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YAM SUSTAINABILITY

YAM SUSTAINABILITY

1.Sustainable Operations

 

Carbon Footprint

Yam’s corporate carbon footprint quantifies the total greenhouse gas emissions attributed to our direct and indirect operational activities. We measure our total impact on the climate, map the largest activities contributing to this impact, and use this information to develop meaningful carbon reduction goals, including our overall goal to reach net zero carbon across Yam by 2040.

Our carbon footprint includes emissions from Yam-operated and third-party freight, electricity use, Yam branded products, capital goods, business travel, packaging, customer trips to Yam’s stores, and other purchased goods and services. The system boundary of our carbon footprint meets widely adopted international standards, including the ISO 14001; ISO 45001; ISO 9001

Yam is investing in a range of large-scale solutions to decarbonize our business, some with immediate carbon savings and others with longer-term payoffs.

Carbon intensity is the metric we will use to benchmark our performance year over year, as it provides a relative comparison between annual performance metrics.

Yam aims to make investments in innovation, technologies, and products that will decarbonize our operations over future years.

These investments include renewable energy projects like switching to electric delivery vehicles, which will be on the road delivering packages to customers; using recyclable Materials In our packaging. It will take several years for the carbon reduction benefits of these investments to be fully reflected in our carbon footprint. Over time, both our carbon intensity and our absolute carbon footprint will drop as we continue to make progress toward net zero carbon.

 

Renewable Energy

Yam is on a path to powering our operations with 100% renewable energy by 2035 as part of our goal to reach net zero carbon by 2045.

Shipment Reduced Carbon

Shipment Reduced Carbon means that the fulfillment operations we undertake to deliver a customer’s shipment reduced emissions— from the fulfillment center where an item is picked off the shelf, to the materials used to package the item, and the mode of transportation that gets the package to the customer’s door.

By providing the customer with a complete service from providing them with a solution and purchasing all the items required to address their requests we automatically reduce the number of trips required to complete the tasks. We also plan our deliveries and map out where all the demands are coming from to reduce the number of trips we need to take in one day. We rationalise our trips each day and connect the consumer with the closest professional which contributes to our shipment reduced carbon emissions initiative.

The emissions sources considered in scope for Shipment Reduced Carbon are:

1. Electricity emissions from powering operations facilities and vehicle charging;

2. Transportation tailpipe emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles that transport shipments

from inventory to the customer;

3.Emissions from manufacturing and transporting the materials used in outbound packaging.

 

 

Sustainable Transportation

Yam is contracting with our service providers to launch a low-pollution last-mile fleet comprised of electric and natural gas vans and cars.

Transportation is a major component of Yam’s business operations and key part of our plan to meet our reduced carbon emissions goals. We are committed to optimising and transforming our transportation network through innovations in electrification, efficiency enhancements, and alternative delivery methods.

While we work to adopt the most efficient, cutting-edge vehicle technologies, we are also maximizing efficiencies on our existing fleets.

Optimizing Our Delivery Logistics

Yam is constantly working to optimize our delivery network and drive efficiencies in the process of delivering our products. To fulfill customer orders quickly, we have a variety of vehicles moving from fulfillment centers to delivery destinations. We use data and algorithms to consolidate as many shipments as possible onto one vehicle. We also analyze which items are being ordered most frequently, by location, to ensure that the inventory of those items is stored nearby, minimizing the need to use planes or trucks for long-distance deliveries. By boosting efficiencies across our network, we are able to put fewer vehicles and planes into service.

Sustainable Buildings

As part of our commitment to reduce carbon emissions, Yam is working to reduce the carbon emissions associated with our buildings and facilities.

Our buildings will be powered by renewable energy, and highly energy efficient, with demonstrated reductions in embodied carbon—the emissions associated with a building’s construction materials.

We are also working to improve the resource efficiency of our buildings beyond energy, with a focus on water and waste reduction strategies across our facilities. In all of our buildings, we seek to create safe, productive, and inspiring spaces that support the health and well-being of our employees, local environment, and community, both inside and outdoors.

Green Building Standards

We are committed to holding our buildings to the highest standards of sustainable design, and we pursue third-party building certification when doing so accelerates our impact on our communities and environment.

 

  1. Supply Chain

 

Our mission is for our products to be made in a way that respects human rights and the environment. Our teams work closely with suppliers to communicate our standards, and help suppliers build their capacity to provide working environments that are safe and respectful of human rights.

Our Approach to Responsible Sourcing

Our standards are derived from the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. To ensure our policies and programs incorporate these internationally recognized human rights standards, we conduct formal benchmarking with industry peers and multi-stakeholder organizations to continually improve our program. We regularly review our Supply Chain Standards against policies developed by industry associations (such as the Responsible Business Alliance and the Consumer Goods Forum) in consultation with external stakeholders including Nest, Business for Social Responsibility, Impactt Limited, and Verité.

Our Sourcing Footprint

Hundreds of thousands of workers, employed by suppliers around the globe, make our Yam-branded products. The suppliers that produce Yam-branded apparel, consumer electronics,, and home goods products recorded on our supply chain map.

We believe transparency is crucial to our approach to human rights due diligence and ensuring worker protections.

Assessment of Risk

We routinely evaluate our supply chain to understand the highest risks to workers and prioritize our efforts. To do this, we engage key internal and external stakeholders, analyze our risks using international risk indices such as the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, run worker surveys, and conduct assessments that include worker interviews, management interviews, document review, and on-site visits. We regularly consult industry experts to review our approach to risk assessment against globally recognized international standards and industry best practices.

Supplier Assessments

Our Responsible Sourcing Program focuses on suppliers of Yam-branded products, consisting of Yam Private Brands and Devices and a curated selection of brands exclusively sold on Yam. Through this program, we engage in robust supplier due diligence, prioritizing mechanisms that drive continuous improvement. We are committed to working with our suppliers to remedy issues and establish systems to prevent future issues. We expect our suppliers to consistently monitor and enforce our standards in their own operations and supply chain as well as make improvements to meet or exceed our expectations. We use independent auditors to verify supplier compliance with our standards though regular on-site inspections and confidential worker interviews.

Environmental Protection:

Our long term aim is to ensure that the manufacturing of our products does not cause unnecessary environmental harm, and positively impacts people and communities. We are a constantly working to reduce the environmental and social impacts of apparel products around the world. We encourage our Yam-branded suppliers help manufacturers measure the social and environmental performance of their facilities. We are committed to driving adoption of this assessment and helping our suppliers understand their environmental impact.

  1. Yam community

We focus on building long-term and innovative programs that will have a lasting, positive impact in communities we operate in.

At Yam, we are committed to helping children and young adults have the resources and skills they need to build their best future. We are building long-term and innovative partnerships with local and international charities to who we develop programs that will have a lasting, positive impact in communities around the world, with a focus on supporting underrepresented and underserved communities.

To do this, we develop programs and partner with local and international organizations to fight hunger and homelessness, provide equitable access to high education.

Putting Yam’s Unique Assets to Work

• We believe Yam has a unique role to play providing a critical service for families to get the items they need, without leaving their homes.

  1. Circular Economy/Gig Economy

 

Yam is creating a platform for local skilled professionals. The gig economy has the potential to play a pivotal role in the recently formed National COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Management and Governance Committee’s plans to resurge the UAE’s economic growth by supporting promising and priority sectors, whilst monitoring the recovery rate of business in the UAE.

We are creating opportunities for growth for local businesses offering them a platform and the means to connect to the wider public, raise their profiles and contribute to the overall economy in the UAW/KSA by creating job opportunities contributing to the overall wellbeing of the local families and the economy. Local businesses connect with not only the public but with local suppliers keeping the supply chain in-country creating in-country value and potential for growth.

Recycling

At Yam, we are working towards minimizing waste, increasing recycling, and providing options for our customers to reuse, repair, and recycle their products—sending less material to the landfill and more back into the circular economy loop.

In addition to optimizing our recycling efforts for common materials like cardboard, we are working to address the materials that are toughest to recycle in our operations. We use recyclable materials.

We are also exploring alternative solutions for less common materials that cannot be recycled. We are looking across our entire operations network to incorporate more of our own recycled plastic in products, packaging, and operational processes.

 

Recycling Partnerships.

Yam is committed to reducing our environmental footprint through recycling initiatives in our own operations and for our customers. We are developing new recycling infrastructure, inventing recyclable packaging materials, and investing in initiatives that support the recycling industry across the UAE/KSA/UK.

  1. Packaging & products

Our sustainable packaging initiatives reduce waste and make it easier for customers to remove products from packaging. Unlike traditional retail stores, products bought online don’t need the elaborate packaging used for displaying products on store shelves. Instead, customers use star ratings and reviews to guide their online shopping decisions.

At YAM, program, we help manufacturers innovate and improve their packaging functionality. By testing products, we identify specific steps that manufacturers can take to improve their packaging and ensure products are protected all the way to the customer’s doorstep.

We  identify what packaging productsneed and which products don’t need packaging at all, and which smaller products are suitable for envelopes or mailers.

These improvements

We are looking at manufacturing partnerships to scale sustainable change across the packaging supply chain. reduce volume per shipment, which means less unnecessary packaging and more efficient use of all forms of transportation, reducing carbon in small amounts to create a larger impact across our network.

Engaging with Vendors and Industry

We work with our vendors to reinvent their packaging for waste reduction in e-commerce, including optimized packaging that allow products to be shipped in their own packaging. We encourage recyclable packaging and raise awareness amongst all the vendors we partner with.

We are working across the packaging industry, using new analytics and test methods, new materials, and new ways to build enclosures that protect customer products.

Sustainable products cover a range of attributes intended to preserve the natural world, and we strive to help Yam customers easily discover and shop products that exceed the environmental benefits of comparable products.

For Yam-owned Private Brand products and Yam devices, we work with many of the manufacturers and suppliers that produce our private-label selection to drive sustainability improvements through materials and ingredients, design, sourcing, and manufacturing technology. Our global teams also work closely with suppliers to communicate our human rights standards, and help suppliers build their capacity to provide safe and respectful working environments. Yam aims one of the best customer-centric company, which means giving our customers access to the sustainable products they want. From a variety of Yam-branded products to third-party items sold on Yam, we are working to reduce the environmental impact of the products we manufacture and provide customers more information about the sustainability attributes associated with the items we sell.

Household Goods

Many Yam customers prioritize safety and sustainability when it comes to household goods like cleaning supplies and personal care products. Customers want to be sure the products they buy are safe for their families and help preserve the planet, without compromising on quality or price.

We support the broader retail sector’s collaborative effort to use safer formulations and produce more sustainable products.

Energy

We strive to make what we build and provide energy efficient because it’s good for the planet and our customers. That’s why we’re always recommending energy efficient systems that not only improve the lives of the consumers but contribute to a cleaner environment.

Investing in Clean Energy

 

  1. Employees (Yam family) HSE

Workplace Health and Safety

From coaching and ergonomic training to ensuring processes and equipment in work areas are safely operated, leaders proactively verify and validate that safety protocols are followed. The industry-leading safety technology we use every day is designed to protect and promote our employees’ health, and we consistently test and refine processes to improve working conditions in our facilities.

Above all, safety at Yam is about our people and partners -  Safety, however, is the responsibility of each and every person working at Yam. In Yam’s dynamic, positive safety culture, every team is engaged and encouraged to look out for one another.

Safety is a top priority throughout our fulfillment operations and on the roads in communities where we operate. Our vision is to synthesize leading health and safety expertise with Yam’s tech capabilities and relentless innovation to create new industry benchmarks for the health and safety of our employees.

We know that a strong culture and active investment in our people allows us to attract the diverse, innovative employees we need to understand and exceed our customers’ expectations today and into the future. We are committed to providing the support, benefits, and opportunities our employees need to be successful, whether they are building their careers at Yam or building skills with us to help them on their career journey/ We are proud to offer generous, flexible paid leave for all parents—from our most senior executives to our hourly employees, including parents of all genders and adoptive parents.

Where possible we provide unlimited gender transition benefits, including gender affirmation. We have internal resources to help managers and team members support employees who are going through a gender transition.

Diversity and Inclusion

Our customers represent diversity in many forms—and we serve them better with a diverse and inclusive team. Our diverse perspectives help us push each other to think bigger, and differently, about the products and services we build for our customers and the day-to-day nature of our workplace.

We want our employees and the communities we operate in to embrace that we are all human, we are all different, and we are all equal. Coming into work, every Yammer should feel comfortable sharing their unique perspectives and seeking out the perspectives of others—this is reinforced within our 14 Leadership Principles, which remind team members to seek diverse perspectives, learn and be curious, and constantly earn others’ trust.

People Of Determination

 

We guarantee people of determination the equality and non-discrimination between them and people without special needs in all legislations, as well as economic and social development programmes and policies.

Under Federal Law No. 29 of 2006 Concerning the Rights of People with Special Needs protects the rights of people of determination and guarantees them the right to live with dignity. According to the law, a person's special needs shall not be a reason to deprive him/her of their rights and services especially in welfare as well as social, economic, health, educational, professional, cultural and leisure services.

YAM provides for equal and fair employment opportunities to people of determination. People with special needs have the right to work and occupy public positions. People of determination are entitled to receive monthly assistance subject to terms as per the existing laws.

Open Door Philosophy

We believe candid and constructive communication in an environment of mutual respect is essential to our collective success. We have an “open door” policy, which means we welcome and encourage any employee to discuss suggestions, concerns, or feedback with their manager, a Human Resources team member, or any member of Yam’s leadership team.

Voice of the Associate Boards

Voice of the Associate boards are in Yam fulfillment centers around the globe—physically and virtually—providing employees a forum for expressing their concerns, offering suggestions, and asking questions on a daily basis to leadership.

Sustainability Ambassadors

Recognizing that global challenges require global participation, Sustainability Ambassadors seek opportunities to lead and collaborate, using their collective action to amplify and deliver on Yam’s ambitious sustainability goals. Ambassadors raise awareness of sustainability as a practice for all Yammers by delivering environmental education through on-site events. They lead projects and pilot initiatives within buildings and across communities, striving to make Yam the most sustainable place to work.

  1. Human Rights

We are committed to ensuring the people, workers, and communities that support our entire value chain are treated with fundamental dignity and respect. We strive to ensure that the products and services we provide are produced in a way that respects human rights.

While it is the duty of governments to protect human rights, Yam recognizes our responsibility to respect and uphold internationally recognized human rights through the ethical treatment of our workforce and those within our value chain. Guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, we commit to embedding respect for human rights throughout our business. We continuously evaluate our operations and value chain to identify, assess, and address salient human rights risks; engage key stakeholders; and prioritize key areas where we have the greatest opportunity to have a positive impact on workers and communities. Our approach on human rights is informed by international standards; we respect and support the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We are committed to investing in our employees, the workers who make our products, and the communities in which we operate. These principles outline our approach to human rights across all aspects of our company.

Our Workplace

We endeavor to provide safe, inclusive, and respectful workplaces, in both our own operations and those throughout our value chain.

Safe and Healthy Workplaces: We strive to be the most safety-centric organization in the world. We provide a clean, safe, and healthy work environment. The health, wellness, and safety of our workers is our number one priority.

Everyone has the right to a safe and healthy workplace with appropriate rules and practices for reporting and preventing accidents, injuries, and unsafe conditions, procedures, or behaviors.

As outlined in our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, we do not tolerate discrimination, violent and threatening behavior, or harassment.

Freely Chosen Employment: We do not tolerate the use of child labor, forced labor, or human trafficking in any form—including slave labor, prison labor, indentured servitude, or bonded labor—in our operations or value chain.

Employee Communication: We value worker feedback. We firmly believe it is in our employees’ and the company’s best interests to continue our direct communications, and the best way to effect positive change is for our employees to continue working directly with their managers throughout the company. We respect freedom of association and our employees’ right to join, form, or not to join a labor union or other lawful organization of their own selection, without fear of reprisal, intimidation, or harassment. We provide training to employees on topics covered within the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.

Our Suppliers

We promote safe, inclusive, and respectful workplaces with our third-party suppliers and service providers. We seek suppliers committed to these same principles. Yam’s Supply Chain Standards set forth requirements governing labor standards and working conditions. We implement this commitment through dedicated programs that communicate our expectations to the third-parties we work with, monitor working conditions where Yam-branded products are made or services provided, implement plans to address issues and make improvements where necessary, and engage with stakeholders working to address specific and systemic issues.

How We Do This

Integration Throughout our Business: We expect and encourage everyone in our business to embed these principles into their everyday work and provide employee training to raise awareness on them. We strive to evaluate and understand the impact of each part of our business on human rights, to address and mitigate negative impacts, and to invest in the people behind the products and services we provide.

Continuous Improvement: To ensure we are continuing to hold the highest standards, we continuously review our policies and practices to ensure alignment with these principles and regularly provide updates on progress to senior leadership.

Collaboration: In support of these efforts, we value ongoing collaboration with a broad range of stakeholders, helping us remain vigilant and aware of the potential impacts—both positive and negative—of our products and services on the rights, interests, and well-being of our employees, customers, and communities around the world.

Our Business

Yam seeks to be one of the leading s most customer-centric company. We are passionate builders guided our principles: customer focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. We bring these principles to everything we do, including how we approach human rights.

Our Operations: Yam believes the people, workers, and communities who support our business should be treated with fundamental dignity and respect.

Third-Party Sellers: Third parties sell products directly to customers on Yam.com spanning broad product categories.

These orders are either fulfilled by Yam using our operations or shipped directly by the seller to the customer.

Yam Fulfillment is where our employees, technology, and innovation come together every day to deliver for our customers. Fulfillment facilities run multiple shifts per day, and employees perform a number of roles—from leading teams to boxing up orders and shipping directly to our customers. We fulfill customer orders in a number of ways using our transportation supply chain.