Kingfisher is an international home improvement retailer offering home improvement products through a network of retail sites, located mainly in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. The company principally operates through its main retail brands B&Q, Castorama, Brico Depot and Screwfix Direct. Kingfisher also has a 21% interest in, and strategic alliance with Hornbach Holding, a do-it-yourself (DIY) warehouse retailer, which operates stores in Germany and in seven neighbouring countries.

Strengths:

• comprehensive and transparent social reporting

• comprehensive and transparent environmental reporting

• comprehensive efforts in ensuring the procurement of forest products from legal and sustainable sources

Weaknesses:

• lack of transparency regarding work-life balance initiatives

• lack of transparency regarding training and education performance indicators

• no building policy which ensures public transport accessibility and reduces environmental impact of store siting

In recent years, DIY stores have been widely criticised for selling timber from unknown sources. Where the origins of timber are unclear, there is a risk that it has been felled illegally. In many countries, this practice threatens forest stocks and thus also biodiversity. Kingfisher has set itself the goal that by 2010/2011 it will be obtaining 75 per cent of its timber from recycled materials or from forests certified according to sustainability criteria. In 2007, this was already the case for 69% of all timber sold by Kingfisher. Of this, 42% came from FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified forests.