Business, Society and Planet: A Study of Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank

Running head: BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
Business, Society and Planet
Student’s name:
Name of the university:
Author’s note:

1BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
Table of Contents
1. Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank; their core business activities and the countries and
industries in which they operate......................................................................................................2
2. Differences are evident between Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank in terms of the range
of their social reports and the depth of coverage on specific issues................................................3
3. Sustainable Development Goals relevant to these companies, their industries and the countries
in which they operate.......................................................................................................................4
4. Assess the apparent quality of the social accounting approach utilised by these companies
according to Zadek et al.’s (1997) criteria.......................................................................................5
6. Conclusions and reflecting on groups’ discussions of these companies.....................................9
Bibliography and Reference List...................................................................................................10

2BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
1. Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank; their core business activities and the countries
and industries in which they operate
Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank both are in the banking sector; however, they
belong to the different countries. Commonwealth Bank has it headquarter in Sydney, whereas,
Commonwealth Bank has it headquarter in London.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a multinational bank, established in the year 1911 as
a government bank. Commonwealth Bank has its branches in more than 1150 locations and it
mainly provides a variety of financial products and services to the customers. Commonwealth
Bank provides finance and insurance, corporate banking, consumer banking, global wealth
management, investment management and private equity to the customers. Commonwealth Bank
reached the revenue of AUD 26.05 billion in 2016 and it had more than 51,900 employees in
2017 (Commbank.com.au, 2018). Core business activities of Commonwealth Bank are
associated with accepting deposits from the customers; give loans and providing investment
products to the customers. Core activities of Commonwealth Bank are related to Australia’s
leading provider of financial services, business and institution banking and retail or premium
banking along with funds management, insurance, superannuation and share-broking services
and products.
HSBC Holdings is a public limited company and it is in the industry of banking and
financial services. HSBC was established long back in the year 1865; however, it was registered
as HSBC Bank in 1991 in London. HSBC mainly provides retail banking, investment banking,
corporate banking, private banking, mortgage loan, credit cards and insurance service to the
customers (Hsbc.com, 2018). HSBC had the revenue of US$51.445 billion and numbers of

3BUSINESS, SOCIETY AND PLANET
employees in 2017 were 228,600. HSBC has more than 3900 branches in 68 countries along with
38 million customers. Core business activities of HSBC are associated with principal business
activities, group and divisions. HSBC does the business in customer-facing activities mainly
dividing the business into four segments; commercial, global, retail and global private banking
(Hsbc.com, 2018). Commercial banking of HSBC operates in 53 countries and commercial
banking is associated with global trade, global liquidity, global banking, cash management and
insurance and investment.
2. Differences are evident between Commonwealth Bank and HSBC Bank in terms of the
range of their social reports and the depth of coverage on specific issues
Commonwealth Bank led to $2.8 billion in renewable energy projects and
Commonwealth Bank also spent $1.02 billion in climate bonds arranged. Commonwealth Bank
provided training to 2,790 employees on responsible leading to investing and procuring. Since
2009, Commonwealth Bank reduced 48.5% of direct emission in Australia and more than
570,000 students got enrolled through financial education programme for the youth
(Commbank.com.au, 2018). Corporate social responsibility has its relation to three aspects,
profit, planet and people. In the case of business, Commonwealth Bank provided a salary of $6.3
billion in 2017 and they spent $4.8 billion as an operational expense. Commonwealth Bank
provided a tax of $3.9 billion in 2017. For the betterment of the society, Commonwealth Bank
has been following the global megatrend of providing better customer experience, diversity and
inclusion, financial stability, disclosure, workforce well-being and responsible leading. In
addition, Commonwealth Bank also provides the security of digital innovation privacy and data
security, macroeconomic and betterment in the case of climate change. Commonwealth Bank
educates the children with a value of money and helps the people to prepare the workforce of the