Woolworths is replacing a key measure of retail productivity with a reputation score in its formula for setting executive bonuses in a bid to rebuild trust, after its corporate reputation was buffeted by wage underpayments and now-abandoned plans to open a liquor mega-store in Darwin.

The move by the supermarket giant comes after an intensifying focus on corporate social responsibility amid controversies sparked by plans to open a Dan Murphy’s mega-store near a dry Aboriginal community and Rio Tinto’s destruction of the Juukan Gorge caves in Western Australia.