Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)
Environmental, Social and Governance
Environmental
At Grainger, we are committed to conducting business in an environmentally responsible manner, and we work to continuously improve our sustainability performance. Grainger has several initiatives in place to reduce the impact of business operations on our environment including:
- Three LEED certified buildings in Canada including our head office location in Thornhill, ON, distribution centre in Caledon, ON and branch in Saint-Laurent, QC.
- LED lighting in our branches and distribution centres.
- The installation of a building management system (BMS) in our Caledon, Winnipeg and Saskatoon DCs to provide better visibility and control of our energy systems, with our Edmonton DC installation scheduled to be completed in 2024.
- Continually monitoring the life cycle of our HVAC systems to replace them with more efficient systems.
- Recycling programs in all facilities including a pallet re-use program in our DCs. Initiatives have also been launched to provide better data for waste and recycling levels to help us increase our recycling rate.
- Shipping in primary supplier packaging where possible and using pack size automation in our Caledon DC to right size packaging to reduce waste and optimize the number of packages on a trailer.
- Working with suppliers to identify opportunities to minimize unnecessary packaging, while maximizing recyclable materials and ensuring safe transit.
- Printing our catalogue on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) approved paper.
Grainger also works to help our customers identify environmentally preferable products and services to keep their business running while reducing energy consumption, conserving water, reducing waste and improving indoor air quality. Grainger offers hundreds of environmentally preferable products having green certifications or attributes, and will continue to add products based on customer demand.
Social
Community investment: Grainger Canada’s community investment work supports three distinct pillars – disaster preparedness through our partnership with the Red Cross, skilled trades development through a partnership with Skills Ontario and Indigenous advancement through partnerships with Indspire, the Canadian Centre for Aboriginal Business and the Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council.
- Red Cross: Grainger is a long-time partner of the Red Cross Disaster Relief Alliance providing financial support to aid in disaster recovery efforts. Grainger’s support allows the Red Cross to pre-position supplies in high-risk areas, train community-based disaster volunteers, and enhance systems to ensure they can deliver high-quality and timely assistance that people depend on when disaster strikes.
- Skills Ontario: Grainger partners with Skills Ontario to support their commitment to building Ontario’s skilled trades and technologies workforce providing financial and in-kind support.
- Indspire: In 2021, Grainger Canada announced a five-year partnership in support of Indspire’s Building Brighter Futures program that provides financial support in the form of bursaries to First Nations, Inuit and Métis students for full and part time studies in college, university, skilled trades, apprenticeships and technology programs. During each year of the partnership, the Grainger Canada Bursary will be awarded to an Indigenous student entering post-secondary study in the skilled trades.
Diversity, equity and inclusion: Grainger is committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment through a variety of activities including incorporating inclusion questions in our annual team member engagement survey, rolling out inclusion e-learning modules for all team members and engaging with external DEI consultants and experts.
DEI is integral to Grainger’s success, and we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where all team members feel safe, valued and encouraged to share their opinions. Our DEI strategy currently includes:
Business resource groups (BRGs): Grainger Canada has five BRGs – Generational, Disability, Pride, Women’s and Indigenous Peoples. BRGs provide team members with the opportunity to network, act as a champion and the ‘voice’ of team members, professional development and much more.
DEI learning programs: In 2021, the business launched BeBrave Leadership Circles and BeBrave Conversations. The goal of the initiative is to create a space that allows participants to seek different points of view and share their own perspectives and backgrounds in a safe and welcoming environment. As part of the program, leaders participated in six one-hour sessions that covered topics like confronting bias, microaggressions, disability awareness, etc.
Recently, all team members participated in Managing Unconscious Bias, a DEI learning course designed to help team members learn about what unconscious bias is and why most people experience it, explore how workplace bias may emerge in our day-to-day work and identify effective behaviors for managing it in the workplace.
External partnerships: We currently have a partnership with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business (CCAB), working with them to ensure Grainger has policies, procedures, and standards to ensure equity and support advancement for the Indigenous Peoples population.
Employment Equity Self-Identification survey: We encourage all team members to complete this voluntary survey and use the aggregate data to understand the diversity landscape of the business, identify areas of focus and create action plans with timelines and key measurables.
Talent recruitment: Grainger is an Equal Opportunity Workplace. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, or disability. Grainger will work with applicants requesting accommodation at any stage of the application process or during employment.
Development: Grainger offers a broad range of role-specific, professional development and career and leadership learning designed to build and enhance skills.
1. Professional development: This portfolio consists of learning solutions for all team members and leaders.
- The Virtual New Hire Orientation help new team members make connections with colleagues, navigate internal systems, build awareness of Grainger's business and learn about Grainger's culture.
- The Elevate Badging program provides a structured and self-paced learning path for team members who want to grow their careers at Grainger.
2. Career development: This portfolio focuses on development planning and career-based programs.
3. Leadership development: This portfolio focuses on building and reinforcing leadership skills for high-potential team members, frontline leaders and experienced leaders.
- Aspiring Leader is designed to prepare high-potential individual contributors for future leadership roles.
- Leadership Essentials is an eight-week onboarding program focused on giving new leaders the knowledge and tools to coach, develop, provide feedback and create an inclusive environment that allows team members to thrive.
- Our End-to-End program provides select director-level and above leaders with a comprehensive view of our business, increases business acumen and drives deeper understanding of functional interdependencies to expand leaders’ perspective.
Talent management: We support team members’ growth through differentiated learning and development options including gaining experience through cross-functional movement. We know that leaders who demonstrate our principles and gain key experiences across different areas of the business can drive results, build high performing teams and understand the business end-to-end. Through enterprise talent committees made up of senior leaders, we get to know our highest potential emerging talent and identify ways to accelerate their development.
Performance and development:In addition to ongoing informal conversations, there are three formal performance and development conversations team members and leaders have at the start, middle and end of each year. Open, honest dialogue about performance, development and career growth supports our principles, keeps lines of communication open, builds trust and helps fulfill our purpose.
Total Rewards: Grainger delivers a comprehensive Total Rewards program designed to meet the diverse needs of team members and their families at all stages of their lives. We provide critical, foundational support through benefit coverage for medical, dental, vision, disability, life insurance, and ways to save for retirement – the building blocks of your wellbeing.
- Team members have access to a broad safety net for emotional, financial, physical and social wellbeing through an Employee Assistance Program and additional mental wellbeing resources.
- All eligible team members, after one year of continuous service, receive a contribution as a match towards their contribution to their Defined Contribution Pension Plan (DCPP).
- Each team member receives paid provincial and federal holidays and time off, educational assistance, team member discounts and a variety of other benefits.
- We regularly seek team member feedback and conduct external compensation and benefits-related benchmarking to remain competitive in the market.
Workplace health and safety: Grainger is committed to providing a safe work environment and ensuring team members are properly prepared to perform the tasks required to support our customers. Our Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) program is designed to integrate EHS initiatives into all aspects of business operations and the focus of the program is two-fold – keeping team members safe and healthy while also keeping our facilities operating safely and sustainably.
The EHS team reviews and updates standard operating procedures on an ongoing basis to ensure team members have access to the most recent information, resources and processes. In June of 2023, we deployed Don’t Walk By, a campaign aimed at fostering positive behaviours and attitudes towards ten key safety rules and expectations applicable to all team members.
The team also prioritizes visiting our locations as well as team members on-site at customer locations regularly. These visits allow the EHS team to review safety programs in-person, see how team members work, identify potential hazards and uncover opportunities.
In addition, Grainger leverages external partnerships to support our EHS professionals. Grainger’s field safety specialists work with partner organizations to identify hazards and apply the hierarchy of hazard control to find solutions for customers. Also, as part of our EHS commitment to our resource extraction customers in Alberta, Grainger participates in the Certificate of Recognition (COR), an audit standard for health and safety systems. We undertake the COR audit for full certification every three years, with annual maintenance audits conducted in between.
In March of 2023, Grainger Canada was awarded the 5-Star Safety Culture award by Canadian Occupational Safety. This award recognizes companies that have outstanding health and safety programs and a strong commitment to providing a healthy and safe working environment.
Governance
Ethics and compliance: Our commitment to doing the right thing is ingrained in our company history, our culture of compliance and our Grainger principles. Our stakeholders trust Grainger to operate with the greatest level of integrity, and in turn we hold ourselves accountable to full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. We maintain our culture of compliance and ethical standards through a robust framework of policies, training and reporting.
Policies and training: Grainger’s Business Conduct Guidelines define our shared expectations of how we work together, serve customers and business partners and honour our commitments to shareholders everywhere we do business. In December 2022, we adopted an updated Business Conduct Guidelines, incorporating new and enhanced topics including responsible sourcing; diversity, equity and inclusion; intellectual property; and social media. Each new Grainger team member is required to complete training and certification, and all team members are expected to demonstrate their personal commitment to the company’s high operating standards by certifying their annual compliance with the Business Conduct Guidelines. Team members also complete training regularly to fully understand the expectation of legal and ethical behaviours defined by the Business Conduct Guidelines. Additional ethics and compliance training is provided to team members globally, based on their role in the organization. Examples of this training include Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Data Privacy and Security, Government Code of Ethics, Trade Compliance and Workplace Behavior.
Anti-bribery and corruption: Grainger places the highest value on integrity in our business dealings and the ethical conduct of our directors, officers, team members, suppliers, and other stakeholders. As set forth in our Business Conduct Guidelines, Grainger is committed to business practices that are consistent with the highest ethical and legal standards. Grainger expects the same ethical and legal commitment from third parties (business partners, brokers, consultants and agents) acting on our behalf and others with whom we conduct business.
Reporting/grievance mechanisms: We encourage reporting ethical concerns or complaints regarding company or individual practices. Individuals may raise concerns via various channels, including our confidential and anonymous hotline, the Grainger iCareLine, management, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance or the W.W. Grainger Board of Directors. The Grainger iCareLine is an independent, secure, around-the-clock hotline able to take calls in every language where Grainger operates. Concerns raised through our various channels are treated confidentially, thoroughly investigated and reported to leadership and the Audit Committee of the W.W. Grainger Board of Directors by the Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer on a quarterly basis. Grainger does not tolerate retaliation against any team member for making an inquiry, initiating a complaint or participating in an investigation.
Privacy: Grainger recognizes the importance of protecting the personally identifiable information (PII) of our team members, customers and suppliers. This information is collected during normal business activities to help us fulfill orders, provide benefits and better serve our stakeholders. We are committed to protecting PII from unauthorized access, usage or disclosure by following applicable privacy laws, globally recognized privacy standards and building privacy and data protection principles into our systems and processes by design. Annual privacy training is mandatory for all team members, and team members responsible for processing sensitive personal information receive supplemental role-based training. Notice regarding our practices is published via our Privacy Policy. To address global and local privacy laws in specific jurisdictions, solutions have been implemented to facilitate individual privacy requests and to provide further transparency about how Grainger may collect, use, share or store personal information. Our ethical expectation and legal commitment from third parties (business partners, consultants and agents) acting on Grainger’s behalf extends to Privacy and Information Security. Third-party physical, technical and administrative controls are assessed as part of due diligence and required agreements detailing these expectations are executed.
Information security: The Grainger Information Security team’s mission is to facilitate the protection of Grainger information and technology assets worldwide. We achieve this by establishing guidelines to help ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of assets across the global organization. We manage risk through the application of appropriate technologies, people and processes to identify, detect, protect, respond and recover in alignment with the organizational risk posture and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework. Ensuring information security risk appetites are understood and appropriately managed enables our organization’s future growth and positions us to balance protecting and running the business. Understanding of the information security operating environment allows leadership to make informed decisions, mitigate disruption to the business, help prevent data breaches, limit damage to the Grainger brand, understand the financial impacts and ensure alignment to applicable requirements. To this end, the Information Security organization provides quarterly updates to the W.W. Grainger Board of Directors on relevant security metrics and program maturity. Information Security also provides awareness training for all team members, focused training for developers and deploys phishing campaigns that test team members’ ability to recognize and respond to threats.
Business continuity: Grainger works to develop, implement and enhance business continuity processes in alignment with the ISO/IEC 22301 framework for Business Continuity. This standard provides the strategic direction for our business continuity program and guides the establishment of activities that align with the framework. Processes and procedures, including Emergency Response, Pandemic Planning, IT Disaster and Ransomware Recovery and Business Process Contingency Plans, are necessary components of a successful business continuity program. Planning development, tabletop exercises, identifying gaps and prioritizing remediation efforts are all critical activities of a program designed for uninterrupted business operations. For situations closer to home, localized response procedures are designed to allow customers in need to obtain emergency response items at any time. Local Grainger branches may remain open 24 hours a day during major emergencies and disasters. Trailers can bring in critical products and extra personnel can be on site to support relief efforts. In addition, preexisting supplier agreements allow products and equipment to be quickly replenished to help keep Grainger’s customers working.
Product and supplier stewardship supplier code of ethics: To help ensure the products we distribute are manufactured and delivered with high ethical standards, our Supplier Code of Ethics focuses on the following key areas of ethical sourcing: human rights and labor standards; health and safety; environment; sanctions; bribery and corruption; conflicts of interest; privacy and data protection; and reporting concerns. All Grainger suppliers and their sub-suppliers are expected to comply with the Supplier Code of Ethics as a condition of doing business with Grainger. Prior to onboarding, a new supplier must agree to abide by the Supplier Handbook, which includes the Supplier Code of Ethics. All suppliers must confirm to abide by these rules by signing a Supplier Agreement Letter. We recently updated our Supplier Code of Ethics to include the International Labour Organization’s forced labor standards.
Human rights: Grainger’s Human Rights Principles reflect our commitment to providing a safe and fair workplace that upholds and respects international human rights standards. These principles are applicable to all Grainger team members and are approved and monitored regularly by Grainger’s senior leadership. Our Human Rights Principles create the foundation upon which we build a respectful, inclusive and ethically sound workplace. Harassment, exclusion, discrimination, child or forced labor and violation of any applicable laws or regulations are explicitly prohibited as part of these principles. In 2022, Grainger engaged a third-party consulting firm to conduct an independent assessment of our human rights and anti-forced labor program against current domestic and international standards. Based on that review, Grainger is enhancing our program’s policy, training and processes related to the validation of our suppliers’ adherence to Grainger’s Supplier Code of Ethics.
Conflict minerals: Grainger’s Conflict Minerals Policy supports the aim of preventing armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the surrounding region from benefiting from the extraction and trade of minerals including tantalum, tin, gold or tungsten sourced from the DRC or the surrounding region.
Product safety, quality and governance: Although Grainger does not manufacture the products it distributes to customers, we take product safety seriously. Our company has established a Product Safety Committee made up of senior leadership from the Product Compliance, Legal and Supplier Management teams. This committee convenes regularly to provide ongoing governance and oversight of product safety, quality and compliance.
Private label: To ensure high-quality private label products, our engineering team conducts product evaluation and testing as well as directly engaging with suppliers. This engagement includes conducting investigations and factory audits, as well as continually working to ensure our suppliers have the appropriate equipment and processes in place to deliver consistent quality products. If quality issues arise, the engineering team typically conducts an investigation, performs appropriate product testing and summarizes its findings. We also evaluate Grainger private label products to confirm they meet our responsible sourcing guidelines. Suppliers who provide Grainger private label products through Grainger Global Sourcing complete an annual social responsibility survey, which indicates the suppliers’ compliance with social responsibility topics.
