Pioneering Regenerative Supply Chains Brambles’ Ambition Is to Pioneer Contents Regenerative Supply Chains
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Annual Report 2021 Pioneering Regenerative Supply Chains Brambles’ ambition is to pioneer Contents regenerative supply chains. Brambles at a Glance 1 As a leader in sustainability, Brambles Letter from the Chair and CEO 4 is working to create a nature and people Operating & Financial Review 8 positive economy with reuse, resilience Board & Executive Leadership Team 38 and regeneration at its core. It means Directors’ Report – Remuneration Report 45 breaking the link between consumption Directors’ Report – Additional Information 65 and harm to the environment and society. It means moving from degenerative Shareholder Information 71 systems that waste resources and pollute Consolidated Financial Report 73 the environment to regenerative models Independent Auditor’s Report 129 that restore nature and strengthen society. Auditor’s Independence Declaration 135 In other words, putting back in more than Five-Year Financial Performance Summary 136 we take from the world. By reaching zero Glossary 137 impact and beyond, Brambles will be the company delivering the supply chains the world needs for the future. To view the Group’s annual review for FY21, go to: brambles.com About this Report Brambles recognises that transparent reporting is an essential part of its responsibility to its shareholders and other stakeholders, and to maintain its licence to operate. Integrated Reporting Brambles is adopting the Value Reporting Foundation methodology, which combines the Integrated Reporting <IR> ‘capitals’ framework and the Sustainable Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards. IR, which has been adopted in this Annual Report, illustrates the interaction and interdependencies between a business’ sources of value, its model and its ability to create value over time. SASB, which will be adopted in our Sustainability Review (to be released in September 2021), provides industry-specific sustainability indicators. This holistic approach aims to help Brambles’ stakeholders understand its sources of value, including resource dependencies and the positive and negative impacts of its business on these sources of value. This is the first year that Brambles will align its disclosures in the Sustainability Review to SASB. Brambles also follows the guidance provided by the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) voluntary disclosure framework (TCFD Framework). Our FY21 TCFD disclosure, within the Annual Report, details how we consider governance, risk management, strategy, metrics and targets in relation to climate change. This will be supported by a TCFD supplement on Brambles’ website. All acronyms and terminology referred to in this report are defined in the Glossary on pages 137-139. Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements made in this report are “forward-looking statements” – that is, statements related to future, not past, events. Words such as “anticipates”, “expects”, “intends”, “plans”, “believes”, “seeks”, “estimates”, “will”, “should”, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts, but rather are based on Brambles’ current beliefs, assumptions, expectations, estimates and projections. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, as they address matters that are uncertain and subject to known and unknown risks, and other factors that are beyond the control of Brambles, are difficult to predict and could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or forecast in the forward- looking statements. Brambles cautions shareholders and prospective shareholders not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which reflect the views of Brambles only as of the date of this report. The forward-looking statements made in this report relate only to events as of the date on which the statements are made – Brambles will not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions or updates to these forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events occurring after the date of this report, except as may be required by law or by any appropriate regulatory authority. Past performance cannot be relied on as a guide to future performance. Brambles Limited ABN 89 118 896 021 Brambles at a Glance 1 As a pioneer of the sharing economy, Brambles is one of the world’s most sustainable logistics businesses. Brambles’ purpose What Brambles does: is to connect people Brambles’ platforms form the invisible with life’s essentials, backbone of global supply chains, primarily every day. serving the fast‑moving consumer goods, fresh produce, beverage, retail and general Through its ‘share and manufacturing industries. reuse’ model, Brambles Its circular business model facilitates the moves more goods ‘share and reuse’ of the world’s largest pool to more people in of reusable pallets and containers. more places than any This enables Brambles to serve its customers while minimising the impact on the other organisation. environment and improving the efficiency and safety of supply chains around the world. The world’s largest brands trust Brambles to help them transport life’s essentials more efficiently, safely and sustainably. 2 As at 30 June 2021, Brambles: Operated in... ~60 countries Owned... ~345 million pallets, crates and containers Employed... ~12,000 people Through a network of… 750+ service centres Brambles at a Glance 3 Highlights Financial Sustainability US$5,209.8m Ellen MacArthur Foundation Sales Revenue – Up 7% at constant currency. (achieved A-) US$879.3m Maximum AAA rating Underlying Profit – Up 8% at constant currency. Top 4% of companies assessed 17.8% Return on Capital Invested – Up 1.1 percentage points A- in its Forests submission at constant currency. US$901.1m 18th most sustainable company in the world Cash Flow from Operations – Up US$146.3m. 20.5 US cents per share Rated #2 most sustainable Total Dividends – Final dividend of international company 10.5 US cents per share. Safety 5.0 Brambles Injury Frequency Rate (BIFR) – Down from 5.5 in FY20. 4 Letter from the Chair & CEO In FY21, Brambles played a critical role in keeping global supply chains open, enabling the flow of essential goods around the world. At the same time, the focus and agility of our people has allowed us to deliver on all of our financial commitments while laying the foundations for an ambitious future. Towards a regenerative supply chain Letter from the Chair & CEO 5 Global supply chains have experienced As a global leader in sustainability, we are significant disruptions since the COVID-19 also pleased to announce that in June 2021 pandemic began over a year ago. Our we took our first critical step towards a teams around the world have adapted regenerative business model by becoming to unprecedented changes in customer a carbon neutral company, bringing the demands and network dynamics across net CO2 emissions derived from our own Strong revenue growth and our global operations. We are particularly operations to zero. This is an important Underlying Profit leverage proud of our service centre staff who have milestone in our decarbonisation journey; delivered in a challenging been on the frontline, working tirelessly however, we acknowledge that the real challenge lies in the activities of our whole operating environment to ensure global supply chains continued to function effectively, despite a range of supply chain. We have started collaborative COVID-19 and Brexit-related challenges. actions with customers, suppliers and external organisations to advance in our During the Year, demand for our pallets commitment for a 1.5ºC future, aligned was strong, yet volatile, as retailers and with the 2015 Paris Agreement. manufacturers responded to record levels of at-home consumption and With COVID-19 restrictions starting to ease increased their inventory levels to manage around the world and developed countries supply chain risk and consumer demand entering the recovery phase of the uncertainty. At the same time, our pandemic, our priority remains the health businesses were faced with high levels and wellbeing of our people and being of lumber inflation, pallet availability a reliable and responsible supply chain challenges and ongoing scarcity of both partner to our customers around the world. labour and transport in all regions. These dynamics required a high level of agility across our operations to keep goods flowing through supply chains. Against this challenging backdrop, we successfully completed our three-year US automation programme which has progressively added capacity to our US service centre network. In addition, our investments in US lumber and related procurement initiatives delivered efficiency and supply benefits in the period. Our teams in all regions continued to demonstrate commercial discipline, recovering cost-to-serve increases through pricing, surcharges, and underlying cost efficiencies across our network. The collective benefits of these actions offset cost increases during the Year, enabling us to meet all our financial commitments for FY21, including Group revenue growth with operating profit leverage, US margin improvement and strong Free Cash Flow generation to fully fund dividends and capital expenditure. 6 Letter from the Chair & CEO continued Foundations for an We are in the process of finalising our To support this ambition, we launched our transformation plan and will be in a 2025 sustainability targets in September Ambitious Future position