 of our 38 kitchen ranges (50% of our kitchens) were fully compliant with FSC requirements (compared to 43% in 2010). We aim to maintain a similar proportion in 2012.