Justin King's introduction

With around 21 million customer transactions every week, 150,000 colleagues and over 2,000 suppliers, Sainsbury's is ideally placed to make a positive impact on the economy, the environment and society. In this report you can find out how we monitor and manage the impact of our business to ensure we remain a positive force among UK retailers.

Everyone at Sainsbury's works to a set of overriding guiding principles - our values. These values are at the heart of everything we do, ensuring we run our business in an honest, ethical and sustainable way.

In a fast-changing world, ethical, environmental and social issues are becoming increasingly complex. That's why we always work closely with colleagues, customers, suppliers, government, researchers, community groups, NGOs and industry experts to develop forward-thinking programmes that work alongside our core values. Our aim is to provide shoppers with affordable, quality products that are sustainably and ethically sourced.

We appreciate that for many in the UK, recent years have been tough financially, and we are doing all we can to help those shopping on a budget. At the same time, it is clear to us that our customers do not want to compromise on the values and principles they believe in. More than ever, customers expect high ethical standards in how we source their food. This can be seen in increased sales of Fairtrade, sustainable fish and higher welfare products over the past year.

With this in mind, we remain convinced that a long-lasting business has to be a values-driven one, and we have continued to adhere to this with another full year of activity in the corporate responsibility sphere.

We are extremely proud that during the year we were again awarded the sector leader and gold class in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. We were also the first food retailer to be awarded Business in the Community's highest accolade 'Platinum Plus' in its Corporate Responsibility Index.

We continue to support agriculture in the UK through our Development Groups, and worldwide through our support of Fairtrade, with one in every four pounds spent on Fairtrade goods spent in one of our stores. Our energy efficiency Reset programme is creating real savings both in energy and costs, and we are proud of our efforts in support of the Government's Public Health Responsibility Deal. Our Food Colleges and You Can programme help colleagues to develop new skills, and are encouraging an even wider range of people to join us.

Finally, our sponsorship of the Paralympic Games and our support for Comic Relief compliment the many charitable and community activities our stores and colleagues are involved in at a local level.

Sainsbury's values have been at the heart of our business since we were founded in 1869, and I can assure you they will continue to be central to the way we operate for many years to come.