Over the past two years, we’ve made significant progress on our journey in LGBT+ inclusion. Our aim is to be a truly inclusive retailer and in order for us to deliver that , we recognise the importance of supporting our LGBT+ colleagues and customers, to make Sainsbury’s a place where everyone loves to work and shop.
We continue to support akt, a charity that supports homeless LGBT+ young people and this year we’re also supporting Sparkle, a national transgender charity and are the headline sponsor at the Sparkle Weekend. We are also making a further donation to both charities in collaboration with our suppliers J&J, Unilever, Durex and Colgate.
The last 50 years has witnessed a huge change in attitudes towards the LGBT+ community, but we know there is always more to be done. We are committed to creating a culture that promotes and takes pride in diversity. Our progress in the LGBT+ inclusion sphere over the past two years has seen us enhance our policies including the introduction of a dedicated policy to support our trans colleagues. We’ve rolled this out further by platforming and profiling our LGBT+ leaders to show our colleagues and customers that everybody is welcome at Sainsbury’s.
Marching toward our goal
We’ve worked hard to really show up to our customers in the LGBT+ inclusion space and we take our role as champions of diversity and inclusion seriously. We’re proud to have expanded our greeting cards range to recognise key dates such as Pride, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
In both 2020 and 2021, Sainsbury’s was featured in the Top 10 inclusive UK companies at the British LGBT+ Awards and our LGBT+ colleague network, Proud @ Sainsbury’s, was recognised in the Top 10 Inclusion Networks in early 2022, something we’re really proud of.
Our colleague presence at Pride continues to reflect our spirit of inclusion. Summer 2020 and 2021, felt different as we celebrated Pride with our colleagues virtually, however, in 2019, we attended 43 Pride events and hope to attend over 50 when restrictions are lifted. Over 10,000 of our colleagues have joined us at Pride events since we began attending and we are always encouraging that number to grow, as we continue to strive to be the employer of choice for LGBT+ people.