Business, Society and the Planet

This document explores the relationship between business, society, and the planet with a focus on AGL Energy and Newcrest Industries. It provides information on their company backgrounds, social issues, choice of sustainability development goals, sustainability stage analysis, stated values in social reports, and a brief reflection on discussions with the companies.

Running Head: BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND THE PLANET
Business, society and the planet
Student’s Name
University Name
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
1. Company background of AGL energy and Newcrest Industries.................................................3
1.2 company background of Newcrest mines..............................................................................3
2. Difference in the range of social issues of the 2 companies........................................................4
3. Choice of Sustainability Development Goals of the two companies..........................................6
4. Sustainability stage analysis........................................................................................................9
5. Stated values of the social reports.............................................................................................10
6. Brief reflection on discussion with the companies....................................................................11
Reference List................................................................................................................................12

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1. Company background of AGL energy and Newcrest Industries
AGL Energy Limited is one of the listed Australian companies. The main operations of the
company include production as well as retail of electricity as well as gas for commercial use
and for the residential use also. The headquarters of the company is located in North Sydney.
The annual revenue collection of the company is AUD $12.85 billion (Coltman et al. 2018). .
The revenue to net profit ratio is 1.02. The total employee strength of the organisation is
more than 3500. The power stations from which AGL energy develop their products, works
under thermal energy, hydroelectricity, natural gas, commercial energy, wind power, as well
as sources like coal steam gas. As per the annual report of the organisation, the number of
customers of AGL energy in the region included in New South Wales, Victoria, Australia as
well as Queensland, have been more than 3.6 million (Nelson et al. 2019). This list includes
residential as well as the business owner customers. Designation has entered the market of
Western Australia in the year 2017.
The portfolio of power generation of AGL industries is diverse and includes base, peak as
well as intermediate generation plants spreading across traditional generation of thermal
power as also the Renewable Sources including hydropower as well as wind.
1.2 company background of Newcrest mines
Newcrest mines is an Australian owned company whose primary activities include
exploration, mining, development as well as sale of gold as well as gold-copper concentrate.
It is one of the leading mining Corporation of Australia. However, as per Mitchell and
Mitchell (2017), the operations of Newcrest are spread outside Australia in many important

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countries, for example Indonesia. The headquarters of the company is situated in Melbourne,
Australia. Average production output for the company has been 1631000 ounces of gold.
The main gold and copper production site the company is located in Ridgeway, the second
most important site is situated in the Pilbara region and the name of the site is Telfer mine.
There are two other mines in Papua New Guinea, Lihir as well as the Hidden Valley.
In the year 2010, the company declared their merger with Lihir gold. This business venture
made the joint company, the fifth largest producer of gold in the world. The combined output
of the organisation has been 3.2 million ounces of gold in the year 2014 (Thornton, 2018). In
the year 2010, a business dealworth 9.45 billion Australian dollars have been done between
the two companies. Under this deal, Newcrest is supposed to give Lihir Mines 0.12 shares of
Newcrest.
2. Difference in the range of social issues of the 2 companies
The social report of AGL energy importance about major achievements of the organisation in
regard to the primary societal needs in the last 5 years. In the first place the company discuss
their achievement of the launch of the powering Australian renewables fund. This is an
innovative initiating which will generate large scale investment for renewable energy
generation in the country (Myatt, 2016).
The most important aspect of the social report of AGL energy is that in spite of being a
regional company, AGL energy has invested for social causes which are not linked with the
impact of their operations or within their industry. It is evident that domestic violence is a
major concern in Australia. As reported by Crossley, P. (2018), for the last 3 years the

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organisation has been donating for various campaigns meant for reducing domestic violence
in the country.
Extensive research has also been conducted by the company in context to the target of
reducing augmentation cost in the electricity system of the country. For this purpose, the
organisation have been exploring the feasibility of the latest technologies in balancing the
dynamic upsurge in demand for electricity in Australia because of the changing climatic
conditions and increasing average temperature of the country.
AGL Industries, being energy Production Company, definitely needs to regard the necessity
of pollution control. in this context, it is most important that the company recognises the
amount of harmful emissions from their services as well as facilities and the level of impact
caused by it (Simshauser & Nelson, 2012). Considering that, it can be said that the company
that is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases among the corporate companies of Australia.
Significant important have been attached to informing the stakeholders about the greenhouse
gas emission of the company, informing them about the sustainable climate policy of the
country. Direct solutions have been also provided buy the various members of higher
management of the organisation and their views are present in indirect quotations in the
social report. One section of the report highlights the carbon constraints as well as the policy
requirements of the government Australia regarding emission of harmful gases. Most
importantly, English reported that the organisation has so far not been able to achieve the
standards set by the regulatory authorities of the government. However, the report also the
unique propositions of the organisation regarding how they are planning to achieve the target
of the government in the upcoming time period.

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in fact, one of the most interesting characteristic of the social report of agl Industries that
they have given value to stakeholder engagement, because of which, detailed links of the
social media based stakeholder engagement channels having provided. All the stakeholders
are free to come over these channels to provide suggestions regarding how the organisation
should move towards leaneras well as greener production (Northey, Haque & Mudd, 2013).
The sustainability and social report of Newcrest mines, that puts more emphasis on the
sustainable challenges we have to face in WhatsApp that operations and how they have
overcome them. Latitude of the organisation towards society is evident in the challenges
faced and the strategies have implemented to overcome them.
The significant social report of the company also stated about early, much similar to that of
AGL Energy how they have grown organisation. The report highlights that in the year 2015,
production of the organisation has been583,745oz. however, after taking out the challenge of
increasing production, in the third quarter of the same potential, the production of the
organisation lifted to 620691oz. Highlighting the primary reason behind lower production in
the previous quarters of the financial year, the report provide that worker unrest in the mines
of subsidiary units of the company like Telfer and Lihir, have been a major reason behind
this (Calvo et al. 2016).
Regarding the social issues, the company mainly messages on the state of affairs at their
different production sites.
3. Choice of Sustainability Development Goals of the two companies
The sustainability development goal of AGL energy is more faceted to the sustainable
needs of the society. Rather, the sustainable needs of the Newcrest Mines limited are more

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aligned to the future growth needs of the company and the development of the sustainability
goals are aligned with only the interests of the stakeholders groups affected by the operations
of the organization.
The Australian businesses like AGL Energy have a crucial role to play in the fulfilment
of the responsibilities in context of the SDGs.
The first goal of the organization is to set example by achieving gender equality as well
as empower the women workforce. The aim of the goal will be achieved by empowering the
women members of their work teams to identify women communities who need development
in terms of access to education, health care, decent work as well as representation of the
political as well as economic decision making. This will help in fuelling sustainable
economies as well as benefit societies as well as humanity at large Howitt, 1991). The graph
in order to demonstrate the scope of development of the women in the community as well as
workforce is as follows:

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Graph 1: The outcome of the women development program by AGL Energy in Australia
(Source: Tuck, Lowe & McRae-Williams, 2005)
Another major sustainable development goal of the organization is delivering towards
restoration towards sustainable energy initiative. The company has engaged themselves
towards delivering affordable, reliable as well as lower carbon energy solutions for all the
major customer groups including those who experience financial hardship.
One of the major areas of sustainability focus of the organization is faceted
towards ensuring that stable health conditions of all major employees of the organization is
ensured. The organization is constantly looking after revising the workplace policies in order
to reduce the occurrence of life threatening injuries or fatalities at the workplaces. By means
of implementing organizational learning as well as knowledge sharing the organization is

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striving towards making the company a healthy as well as safe workplace. In this context,
there is much similarity of the policies implemented for ensuring the safety and sustainability
of the workers.
The next most important policy in this context is the regulations that reflect the fact that
the organization cares for the organization. The aspect of environmental management is
incorporated in all the facets of business ventures of the organization. The organization
acknowledges mining as a process that is a major consumer of energy, water as well as other
potential resources (Catalan et al. 2012). In this context, the aim that is set forth by the
organization is that they have to ensure that they need to minimize the impact of the harmful
outputs and energy consumptions on the environment. In this context, risk minimization will
be aimed at creating the lasting footprint of the organization on the environment.
4. Sustainability stage analysis.
As per the report of Dunphy, Griffiths and Benn (2016), there are six stages of
sustainable positioning. As an outcome of that, the organizations are supposed to be placed in
any of six stages including refection, non-response, compliance, and efficiency, pro-activity
as well as sustaining organization. In this section it can be argued both of the organizations
are lying in a stage where they have not been able to achieve the highest stage of sustainable
development. However, they are always trying to modify their policies and regulations so
that they are able to catch up with the regulatory compliances of the organization. Analyzing
the six stages of sustainability, it can be communicated with conviction that Newcrest is still
in the stage of compliance. However, one of the weak points of the stage of compliance is
that development of the awareness of the supply chain risks have not been accomplished to a
significant extent.

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However, AGL Energy is lying in the stage of pro-activity of the organizational
sustainability. Nevertheless, it can also be argued that the structural redesigning which is the
major aspect of the step called pro-activity is the biggest standpoint of the organization.
However, it can be argued that Stakeholder management of the organization is needed to be
achieved at a much higher level so that the organization is able to develop themselves to the
stage of a sustaining organization.
Figure 1: 6 stages of sustainability risks
(Source: Jowitt, Mudd & Weng, 2013)
5. Stated values of the social reports
The most clear stated value of the initiative of the special report of AGL Energy is their
affordability initiative. The commitment of the Newcrest to provide support to the vulnerable
communities of the organization as well as larger sphere of the society is the biggest social

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value that is rendered by the organization. These initiatives undertaken by the organization
allows them to invest $6.5 million towards the benefit of the hardship community.
Nevertheless, it is also evident that the company has been able to improve comparability as
well as transparency in the context of external services facilitated by the organization.
6. Brief reflection on discussion with the companies
After the completion of the selection of the companies, Karan had finally agreed that
Newcrest is an organization that stresses the fulfillment of the demand of the retailers and
that AGL Energy can be considered more as a customer driven organization. Sandeep from
AGL delivered a point that AGL have been talking up sustainability as one of the most
prominent of the business objectives of the organization. As he stated, the immediate plans of
the organization are to invest over reducing the carbon output, by undertaking strategies like
plantation of solar panels, hydro plants as well as wind turbines. The .organization is also
emphasizing on the generation of more values towards their customers. Employee training
needs are also faceted to the demands of quality service of the customers. On the contrary,
considering the current business initiatives of their organization, Karan reflected that
Newcrest is making considerable investment in terms of reducing their wastage, which
showed deep concerns over environmental damage. However, Karan also reflected that the
organization is also involved in the social responsibilities of the organization. Gender based
equality another measure that have been adopted by the organization in order to ensure that
the organization is able to ensure that wage variances are implemented due to differences in
the significances of the job roles. Sandeep also conclude that Newcrest is also targeting the
welfare of communities affected by it. Newcrest invested a lot of money for up-liftment of
the effected societies.

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Reference List
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Howitt, R. (1991). Aborigines and restructuring in the mining sector: vested and representative
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