TORONTO, March 17 /CNW/ - Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (CTC, CTC.a) today released the results of its business sustainability strategy from 2010.  Canadian Tire is one of the first Canadian companies to quantify and report on the business impact of its sustainability initiatives on a quarterly basis.

In fiscal 2010, Canadian Tire completed 389 initiatives, forecasted to annually avoid approximately $6 million in costs, 610 tonnes of waste, and more than 7,800 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions - equivalent to the energy use and emissions from powering 1,000 Canadian homes each year.

These initiatives focused on three key areas - products, product transport and buildings - and included reduced packaging, fuel efficiency enhancements to fleet vehicles, new energy efficient store lighting, heating and cooling systems, and central energy management.

In addition, Canadian Tire operates two low carbon energy generation installations that include solar PV and geothermal technologies. Since the start of operation in 2008 to the end of 2010, these installations have generated over 176,000 ekWh, which helped to avoid 41 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in the local economy.

Canadian Tire also contributed $17.9 million to government-mandated community blue box and industry product stewardship and recycling programs in 2010. 

With a focus on energy and climate, packaging and waste, and products and services, Canadian Tire's business sustainability strategy has three aspirations: to profitably grow the business without increasing the net carbon footprint of the economy; eliminate unnecessary packaging while sending zero waste to landfills; and provide innovative products and services that meet customers' needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

"Continuing innovation is key to developing new products, improving packaging and streamlining processes that generate environmental benefits, profit and shareholder value," said Tyler Elm, Vice President of Business Sustainability. "This can be seen in the work we completed in 2010 across the enterprise. The continued integration of sustainability into our corporate culture will help us achieve our goals."

Canadian Tire has further integrated sustainability into its day-to-day operations by including sustainability objectives into 2011 operating plans and having a committee of the Board of Directors oversee the Company's efforts." 

Progress made is reflected in the overall full-year results:¹

For further details, refer to http://CTSustainabilityinAction.ca

ABOUT CANADIAN TIRE

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (TSX: CTC.a) (TSX: CTC) is one of Canada's most shopped general retailers with 485 Canadian Tire stores across the country. Our core retail and automotive operation is strengthened by PartSource, an automotive parts speciality chain; Canadian Tire Petroleum, one of the country's largest independent retailers of gasoline; Mark's, under the banner "Clothes That Work," a leading retailer of men's, women's and work apparel; and Canadian Tire Financial Services, which has issued approximately four million Canadian Tire MasterCard credit cards. Nearly 57,000 Canadians work across Canadian Tire's organization from coast-to-coast in the enterprise's retail, financial services and petroleum businesses.

¹As sustainability initiatives are part of an inherently dynamic process and as projects come to fruition, revisions to estimates are periodically made to provide the most accurate data available at the time.