Highlights
...by type of contribution
...by geographic area*
*Does not include management costs.
Letter from the Chairman
This past year has been characterised by strong growth in our business, which has been reflected in an increase of 16% in the Group's turnover, up to €15,946 million.
Scope of the report
The Annual Report reflects the Inditex Group economic, social and environmental performance in the year 2012, which extends from 1 February 2012 to 31 January 2013.
Principles guiding the drawing up of the Annual Report
As a socially responsible company, Inditex maintains a relationship of dialogue and constant interaction with its stakeholders, ensuring that their various approaches are taken into account and guaranteeing the sustainability of its business model.
This dialogue enables Inditex to design its strategy and activities to subsequently communicate them through the Annual Report.
To do this, Inditex performs an analysis that enables it to identify the relevant actions carried out during 2012 which it must report on the basis of the following principles:
− Strategic sustainability context: Inditex contributes, or seeks to contribute in future, to the improvement of trends, advances and economic, environmental and social conditions at local, regional or global level, all of which are interconnected.
− Materiality: Inditex covers those indicators and aspects which reflect the organisation's most significant social, environmental and economic impacts as well as those which could have a substantial influence on the evaluations and decisions of its stakeholders.
− Stakeholder inclusiveness: Inditex identifies its stakeholders and maintains an ongoing dialogue with them in order to be able to subsequently describe how the Group responds to their reasonable expectations and interests.
− Completeness: Coverage of Inditex's indicators and definition of the information covered must be sufficient to reflect significant social, economic and environmental impacts and to enable stakeholders to evaluate the group's performance for the year.
In addition, when preparing the Annual Report Inditex has taken into account the principles of balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity and reliability established by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to ensure the quality of the information that appears in it.
On the other hand, Inditex, as a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council's (IIRC) Pilot Programme and of the taskforce created for that purpose by the Spanish Accounting and Management Association (Asociación Española de Contabilidad y Administración, AECA), has also tried to bring its preparation of the Annual Report into line with its recommendations.
For the first time, the information presented in this Report is supplemented by Inditex's website, which has been redesigned to allow better access by stakeholders to the contents that concern them.
External verification
Inditex's Annual Report has been verified by SGS ICS Ibérica SA, in accordance with ISO 19011 and following the principles laid down in the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G3) and with the principles laid down in the AA1000 Accountability Principles Standard (2008) (AA1000APS). The result of the verification confirms that the A+ rated level of implementation of the GRI guidelines is appropriate.
In addition, a selection of 15 relevant indicators have been reviewed by KPMG advisors in accordance with Standard ISAE 3000. These indicators have been selected based on the company's annual analysis of materiality.
