The Office Depot corporation has been a leader in office supplies for 25 years now. With a quarter century of experience under their belts, administrators claim that social responsibility has been a priority for the company for a while, and they hope to prove this with the release of their 2011 corporate citizenship report.
The company report seeks to show a commitment to ethics, diversity, business, environmental sustainability, and respect for community. A number of projects, both local and global, exemplify these priorities.
Newsweek magazine named Office Depot the Greenest Large Retailer in the country, and ranked it18th in the world. That is an impressive number coming from a company that deals primarily in papers and plastics. They have also received recognition for their willingness to share information about the company’s environmental policies.
In order to support business and ethics at home and abroad, Office Depot held a series of compliance training courses. The training took place in 24 different countries, and targeted more than 12,000 associates.
In 2010 Office Depot celebrated its 10th anniversary working with the National Backpack Program. Every year the corporation donates 300,000 backpacks to the program, which then disperses them to needy kids around the United States.
Many people are also praising Office Depot for their commitment to diversity. After releasing the Historically Underutilized Businesses Catalog, which featured male, female, disabled, minority, and veteran owned businesses, there was not a single group that could complain about not being included.
This commitment to social justice is good, and yet we continue to see areas for improvement. With annual sales of up to $11.6 billion it seems like Office Depot could be doing more. Not to mention that with 40,000 employees around the world, there is obviously some outsourcing going on within the company.