Wesfarmers Health is committed to managing and minimising waste in its business operations. This requires reliable quantitative data to ensure strategic decisions are well informed. During the 2024 financial year, Wesfarmers Health took steps towards obtaining a reliable national waste profile across all its retail stores and clinics. As small footprint sites, stores and clinics often use shared bins, making the collection of quantitative data impractical.

To address this challenge, Wesfarmers Health developed and conducted a waste audit to quantify the waste profile of retail stores and clinics (including small footprint sites that often use shared waste bins).

In carrying out the audit, the Sustainability team collaborated with teams across the business to collect the waste from six Priceline stores across a five-day period. These sites were chosen using a quota sampling methodology to ensure the sample was representative of the national store profile.

The waste was then delivered to a central location to eliminate the need for multiple audit days across multiple audit sites. At this location, the waste was sorted into several categories, separating recyclable items from non-recyclables.

The different categories were then weighed in containers with known volumes to gather weight and density data. A similar process was undertaken for select Clear Skin Care clinics to gather data across all location types.

With the information gathered from the audits, Wesfarmers Health was able to report operational waste data across all location types in its portfolio for the first time. The audit data also led to insights about retail store waste composition. Some stores performed better in their waste segregation practices than others, highlighting an opportunity to provide guidance to stores to enable them to improve their waste management performance.