Canadian Tire to be Among First to Include New Metrics on 'Sustainability'
Progress in Quarterly Financial Reporting

* LAUNCHES FIRST SUSTAINABILITY REPORT HIGHLIGHTING TWO YEARS OF ESTABLISHED LEADERSHIP

TORONTO , Feb. 4 /CNW/ - Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (CTC, CTC.a) released its first Community and Business Sustainability Report today and announced that it will be among the first of Canadian companies to include and report on sustainability metrics in its quarterly and year-end financial reporting.

"For Canadian Tire, sustainability is a business strategy and not simply an environmental or green initiative," said Stephen Wetmore , President and CEO of Canadian Tire Corporation. "We owe it to our communities to be a leading corporate citizen - and we owe it to our shareholders and customers to run a strong company."

Canadian Tire is currently working to establish metrics that best reflect the realities of the retail sector. It will match widely-accepted criteria such as carbon emissions or landfill diversion with sector-specific metrics affecting supply chain, packaging, and retailing of products. Beginning in 2010, some sustainability metrics will be reported quarterly with others summarized annually.

To highlight its ongoing sustainability efforts and related business, environmental and social benefits, Canadian Tire also launched a "virtual community" that engages visitors through an interactive website. The Sustainability Report and website showcase initiatives that have been underway for several years and can found at CTSustainabilityInAction.ca

    
    Activities highlighted in the report include:

    -   Canadian Tire and its Dealers participate in over 80 environmental
        stewardship programs for such products as used tires, batteries, oil,
        filters, pesticide containers, leftover paint, household hazardous
        waste, packaging, printed materials and electronics.

    -   In 2009, Canadian Tire helped develop and fund Ontario's used tire
        program that collects and recycles over 11 million scrap tires
        generated annually in the province.

    -   Between 2005 and 2007, Canadian Tire reduced the projected carbon
        footprint of its transportation activities by 7% through more direct
        vendor shipments to our stores; increasing our rail shipments; and
        packing shipping containers more efficiently.

    -   Canadian Tire is spearheading a pilot project to test long combined
        vehicles on Ontario roads. These vehicles can reduce transportation
        costs by almost one-third, as well as overall fuel consumption and
        resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Results from the pilot project
        are expected in 2010.

    -   New product introductions, such as the Goodyear Allegra Touring Fuel
        Max Tire, which saves consumers up to 4% on fuel consumption or 4,000
        kilometres worth of gasoline over a tire's lifetime.

    -   Canadian Tire is completing a program to introduce energy efficient
        lighting in 361 stores. This helped save over 45 million kilowatt
        hours of energy in 2009, and will help save another 85 million KWHs
        annually from 2010 onwards. This program also prevented the emission
        of over 11,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2009, and is anticipated
        to prevent the emission of another 20,500 tonnes annually beginning
        in 2010.
    

"It's a different way of looking at sustainability," explained Wetmore. "Our products will continue to meet the everyday needs of Canadians, but we're going to continue to reduce the waste in our packaging and cut shipping costs while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions through supply chain management."

Canadian Tire began to formally integrate sustainability into its business strategy in 2008 and the reporting of sustainability metrics is the next step to track and explicitly identify sustainability as a source of business value. Core to the company's everyday business priorities, sustainability is connected to business decisions across the entire enterprise: an enterprise that includes 1,200 locations nationwide serving retail, apparel, financial, petroleum and auto - all working together.

Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (TSX: CTC.a, CTC) is comprised of five business units: Canadian Tire Retail, one of Canada's most-shopped general merchandise retailers with 476 stores; PartSource, an automotive parts specialty chain with 87 stores; Canadian Tire Petroleum, one of the country's largest and most productive independent retailers of gasoline, operating 273 gas bars, 268 convenience stores and kiosks, and 73 car washes; Mark's Work Wearhouse, one of the country's leading apparel retailers operating 374 stores in Canada ; and Canadian Tire Financial Services that has issued over five million Canadian Tire MasterCard credit cards and markets related financial products and services for retail and petroleum customers. More than 57,000 Canadians work across Canadian Tire's organization from coast-to-coast in the enterprise's retail, financial services, and petroleum businesses.

For further information: Amy Cole - AVP, Corporate Communications, Canadian Tire Corporation, [email protected] or [phone]