Alice Cooper: I was exposed to a lot of different cultures early on and I think through that I developed a real sense of curiosity and acceptance of different social structures and different ways of living. What made a lot of sense workshopping these topics with the executive team was to look at where's our capability, where are we really strong in? And of course that was the removal and recycling. It's a way to really strategically embed reconciliation initiatives into your business and make them part of your business rather than driving it from a marketing perspective. Welcome to ADD to cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Here's your host, Bushy Foreign.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to another special episode of ADD to cart. I'm Bushy and I'm joining you from the land of the Terrible People. I acknowledge and respect the traditional owners of the land in which we work and share stories on and I invite everyone, especially our Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander listeners, to join us in our e commerce conversations and community on ADD to cart. We always try and feature a diverse range of guests and experiences and by now you may have noticed that in the weeks leading up to the referendum we are featuring indigenous e commerce business owners and leaders. Today's guest isn't Indigenous, but is leading a large e commerce business in their efforts to be more sustainable and socially responsible, including how they support and empower Indigenous people. Alice Cooper landed her dream job as head of sustainable business and corporate social responsibility at Winning Group, who we probably all know as the home of Appliances, Online and Winning Appliances. Alice's broad and far reaching role includes goals such as championing the circular economy, ensuring good visibility on supply chain ethics and forging meaningful connections with First Nation communities. It feels like destiny may have played a significant part in Alice's role in where she is today. She grew up living in different countries and societies, studying sociology and then being exposed to the progressive world of E commerce, which is where I met Alice initially. I met Alice when she was the General Manager at online retailer nearly 10 years ago, but I had no idea that this was her background and her passion. So it was really nice to hear how it's all come together for her to find her purpose. In this chat, Alice shares how Winning Group tackles reverse logistics with a focus on sustainability, why slavery is not, sadly, a thing of the past, and how businesses can map out a clear pathway to support reconciliation with a really clear, structured reconciliation action plan, otherwise known as a wrap. So thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet, here's Our conversation with Alice Cooper, head of Sustainable business and corporate social responsibility at Winning Group. Alice, welcome to ADD to cart.
Alice Cooper: Hi, Nathan, thanks for having me.
Nathan Bush: Great to have you here. I hear you've just got back from a big international adventure.
Alice Cooper: I have, yeah. I was very lucky. I spent three weeks over in Germany and I was able to combine work and play. So, yeah, it was awesome.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful. And from a work perspective, what's happening in Germany?
Alice Cooper: So I went to a trade show, one of the largest electronics trade shows in Berlin, where a lot of our suppliers are showcasing their latest products, some developments, and amazingly, a lot of them were showcasing their sustainability development. So that was really good, you know, good to see for me, in terms of product development, what our suppliers are working on, what's coming so that we can talk about bringing those products to Australia.
Nathan Bush: How did it compare to what's available in Australia? Do you feel like it was miles ahead or not too far ahead or on par?
Alice Cooper: I would say that, yeah, definitely in Europe, because the legislation is a lot more developed and further ahead, the manufacturers are certainly pushing products into the market that are more. More advanced with sustainability features. So, you know, for example, pretty much every supplier had a washing machine on the market with a microplastics filter, because in France there is legislation that's come out that from 2025, all washing machines must have a microplastics filter. And I'm finding that that's not even really on the awareness radar of a lot of Australian customers, let alone, you know, Australian retailers. So, yeah, it's really interesting. We've been, we've been having conversations with our customers about it, but yeah, it's good.
Nathan Bush: Do you think that's been driven by customer demand or legislation?
Alice Cooper: I would say it's a combination of both. If I just sort of speak from Germany, because that's where I grew up. We were separating and recycling. Gosh, I was, I was a child when that was happening. And we had big containers on every street that you had to put your recycling in. I can't remember really being able to get free plastic bags in the supermarkets. And this is, you know, a long time ago. So I think consumer awareness around sustainability has been much more on the forefront in Europe for a long time. But then also legislation is. Is definitely a bit more ahead there as well. I mean, Germany, for example, has had a circular economy law for, you know, since, I mean, the 80s.
Nathan Bush: Wow. And what's the law like? How do you enforce circular economy?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, good question. Very broad topic, very complex topic. You know, essentially there's two types. There's the economy that we're currently operating in really is a linear economy. So it's, you know, you, manufacturer, make a product, it gets used and then it gets discarded. And with discarded, it really goes into landfill. There's no recovery of the raw materials that that product is made out of. Whereas in a circular economy, the aim is to recover those materials so that they can be fed back into the economy. So, for example, with appliances or a washing machine, there's a lot of very valuable raw materials in those products, especially steel. And, you know, those materials are finite. We are really running out of raw materials. So in a circular economy, those appliances, those raw materials out of the appliances get recovered and remanufactured. And so that is a circularity principle around driving circularity within an economy.
Nathan Bush: Fascinating, fascinating. So we've dived straight in. Right. We should probably take a step back.
Alice Cooper: We should.
Nathan Bush: So your title at winning group is head of Sustainable business and corporate social responsibility. We've obviously heard there a little bit of an insight around what your role entails around understanding what's happening in the world, especially around appliances in sustainability. But I can imagine that your role is a lot broader than that. How do you explain what you do?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, it's pretty broad. And actually, before we really dive into it, I just want to also say I'm speaking to you today from a beautiful country. That's Goringai country. So that is the land of the Garrigal or Garrimagel people. And so that is on the northern beaches of Sydney, an absolutely beautiful area that I feel very, very lucky to live on. And to me, it's really important to honor that, that knowledge and the care that's come from our traditional owners of this country. Because literally, when I go for a walk in the morning with my dog along this beautiful country, I just feel so blessed and lucky to. And I think I can do that because there's. There's traditional custodians of this land who've actually looked after this for a very long time. They've done a fabulous job, much better than, you know, us people really do. So I want to thank them.
Nathan Bush: I love that recognition that you've given to the indigenous people. I'm on Turrbal country, and it takes me back to the conversation we had with Laura and Sarah from closing the gaps around how to incorporate and acknowledge and honor the traditional owners of the land that you're on in a meaningful way that's not, like, scripted.
Alice Cooper: Yeah.
Nathan Bush: And, you know, yours, you can Obviously tell. It comes from the heart. It's just part of the conversation that you have every day.
Alice Cooper: Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, I think that's a really nice way segue into the conversation. You know, I came to Australia first as a student and I was just blown away by this country. I mean, Australia is so different to Europe. It's got this incredible flora and fauna that's just completely unique. And I think I just, I was just in awe of that. And I think with that came a real curiosity and wanting to learn more about it. And I think that indigenous knowledge and care for country is, is, is just. That's, that's why this country is so beautiful and so raw and untouched still in so many ways.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, beautiful. Well put.
Alice Cooper: So, yeah, back to your original question.
Nathan Bush: No, but again, that gives us more context. So we obviously talk about sustainability. We talked about acknowledgement of indigenous owners and communities. Is that all part of your role? How broad do you go?
Alice Cooper: So what I really do at the winning group is I head up our sustainability and social impact strategy and initiatives. And so that incorporates quite a few different areas. I look after community engagement and social impact initiatives. I look after our responsible sourcing practice, and I'm responsible for publishing our modern slavery statements every year. I also am responsible for everything around waste and recycling. So that's initiatives within our stores, within Head Office, but also our distribution centers. We have distribution centers in every state. And because we have an incredible amount of removal and recycling programs for our customers, we do manage a lot of waste and we've implemented quite a few recycling programs. And then I'm also responsible for carbon management initiatives, so carbon reduction. And so, yeah, there's a bit in there. And as part of my community and social impact initiatives, we also have our reconciliation action plan. And we've rolled out a few, quite, quite a few initiatives in that space. So that's the role in a. In a broad context. And probably good to add as well that because this function was new to the business, so I joined about three years ago, a big part of that was to engage and work with different stakeholders across all of our businesses, of which there are a few, to make sure that people kind of get taken on the journey. And that happens through education and training. So we, we do develop quite a few sort of programs to just raise the awareness of sustainability and social impact initiatives. And the goal of that is really so that people feel a sense of ownership and they can start to implement and be responsible for those sustainability initiatives in their own roles.
Nathan Bush: What do you get when you combine the spirit of Christian Dior, Coco Chanel and Ian. From the warehouse you get Signet's brand new capsule collection. They've said non to boring packaging and released a brand new range for their inaugural capsule collection collection. It's packaging but classy and as always it comes with Signet's usual quality, competitive pricing and the only non French addition, amazing customer service. Coming to a warehouse Runway near you. Visit signet.net au to browse the range and contact the team to find out how their packaging solutions can help your e commerce business. I'd love to unpack some of those initiatives and we will throughout our chat. But first I want to touch on your role within Winning Group. You mentioned that it didn't exist before you were there and I haven't come across your role in other e commerce businesses too often, if ever. If I can recall. How did your role come about in Winning Group and what was the kind of drive from the group to say, actually this is really important, we're going to invest and put a structure around this?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, sure, there's probably a few different drivers, I mean, I think as a business. So Winning Group is best known for its businesses, Appliances Online, which is Australia's largest e commerce appliance company, and Winning Appliances, which is our retail side of the business. We have showrooms in every state and they're very experiential. So it's a very different customer experience experience because we have chefs and so they cook for our customers in their appliances. We also have a very important part of the business which is Winning Services and that's our trucks on the road. And through those trucks on the road we, you know, deliver our appliances but we also can then take rubbish back or old appliances back. And so when around 2019, 2020, our CEO John Winning and the leadership team launched. They were working on the launch of a new business called Andu. And that business was really about branching into other product categories outside of appliances. So furniture, for example, fitness equipment, etc. And so with the conceptualization of that business came a sense of, I guess wanting to launch a business that has a bigger purpose rather than, you know, just selling products. It was about how can we launch a business that also has a greater social purpose and, you know, has social environmental awareness embedded into the business. So that was one driver, the other driver was that, you know, probably around 2018, 2019, the modern slavery act came into effect in Australia and that required businesses of our size. So any business in Australia with a turnover of over 100 million needs to have a modern slavery statement. And so with that came the requirement for the business to have a role that specifically looked after that. And that's all about ethical supply chain. So there were some of the drivers that led to the executive team wanting to establish this role. And at the time I was working within E commerce but for a logistics program business. And I knew John and some of the other executives from, you know, being in the e commerce industry for over 10 years and yeah, when they decided to put out the role I, I thought this is my dream job. So I applied and it was great. I got it.
Nathan Bush: Brilliant. And I understand that this isn't your first foray into sustainability and corporate social responsibility. We heard about you growing up in Germany and that just being part of the culture and something that you've always kind of done. Where does your passion for sustainability and social responsibility come into play?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, I think it's been part of me since I was very young because I grew up with a very unconventional and probably a bit of a hippie mum. We traveled a lot when I was younger and so I lived in different countries and I was exposed to, exposed to a lot of different cultures early on. And I think through that I developed a real sense of curiosity and acceptance of different cultures and different social structures and different ways of living. And so after school I, I studied social sciences. I did a master's degree in sociology and so, you know, that's all about understanding social structures, cultural differences and what role organizations play play in society. And I actually also wrote my master thesis on the representation of indigenous identity. So yeah, I spent, you know, all of my study is really looking into this. And then I arrived in Australia fresh out of uni, fell into this different career path, quite a commercial career path actually where it was all about project management, content production, stakeholder management and I, I loved it. And I also was exposed to the fabulous E commerce industry which I think there's so much to learn from E commerce in terms of the entrepreneurship and that sense of launching new ideas and really creating greater outcomes in a way. But then after 15 years in that career path I was like, no, I need to get back to what I, at the core of myself I felt was my real purpose. And I did some training around environmental sustainability and I then yeah, started to reconnect those two sides, I suppose that commercial side and the social sciences side and, and really dove back into a sustainability and social impact career path.
Nathan Bush: Isn't it amazing all those different pathways that you had between studying and where you are today, all kind of adding on top of each other, even though they kind of look like separate paths, but they all add on top of each other to be where you are today?
Alice Cooper: Totally. I think biographies and just life journeys of people is so interesting, I think. Yeah, you just have to trust that everything leads to the right way in the end.
Nathan Bush: I'd love to dive into some of the practical examples and implementations of sustainability and responsibility winning. I think most of our listeners would be very, very across your service and the promise around taking away old appliances when having new ones delivered. It's something that you're famous for and you do it so well. Can you share some of the practices, especially around that process, of what happens? How do you treat old goods differently to others who might not have the sustainability practices in place? What are some of the things you mentioned, you know, using the steel again from washing machines? What are some of the things that might go on behind the scenes that we might not even see?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, that customer program and the offering of taking away the old appliance, that's been there way before my time, actually. John launched Appliances Online with that. So that was 2005. He disrupted the industry not just by launching a business that sold appliances online, which was unheard of at the time, but also added to that this element of making it really, really seamless for the customer. Because if there's one thing when your appliance breaks, that creates the biggest headache is what to do with that piece. And so, I mean, I think from a sustainability point of view, how you think of that is reverse logistics. And that's really a key part in sustainability and circularity is the reverse logistics. And it's a massive challenge. Massive challenge.
Nathan Bush: I mean, most retailers struggle with bulky goods just delivering them, let alone doing the reverse of it as well.
Alice Cooper: Exactly, exactly right. You know, having had that ingrained into the business from the start has really provided a key differentiation, I think, for Appliances Online and the winning group. And so when I joined the business, what we did as part of identifying what. What are the initiatives that we're going to focus on initially? Because as you can probably appreciate, I mean, sustainability and social impact is huge. There's so much need to improve in so many different areas. So you kind of really need to look at what area can you focus on? And to me, one of the really important areas was to, you know, create some wins quite quickly, because also, you know, you need to make sure that this investment into a new role pays off. And so what made a lot of sense workshopping these topics with the executive team at the time was to look at where's our capability, where are we really strong in? And of course that was the removal and recycling. And so we identified that packaging was a big part, of course of what creates an issue from a sustainability point of view, but also from a customer experience point of view. Because when you get a big bulky item delivered like a washing machine, you've got heaps of cardboard, heaps of soft plastic and all that expanded polystyrene, which is, you know, a real problem because there's no curbside solution for expanded polystyrene, so it all goes into landfill. So that was an area that we identified as being a real opportunity to incorporate into our removal and recycling program. And so, you know, that meant, for example, on a practical sense, what you were asking about is we needed to get the drivers on, on board with this because they're the ones who are delivering the appliance and for our business they're also unboxing the appliances, they're then bringing them into the home. And no problem, home is too large for our drivers. Like we've got drivers heaving up the appliances, any sort of small staircase, we've got examples of cranes lifting appliances into homes.
Nathan Bush: We've had that experience here. We've, you know, we've had to kind of negotiate some ways around this house and yeah, they've been no problems. It's always, it's always happened.
Alice Cooper: Yeah, it's a real can do attitude. And so getting them on board to then also take back the packaging pre sorted when they take it into the trucks because it would be just too much for our teams in the DCs to sort all of the packaging if there wasn't any pre sorting. So we've had to run workshops with them and that included a lot of that education. You know, what is the circular economy? Why is recycling cardboard really beneficial? What happens if you don't recycle expanded polystyrene? If you get people on board and they understand why this is important, we found that they are really keen to be involved and so that's how we were able to roll out the packaging recycling program.
Nathan Bush: Amazing question on polystyrene, is it still legal?
Alice Cooper: Yes, it is still legal. However, the Australian Packaging Covenant, which is the body in Australia that governs and works with the government to put out regulation around packaging, has already announced that there's going to be a phase out of polystyrene. So when it comes to small appliances like toasters, kettles, etc, it's already phased out with most of the the manufacturers that we work with. But when it comes to bigger appliances, like, you know, your washing machine dries, of course, you always need to be mindful of the impact that inferior packaging material might have on that product. So at the moment, we know that it's still legal to have polystyrene around washing machines and larger appliances. However, it will become mandatory to have a product stewardship system in place. So that means that the retailer and the manufacturer need to work together to make sure that polystyrene doesn't end up in landfill through a packaging stewardship program.
Nathan Bush: Gotcha. So you may not have all the answers to this question, but I've always been intrigued by it. When you take back old appliances, I can imagine you get a variety of items, from washing machines to refrigerators, some that might be 30 years old, some that might be five years old, all in different states. How do you make good use of them with sustainability in mind? Because I could imagine it would be hard to put a process in mind when you're getting such a variety of things back from all over Australia.
Alice Cooper: Yeah, sure. So every distribution center in each state takes back appliances relevant to their sort of state and their areas. And so you know what our drivers do, they bring back the. Their trucks usually in the morning with the packaging and the old appliances. They unload that very early before they start their day. And then at our distribution centers, we have teams that receive the packaging, they receive the appliances, and they basically sort them into different categories. Because we then work with waste management companies and scrap metal yards around the country to get those appliances to the scrap metal yard so that they can then be processed there and the materials recovered. So, yeah, there is a process in place and it's pretty much replicated for each DC around the country.
Nathan Bush: Fantastic. And you mentioned before the modern slavery statement. The word slavery is, is pretty jarring in 2023, and you mentioned that there are some pretty serious legislation for large companies in place. Can you tell us what that looks like and the impact or the considerations that you need to have in place? From an Australian business perspective, yes, slavery
Alice Cooper: is a really tough word or it's a, you know, a shocking word to use in a modern context. However, research shows that actually there's more people living within that definition of modern slavery now than in previous times that we associate probably with slavery. So there's currently 40 million people around the world living in conditions of modern slavery. You know, that happens everywhere, not just in third world countries, but that can also happen in Australia and certain industries are more prone to this. For example, industries with a high or instances where there's a high percentage of domestic labor. People might be incentivized to come to countries like Australia with the promise of good working conditions, but on the way their passports are retained and they have to work off their travel and things like that, that's considered modern slavery. And this happens even in countries like Australia.
Nathan Bush: Wow.
Alice Cooper: From a business perspective, every time we buy something, it comes from somewhere. And unfortunately the consumption in the western world is only increasing. And a lot of the products that we buy are made in countries where the legal system isn't protecting people as well as in countries like Australia. And so I think at the core of what the modern Slavery act does is it forces businesses to put a spotlight on, on their sourcing practices and their supply chain and to really start to understand where do our products come from and how they're made and who makes them. And so, you know, a lot of this is around supply chain ethics, but of course environmental considerations come into this as well. And so, you know, for us starting in this area, even things like mapping your supply chain, really putting an understanding and a map around which countries are our products coming from. And for us, this is usually what we call T2, T3 because we don't manufacture really any products. All the appliances that we sell are made by brands. And so those brands themselves have suppliers that manufacture products in different countries. So I think it's been a real journey, for example, our teams to start to overlay questions into their sourcing that they've just not had before. Because traditionally buyers or procurement managers were tasked to have conversations around product and around pricing and not so much around ethics, sustainability and considerations of sourcing country, for example.
Nathan Bush: And if your suppliers can't answer those questions definitively or give evidence of how they comply, is that a straight out no or is that a signal that you just need more investigation?
Alice Cooper: Yeah. So we take a very much an educational approach with this and we do that across our sustainability, most of our sustainability initiatives. So when we find that there's a lack of awareness, understanding or knowledge, we work with suppliers to help them understand their own supply chain. We've had instances where we've, through the knowledge that our team has, we've worked with suppliers to help them understand audit reports that they might get from factories that they may have not had the internal capability to really understand what those audit reports mean. And then we work with our suppliers on, you know, if there's any non compliances we work with them to help. The end outcome that we always want to try and achieve is no harm to people. And so, you know, sometimes it's not often it's not usually in the best interest of the people to just cut supplies off if there was an instance of a non conformity or an instance of modern slavery because that doesn't change the outcome for the people.
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Nathan Bush: 2023 or just follow the links in the episode show notes from the device you're on. And you mentioned before around Winning's Reconciliation Action Plan, otherwise known as a wrap. Can you tell us about this and how it came about?
Alice Cooper: So the rap is the Reconciliation Action Plan is a really, really exciting part of our community engagement and social impact pillar at Winning Group. And when we think about Indigenous Engagement and how this came about, some of this was actually well before my time at Winning Group. So our CEO, John Winning, he's had a relationship with a charity called aim, the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience, since before my time and with their founder Jack Manning Bancroft, John has supported that charity. I think he's on the board. And so when I joined the business and we were workshopping again around social impact initiatives, it was pretty clear from the start that Indigenous engagement was a really important part of a cause area that we wanted to play in and be part of. And so the Reconciliation Action Plan is a formal framework that businesses can do to further and find out really through their business how they can contribute to reconciliation with Australia's first nations people. So that's sort of how it came about and we can talk more about what the wrap is and what it entails.
Nathan Bush: Let's dive into it I'd love to know what it looks like from a winning perspective. You mentioned there that there are different stages of the action plan. Is this action plan, is this. That there's a reconciliation action plan that is a framework for all businesses to work to and that each business decides how they participate.
[Voiceover]: How does it work?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, first of all, there's about 2,700 rap organizations in Australia at the moment. And the rap framework is accessed through the organization Reconciliation Australia. And so Reconciliation Australia is an organization that helps businesses go through this process. And what you do when you want to participate in this and be a rapper organization, you register your interest and then you are sent resources and templates. And I think this is really great for businesses because it can be really overwhelming for an organization to know where to start. You know, this is such a complex and big issue to play in. And so I think that for us, the rep frame, it was a really great way to in a structured sense and in the sense that felt quite guided to go through different initiatives and areas that an organization can focus on to then achieve better outcomes for first nations peoples and communities. And so we decided on this journey probably a year and a half ago. And of course because it is, is a very long process, it's important that your executive team is really engaged on this. There are four different levels of a ramp. The first one is the reflect wrap, then the innovate rep, then the elevate rep, and then the stretch wrap. And so it's, you know, each one of those reps takes at least a year, can take up to 10 years for an organization to go through this process. So I think really important that you know, your executive team is on board with this. And then for us, we then created a RAP working group. So that was people from within the organization who represented important parts of the business that played a part in the rap, but also people who were passionate about this. And we also appointed an indigenous advisor, an external advisor to our RAP working group. And then, yeah, your workshop, you go through the different, the resources that are provided by Reconciliation Australia. And there's very clear actions within each one of those areas. The areas are relationships. So developing relationship with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people, you know, identifying also who are the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within your area of business or within the communities that you deliver into and identifying those and starting to develop relationship with those, understanding also what does a partnership look like between a non indigenous business and Indigenous communities? You know, think as always when you're working in a cultural sense, it's important to be aware of different cultural frameworks. And so all these things gives you a guidance, I suppose, to unpack these areas. And so, yeah, it's relationships, respect, opportunities and governance. They're the areas within the RAP that are covered with actions and deliverables for each one of those areas.
Nathan Bush: Great. And of those four levels, which one are you at at the moment?
Alice Cooper: With winning, we're very early on in the process. So we've just completed our first Reflect Wrap. So we launched our wrap a year ago and you have a year to go through your first Reflect Wrap. And so we're just about to submit our WRAP impact questionnaire for our first wrap and then we're moving into our Innovate wrap, hopefully before the end of the year.
Nathan Bush: Great. And do you work with Reconciliation Australia to say, yep, what you've done and what you've achieved in that reflect stage is adequate to move on?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, so they review that, they look at the commitments that you've, that you've made and they look at what actions you've put in place. I will say that, you know, I think the, the Reflect Wrap is very foundational and it's not so much about implementing a lot of things just yet. We have implemented quite a few things already. But the Reflect Wrap is really about, you know, scoping out and reflecting onto your organization and thinking about how can we meaningfully contribute to reconciliation, what relationships can we start to develop? So it's, it's much more of an internal sort of reflection and scoping out process than the next levels of the rep, which are really about implementation and execution.
Nathan Bush: And I can imagine it's designed to stop those knee jerk reactions that we see often in companies to say, oh, Black Lives Matter is important, let's quickly put this in place and it becomes a big thing and then dies down. This is actually structured for long term, meaningful change to stop reflect, listen, to know where you can make the impact and what's important.
Alice Cooper: Yeah, 100%. I think it's a way to really strategically embed reconciliation initiatives into your business and make them part of your. Make them part of your business rather than driving it. I suppose maybe from a marketing perspective where, yeah. You decide to play in certain events that are happening. Yeah, I think it's really, I mean we're, as I said, we're really early on in this but I think it's really meaningful because all about learning really, I think, and that's for us, our first rap was all about education and learning internally, but also then more externally with our teams, with our customers, laying those foundations and implementing indigenous education and reconciliation awareness.
Nathan Bush: And you mentioned how many Was it over 2000 companies are currently part have a wrap?
Alice Cooper: Yes.
Nathan Bush: And we've got companies such as BHP News Corp, Woolies, often held up as the big corporates who aren't playing this space, but they actually have a reconciliation plan in place, some of them, you know, within the last six to 12 months of doing that. Do you feel that there is a genuine corporate groundswell to ignite real change and acceptance of indigenous cultures in the corporate community?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, I think so. I mean, yes, I think so. I'm also, you know, quite an optimistic sort of person. I think that there's so much work still to be done. But what's really positive to me is that from that change of narrative, I think actions will come. You know, I, I really believe in the, in the importance of what we say is what we think is what we do. And so if we can change the narrative, if we can talk about reconciliation, if we can talk about recognition, if we can talk about togetherness and better outcomes and closing the gap, then I'm hopeful that we will achieve that change. And I think also I'm hoping that because climate change and sustainability awareness is just becoming so important, there's so much knowledge that sits with first nations peoples and cultures. And I'm really hopeful that in a country like Australia, where, as I said, our flora and fauna is so unique, we have so much to learn from indigenous, our indigenous peoples. So, yes, I hope that this will all come about.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. As we mentioned before, we had Sarah and Laura from Closing the Gap and
[Voiceover]: they were quite, they put a challenge
Nathan Bush: out to Australian retail to be more vocal about the upcoming referendum. They felt that there was initially support when it was first announced that has been taken away and has gone very quiet in the retail space. From a winning group perspective, it's very obvious where you stand in terms of reconciliation. But what do you see your role in the upcoming referendum?
Alice Cooper: So part of our rap and part of our sustainability strategy is really focusing on education and awareness because we believe that lasting and positive change comes from people who are informed and have the knowledge to make decisions. And so learning and educating is at the heart of what we do from a sustainability and a social impact perspective. And so also our reflect wrap focuses on education and awareness. And so we've provided resources to our teams ahead of the upcoming voice referendum for team members to be well informed to make their decision. And so that's included things like, you know, there's a Lunch and Learn that's hosted by Reconciliation Australia that's exclusive for RAP organizations. And we've provided links to our team members to join that. There's a great training course by Uluru, Statement from the Heart. And we've given that to our team members. And generally, you know, we've been on this journey in the last year to help our team members understand first nations peoples and cultures by providing links and resources around NAIDOC Week, celebrating Reconciliation Action Week, bringing in speakers who talk to their culture and their language. And so through that, we are helping our team members be informed so that they can make their decision.
Nathan Bush: And what's the response been from your team with that approach?
Alice Cooper: Yeah, really good. I think that they appreciate being taken on the journey and being provided the resources to then. Yeah. Be informed, to make their own decision. I think that's been the approach as a company that we've taken for a lot of different matters. And as an, as an organization, we're very focused on training and education. We have a training academy. And so it. It really speaks to the heart of what we are, of who we are.
Nathan Bush: Alice, you've given us so many practical pieces of advice around both sustainability and social responsibility. Thank you. What are you most excited about? What are the big things coming up in your area for winning?
Alice Cooper: There's a few. I mean, of course we're launching into our next Innovate RAP before the end of the year. So I'm really looking forward to that, to having an expanded RAP working group and including more first nations people on the RAP working group group. We've got some external indigenous advisors that we'd like to invite to join the RAP working group. We're also then, of course, publishing our fourth Modern Slavery statement in December. And then there's a lot of initiatives around appliances online, around sustainable product attributes or efficiency attributes that we're working on, which is super exciting.
Nathan Bush: Amazing, I bet you. I've no doubt that you've inspired a lot of people in organizations, whether they're directly in sustainability or on the fringes of it to go. Actually, I should be asking some questions around this, whether it be sustainability, whether it be slavery, whether it be reconciliation. So thank you so much for that. If people want to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that or even look at some of the initiatives and how. What you've done at winning.
Alice Cooper: Yeah, look, our winning group website has a lot of the resources that we touched on today, so you can find our reconciliation action plan on there. But you can also find our Supply Code of Conduct which sort of sets the expectations we have as an organization towards suppliers. Our inaugural Sustainability Progress Report which we launched in June is on there. So winninggroup.com and yeah, I mean, I don't know, just send me a message on LinkedIn maybe.
Nathan Bush: Beautiful Alice, thank you so much for joining us on Add to cart.
Alice Cooper: It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[Voiceover]: While I think most of us know and have a huge respect for Winning and Appliances Online for their disruption of the home appliances category and their amazing, amazing customer service they constantly held up as number one. It was really special to be able to dive into the purpose and culture behind the organization. As we heard Alice mention a few times, their founder John is leading and supporting their team to do all those initiatives that she mentioned. So it's fair to say that this is led from the top. Here are my three takeaways from the chat with Alice. Number one, Play to your strengths. Alice wanted to start kicking sustainability goals as soon as she began her role at Winning Group and so in consultation with the Exec team and others, she identified where they could make change relatively quickly using existing capability which was removal and recycling. That seemed to be the easiest starting point to make the biggest impact. So if you are looking to put more of a focus in sustainability and social responsibility Responsibility. Identify where your business strengths are and how you can use what you already have to further your goals. Start with the easy wins rather than being overwhelmed by perfection. Number two, take the time to reflect. As Alice said, there are four stages to the Reconciliation Action Plan and the first step is to start with reflection. And this is for good reason before you can effectively implement practical changes.
Nathan Bush: Changes.
[Voiceover]: It's important to take time to think, research, listen and learn about how your organization and community fit into the wider landscape. It will only make the doing stage way more effective down the track if you take the time to do this and will make sure that you have a meaningful connection with the communities that you really want to impact. I feel like this is great advice for so many things in life. And number three, change the narrative. I love how Alice put it. What we say is what we think is what we do. It's a reminder that there is a power in words to affect real change. If you are in an organization where it feels like sustainable or social change is pushing you know what uphill, start with your own language. What if or we could is always better than it can't or we won't. To get the highlights of today's episode head on over to add to cart.com
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[Voiceover]: Thanks for listening and until next time,
Nathan Bush: keep those customers adding to card.
