Wesfarmers Sustainability Report Analysis

This assignment analyzes Wesfarmers' 2017 Sustainability Report. It discusses the company's commitment to environmental sustainability through initiatives like waste reduction, water reuse, and renewable energy adoption. The report also highlights Wesfarmers' focus on social sustainability by promoting animal welfare, employee safety, diversity, and supplier relationships. Economic sustainability is addressed through financial performance, transparent governance, and carbon emission management.

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By student name
Professor
University
Date: 07 January 2018.
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Contents
Depreciation expense of Plant and Equipment...........................................................................................3
References...................................................................................................................................................5
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Sustainability Report for Wesfarmers
Sustainability refers thinking about the future and maintaining the reserves aof resources for future. It is
making profit in the present by optimally utilising the resources and saving the same for the future. It
can be done in a number of ways like using eco-friendly methods of production, producing less waste,
recycling the material. It consists of 3 factors namely environmental sustainability, economic
sustainability and social sustainability.
Wesfarmers is an Australian giant which deals in chemicals, fertilizers, retail, industrial and safety
products. It has more than 205000 employees and is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. In 2016, it
was the largest company in terms of revenue in Australia (Alexander, 2016). With respect to the
sustainability report of 2017, the company has a moto of not only focusing on the financial profits and
results, but to focus on other critical issues which influence the financial outcomes and be a sustainable
in Australia. It is involved in the number of activities like reducing the waste generation, recycling the
waste and reusing the water using differrnt technologies, ensuring consumer and the employee dafety
with regards to its products by maintaining highest standards of the safety norms and continued testing.
It also maintains robust governance by maintaining the utmost level of transparency in the system with
its shareholders.
Among other activities with respect to farm animal welfare, it follows and adheres by the Coles
Responsibility Sourced Seafood Program norms to to ensure the safety for farm animal and their
welfare. This includes dairy, beef, poultry, acquculturem pigs, lambs and egg products (Dichev, 2017).
The program also allows for animal safety, monitoring and safety standards. Besides that, it also
maintains the equality in the people development and organise a lot of training program such that
continued training and development can be ensured. It aims at maintain the gender balance in its
workforce comination and and people with disabilities are also given equal chances. It maintains strong
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relationship with its suppliers particularly Coles. It also aims at improving the working condtions for its
workers in the factory. The other strong commitment to sustainability is by maintaining the norms for
carbon emission thereby making a positive impact on the climate change. It follows the
recommendation of the Task force on Climate change and invests in renewable sources of energy like
the solar energy (Belton, 2017). As a prt of the process, it has set up nearly 770 solar panels. They have
also implemented a new technique of shadow pricing on carbon emissions in order to reduce the carbon
footprint costs. They actively see the greenhouse gas emissions of the company and try to reduce the
same wherever possible. To itigate the physical risk on the business like the projected changes in the sea
level, etc, they are also working in efficiency of electricity supply systems. Most of its stores have energy
saving and efficiency monitoring system in place. It aslo actively works in the field to mitigate the
regulatory risks, the reputational risks and the competitive risks (Raghupathi & Wu, 2018).
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References
Alexander, F. (2016). The Changing Face of Accountability. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), 411-
431.
Belton, P. (2017). Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. London: Macat
International ltd.
Dichev, I. (2017). On the conceptual foundations of financial reporting. Accounting and Business
Research, 47(6), 617-632.
Raghupathi, W., & Wu, S. (2018). The Strategic Association Between Information and Communication
Technologies and Sustainability: A Country-Level Study. IGI Global, disseminator of knowledge,
26.
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