Woolworths South Africa

Started in 2007, the Good Business Journey set specific public targets in sustainability for the company.[2] It also aims to achieve a consistent approach to sustainability issues across its global supply chain, as part of Woolworths' declared target of being the most sustainable retailer in the southern hemisphere.[3]

In 2016, the company launched its GBJ goals through to 2020, including embedding the programme into the Group's Australian businesses, which now account for over forty per cent of turnover.[4][5]

The WHL Group GBJ 2020 commitments include: contributing over R3.5-billion across the Group to communities over the next 5 years; saving 500 billion litres of water over 5 years; ensuring the company halves its energy impact by 2020 and achieves 100% clean energy by 2030; driving responsible sourcing of all key commodities by 2020; and affirming that every private-label product sold has at least one sustainability attribute by 2020.[4]

In June 2018, Woolworths announced its intention to achieve zero packaging waste to landfill by 2022, aiming to have none of its packaging end up in landfills, which would require a 100% recyclable material for its packaging and a supportive recycling infrastructure.[6][7] Woolworths also committed to phasing out single-use plastic shopping bags completely by 2020.[8]

In August 2018, the Palmyra store in Claremont introduced in-store recycling vending machines.[9]

Woolworths launched a new in-store reusable bag trial in October 2018 as part of the phasing out of plastic bags.[10]

Starting on 5 November 2018, these new, entry level, reusable shopping bags were made available in four stores across the Western Cape (V&A Waterfront, Palmyra, Pinelands and Steenberg), and have since been distributed to additional stores.[11]

Woolworths Steenberg went completely plastic bag free for the trial, with customers having the choice of either purchasing a reusable bag or bringing their own bags. The current single-use plastic bags were still available in the remaining three stores. April 2019, additional plastic bag free stores were announced in Maroun Square, Moreleta Village and Delcairn Centre.[12]

In 2015, Woolworths announced a partnership with Grammy Award-winning musician, record producer and philanthropist, Pharrell Williams.[13][14] The strategic collaboration was the first of its kind for a South African retailer.

Williams took on the role of Style Director in a collaboration across a series of sustainability-focused projects. The campaign had four layers: entertainment, showcasing young talent, fundraising for education, and driving sustainable fashion.

In July 2015, Woolworths announced the maturity of its Black Economic Empowerment Employee Share Ownership Scheme (BEEESOS).[15]

The scheme was launched in 2007 as part of the company's Good Business Journey and is one element of the company's commitment to socio-economic transformation. Woolworths was the first retailer to launch an empowerment scheme with BEEESOS shares allocated to previously disadvantaged employees based on both length of service and seniority. The scheme represented approximately 10% of the ordinary share capital of Woolworths at the time.

The business's strong performance over the past eight years has created R2.4 billion for the participants, who have also enjoyed dividends of R332 million during the scheme's life.

South Africa's business women[16] are leading the advancements in entrepreneurship. The increasing number of South African women has taken over the task of changing the narrative, taking up space, and becoming successful entrepreneurs to build own businesses in South Africa[17] and across the world.

Zyda Rylands, CEO of Woolworths South Africa received the inaugural Woman of The Year award at the World Retail Congress's International Women in Retail Reception held on 5 April 2017.[18]

Zyda was given the special award for her work, both as an international leader, philanthropist and for her outstanding commercial success. Rylands joined Woolworths in 1996 and worked in the finance and store operation teams. She was appointed the People and Transformation Director of Woolworths in 2005 and was appointed to the Board in August 2006.[19]

In October 2010, Woolworths came under fire as they opted to remove Christian magazines from their shelves and discontinue their sale. This was met with a huge outcry from the Christian community, many voicing that they would boycott the chain store.[20] Woolworths maintained it was strictly a business decision, with CEO Simon Susman attributing their decision to diminishing number of sales.[20] Woolworths returned the five magazines to its shelves following the outcry.[21]

In September 2012 Woolworths was accused of racism by some groups for allegedly discriminating against white job applicants and staff.[22] The accusations followed after claims that the retailer's advertising on their career site said its jobs are only open to "African, Coloured and Indian" candidates.[23] Shortly after the incident, Woolworths changed the advert text to say "In accordance with Woolworths' Employment Equity approach, preference will be given to candidates from designated groups".[22] Various public groups and communities have called for the aggressive boycotting of Woolworths, as was done with the Dis-Chem pharmaceutical retail group following their decision not to consider white applicants for employment.

In June 2023, Woolworths were heavily criticised publicly by, amongst others, religious groups including the Muslim Judicial Council and Christian groups for promoting LGBTQIA+ merchandise to young customers.[24] Following the outcry, Woolworths released a statement stating that they refused to back down on the marketing campaign as part of "Pride Month".[25]

In October 2013, rumours of plagiarism surfaced when Euodia Roets, a South African artist, accused Woolworths of using her designs that were kept as samples after contract negotiations failed.[26] In her article Euodia Roets shows illustrative images of her design and compares it to a cushion later sold by Woolworths on which a strikingly similar design was used. Woolworths denied these allegations on their website.[27] In her allegations Euodia Roets also claimed "If that text is in fact from Wikipedia, Wiki requires attribution on all commercial use of their text. You'd be correct in assuming Woolies did no such thing."

The text used on the design is an exact match of portions of text lifted from Wikipedia's Hummingbird article, without attribution, in violation of its Creative Commons License. When pressed on the matter, the official Woolworths South Africa Twitter account opined that "We've checked with our lawyer; Wikipedia does not own the content."[28]

In January 2019, Woolworths withdrew a line of baby carriers the design of which was allegedly copied from a domestic South African designer and manufacturer (Ubuntu Baba) and sold at one third the price of Ubuntu Baba's version. The baby carrier scandal broke out after Shannon McLaughlin of Ubuntu Baba wrote a blog post about it that then became a popular issue on social media.[29] McLaughlin alleged that a number of Ubuntu's carriers were purchased by and delivered to Woolworths Head Office in June 2017 around a year before the Woolworths carriers hit the market.[30] Woolworths admitted that their baby carriers were derivatives of McLaughlin's product and issued an apology.[31]

In early 2012, the South African Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Woolworths' vintage cold drink range was an imitation of Frankie's Soft Drinks range. It was ruled that Woolworths intentionally copied the phrase "Good Old Fashioned Soft Drinks" to promote its own line of beverages thereby infringing on the rights of Frankie's Soft Drinks. Woolworths agreed to remove the range immediately.[32] After the event Woolworths South Africa's CEO Ian Moir publicly stated that "Public opinion is so much against us and, whether we're right or whether we're wrong, customer opinion is against us."[33]

Woolworths South Africa openly copies the British Marks and Spencer retail brand. Marks and Spencer are typically used as a reference within the Woolworths organisation on how to modernise their store themes and branding and update their store layouts.