Sainsbury's selects Impact to develop unique community-based graduate learning programme

• Community Action Learning Programme is first of its kind for retailer
• Supports Sainsbury's 'Different Values' Corporate Responsibility Principles which also cover green issues and ethical sourcing
• For a high resolution image please click here

Windermere, U.K. - 20th February, 2007 - Sainsbury's, one of the UK's leading food retailers, has selected pioneering training company, Impact, global leaders in experiential learning and people development programmes, to develop a unique Graduate Community Action Learning Programme. The programme is designed to develop the personal leadership skills of Sainsbury's graduate recruits through a community-based project to provide sustained behavioural change. This champions the retailer's 'Different Values' Corporate Responsibility Principles: Best for Food & Health, Sourcing with Integrity, Respect for our Environment, Making a Positive Difference to our Communities and Great Place to Work.

The programme challenges Sainsbury’s graduates to work with a primary school in London's Newham Borough. Impact designed the community-based learning project, which included providing a healthy eating allotment for the school. This not only enabled the graduates to develop their leadership skills but also advanced the retailer's core values and promoted ideas of sustainability and environmental awareness within the local community. Impact's design challenged the graduates to bring to life sustainability and a green theme across the school. It was a complex and consequential project that elicited real behaviours that could be explored and experimented within their everyday business lives.

"At Sainsbury's we aim to fulfil our responsibilities to the communities and environments in which we operate - and the Graduate Community Action Learning Programme Impact designed for us truly embodied this," commented Joanne McGuire, Development Consultant, Graduate Development, Sainsbury's. "We chose Impact as it understood from the onset what we were trying to achieve. The graduate programme reflects the direction we are moving in as a business - it fully demonstrates our commitment to communities, young people, food and education. It also helps our graduates feel they are an important part of the company and enables them to make the transition between university and their working lives."

Andy Caldwell, Consultant at Impact, adds: "We are absolutely delighted to be working with Sainsbury's and developing our relationship going forward. Like all of our programmes, Sainsbury's Graduate Community Action Learning Programme is designed to forge sustainable enterprises that operate both profitably and with enhanced social responsibility. We look forward to repeating this successful project next year and investigating opportunities throughout the organisation."

_{About Impact
Established in 1980, Impact is a pioneer and global leader in people development programmes that create and lead sustainable enterprises. With 17 offices in 14 countries, it is a globally expanding and award-winning company that has pioneered the use of experiential learning to enable organisations to integrate business practices with a genuine desire to do good in the world - both commercially and ethically. Impact's facilitators are industry experts in people and organisation development and come from 18 nationalities, speaking 30 different languages. They offer powerful and bespoke development programmes and learning experiences with specific goals for accelerating change, developing talent, building high-performing teams and creating inspirational leaders, in order to make businesses more profitable and sustainable. For more information, please visit: www.impact-dtg.com
 
Hannah Irwin
Impact
Tel: +44(0)1539 488 333
hannah.irwin@imapct-dtg.com}

_{Manuela Whittaker
The PressOffice, PR for Impact
Tel: +44(0)1780 721433
mwhittaker@pressoffice.targetwire.com}

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