Responsible and ethical sourcing

Sourcing wood fibre responsibly and sustainably

In line with Officeworks’ Sustainable Wood-Fibre Sourcing Policy, all paper and/or wood products sold, should be responsibly sourced or contain 100% post-consumer recycled material.

We prohibit paper and/or wood from high risk or illegal sources and our suppliers are required to complete a forestry questionnaire and provide relevant evidence to support their sourcing claims.

Our goal is that by December 2025 there will be zero deforestation in our supply chain. This means that all products containing paper and wood in our product ranges must demonstrate they are free from deforestation. This can be done via FSC certification, being 100 per cent recycled, made from fast growing fibres with evidence that they have been harvested legally and sustainably, or through evidence of additional due diligence or responsible forestry initiatives the supplier undertakes to ensure there is no deforestation.

Sourcing goods and services ethically

Our Ethical Sourcing and Modern Slavery Policy outlines our commitment to ensure that goods and services are sourced in a responsible manner while working with suppliers to improve their social and environmental practices.

Suppliers are assessed for risk according to the management of ethical and responsible sourcing risks and are required to demonstrate compliance to our Ethical Sourcing and Modern Slavery Policy.

Australia’s Modern Slavery Act requires us to report annually on the risks of modern slavery throughout our operations and supply chain, and the actions that have been taken to assess and address these risks and their effectiveness.

Reducing our environmental impact

We recognise the importance of reducing our environmental impact and are committed to doing our part across our entire business.

Our Sustainable Packaging Policy sets the expectations for our suppliers to support the use and supply of sustainable packaging for products supplied to us to continue to reduce impacts from product packaging.

We support the sourcing of sustainable palm oil in all products sold by Officeworks. The sourcing of sustainable palm oil seeks to address many concerns in the production of palm oil, including, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, environmental degradation and protection of rights of communities and workers in the supply chain. The Sustainable Palm Oil Policy sets the expectations for suppliers to us to support the use of sustainable palm oil, sustainable palm kernel oil and their derivatives.

Sourcing cotton sustainably

We’re partnering with Better Cotton to improve cotton farming globally. Better Cotton’s mission is to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. Better Cotton trains farmers to use water efficiently, care for soil health and natural habitats, reduce use of the most harmful chemicals and respect workers’ rights and wellbeing.

Better Cotton is sourced via a chain of custody model called mass balance. This means that Better Cotton is not physically traceable to end products, however, Better Cotton Farmers benefit from the demand for Better Cotton in equivalent volumes to those we source. Better Cotton Farmers are farmers who care for the environment and respect workers’ rights and wellbeing.

As part of our People and Planet Positive 2025 commitments, we are committed to sourcing goods and services in more sustainable and responsible ways. We are committed to sourcing 100% of our cotton as Better Cotton, organic cotton, Australian cotton or recycled cotton for our Officeworks private label products by 2025.

Our Approach to Human Rights

At Officeworks, we are committed to making a positive difference to people and the planet including understanding, respecting and upholding internationally recognised human rights. Officeworks expects everyone who works within the Officeworks Group, including team members, directors, contractors and our suppliers and other business partners across our supply chains to do the same. In the 2021 financial year, a salient human rights issues assessment was conducted at Officeworks. This assessment included:

• Discussions in cross-functional human rights working groups
• Overarching human rights and modern slavery risk management gap analyses
• Human rights risk mapping for operations, supply chains and other business relationships
• An assessment of each risk based on scale, scope, irremediability and likelihood of potential or actual human rights impact.

Our work to respect human rights is guided by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs are the global standard for preventing and addressing business-related human rights harms. In line with the UNGPs, we conduct human rights due diligence to help us to identify, mitigate and prevent human rights impacts across our business and our value chain.

Find out more about our human rights approach and how we manage our most salient human rights issues, by reading our human rights position statement here.