Australia Contemporary Accounting Theory 2022

Running head: CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING THOERY
Contemporary Accounting Theory
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Part A...........................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review of the increased importance of Corporate Social Responsibility.......................3
Importance of sustainability reporting over other reporting concepts.............................................5
Theories explaining the spirit of sustainability Reporting...............................................................5
Part B...........................................................................................................................................7
Overview of the company................................................................................................................7
Sustainability Reporting Scoring Index...........................................................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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Executive summary
The firm named New Hope Corporation limited is an energy diversified firm that is based in
Australia. The primary activities of the firm includes mining of the coal, logistics and marketing,
oil and gas and relevant investment. The analysis of the importance of the corporate social
responsibility and the use of increasing the sustainable reporting by the firm. The importance,
uses and the basic advantages of these activities have been discussed in the report in details. The
analysis of the GRI scoring standard of the sustainability reporting have been discussed in the
reports. The sustainable reporting of the firm have been analyzed according to the relevant
standard provided by GRI.

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Introduction
The New Hope Corporation is a company that is based in Australia. The company
operates in mining of thermal coal of Australia. The products of the company are coal, bulk
handling and exploration of resources. The corporate social responsibility is a business model
that helps a firm to be accountable socially to the stakeholders, the shareholders, the firm itself
and the peoples. This practicing of corporate social responsibility is known as the corporate
citizenship and this also helps the firms to be aware of the impact they make on the society
involving social, economic, and environmental. The companies that take part in the corporate
social responsibility wants to operate in the way to enhance the society and contribute positively
towards the society.The firms that are financial strong take part in the corporate social
responsibility. The report that is prepared by the firms which provide the information about the
performance of social, economic and environmental by the firm is the sustainability report. This
reporting of sustainability is a procedure of analyzing andimproving the firm’s dedication
towards the sustainable development in such a way that can be demonstrated to the internal and
external stakeholders of the firm. The purpose of this report is to analyze the importance of
corporate social responsibility and sustainable reporting of a firm. The annual report of the firm
has been analyzed here and the relevant websites of the firm, Australian social responsibility
websites, journals, and reports have been also analyzed to gather relevant information.
Discussion
Part A
Literature Review of the increased importance of Corporate Social Responsibility
There has been many literature review that explain the gaining importance for the firms
operating with the financial objectives.
This study states that many large mining ore companies have started to show interest on the
corporate social responsibility. The companies have taken initiative for the social and economic
development of the society (El-Kassar, Messarra & El-Khalil, 2017). The small and medium
scale firm of this particular industry is lagging behind from the structure and planning of the

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CSR policy. In the year 2010 James shyne conducted a study of CSR, public policy and the oil
industry of the top firms that operates in Australia. The study offers a brief discussion about the
roles and performance of the firms in strengthening the corporate social responsibility. This
discussion started a detailed analysis on the CSR investment of the firm (El-Kassar, Messarra &
El-Khalil, 2017). This have been found from the analysis that the top chosen firms are all
operating in the same in a safe, social responsibility and the environmental Sustainable manner.
The companies have recognized the broad concepts and the issues relating to the CSR and its
importance.
The paper is made on the basis of case study methodology. The motive of the paper is all about
managing the critical CSR incidents and utilizing the experience in applying the CSR activities
(Aggarwal, 2018). The discussion of the study concludes that the management of the CSR should
be done by managing the unexpected clients of the firms, reduction of the long term gaps among
the stakeholders and their expectations and the performance of the firm by managing a positive
relationship with the society.
This paper describes the benefits the firms enjoyed on adopting the social responsibility. The
benefits are such as resource attraction for the firm’s gets easy, the marketing of the products for
the firms become easy, the image of the firm increases from before, the revenue of the firms also
increases.
The paper is based on the reputation of the corporate social responsibility industry in Australia
(Aqueveque, Rodrigo & Duran, 2018). The Australian marketing journal is based on the case
study methodology. The analysis of the companies in Australia explained the term CSR. This has
been found that CSR has increasing become very significant for the firms. The firms have stated
the CSR including the economic, ethical and environmental roles of the business in society.
This study explain the problem about the practicing of CSR activity by the firm and how the
activity should be managed and evaluated. Practicing of CSR has become increasingly important
for the firms to have a competitive success over other firms (Lin-Hi & Blumberg, 2018). The
sustainability reporting help the CSR activity for integrating and evaluating within the modern
and current business. This plays an important role for the firms as this helps in increasing the
improvement of corporate social responsibility towards the society.

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Importance of sustainability reporting over other reporting concepts
The sustainability reporting is an important tool for monitoring and evaluating CSR
activities of the firms. This translate the social responsibility business practices of the firms as
because to reduce the complexity. During the current years the practice of sustainability
reporting has increased in popularity for business. The reason behind this is that the businesses to
meet the pressure from stakeholders (Braam et al., 2016). The standard of sustainability
reporting is followed by GRI. An independent organization known as GRE which is located in
Boston. The motive of this organization was to provide the relevant guidelines for the CSR
reports internationally (Braam et al., 2016). The reason behind providing this guidelines is
because to evaluate the performance of the firms and to provide relevant standard of the
reporting.
This help the firm and the other users of this reports to compare and analyze with the
other businesses and firms. The GRE guidelines evaluating the sustainability within a business
organization. This is because sustainability connect CSR with accountability and enhance the
positive effects for business and Society. The GRI standards should be audited by an external
source (Petera & Wagner, 2015). The external auditor of the GRE reporting help the firm to
contribute credibility and validity. The motive of the GRE standard involves monitoring and
managing the CSR activities and also help in improving the evaluation as because it is easier to
compare the business reports among the other firms. This also makes the firm to increase the
transparency for business and thus provide relevant information to the stakeholders and
shareholders of the firm.
Theories explaining the spirit of sustainability Reporting
There are four major theories that briefly explains the essence of sustainability reporting.
The identified theories are corporate social responsibility, Stakeholders theory, corporate
sustainability and the Green economies. These are the developing theories of sustainability
reporting. There are other particular areas of research that are related to sustainability and the
firms (Schreck & Raithel, 2018). The other particular specific areas are such as the research of
marketing that basically examines the impact of the sustainability strategies on the consumers
and the buying decisions. The theories provide a basic analysis of the usefulness of the
sustainable reporting by the firm.

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Stakeholder theory
The theory was introduced in the year 1970 by Freeman. The author wrote a book name
“strategic management a stakeholder approach”. The book explain that the firms need to
understand the engagement with the traditional groups and non-traditional group of the business.
The traditional groups such as the suppliers, consumers and employees of the company and the
non-traditional groups such as the government environment and special interest for managing
and monitoring the business of the company (Harrison, Freeman & Abreu, 2015). The
stakeholder of a firm gets affected by the achievement of the organization. The firms have
primary and secondary stakeholders in a business primary stakeholders have more influence in
the company then the secondary stakeholders. According to the theory the most critical issue of
the firm is the survival of the business (Fassin, De Colle & Freeman, 2017). The financial
position of the firm gets affected not only by the shareholders but also by the stakeholders.
Stakeholder theory has primary influence on the CSR activities and sustainability reporting of
the firm. The firms have started to made relevant efforts to incorporate the CSR principles into
the stakeholder related activities.
Corporate sustainability theory
According to this theory corporate sustainability activity means the importance of the
stakeholders in a Firm understanding their means and balancing the economic environmental and
social corporate performance of a particular firm (Lozano, Carpenter & Huisingh, 2015). The
corporate social responsibility is usually through the triple bottom line. The three dimensions of
triple bottom line are the social environmental and financial position of firm. The bottom line is
defined as the profit in conventional accounting. The Corporate social responsibility and the
corporate sustainability are closely related with each other (Formentini & Taticchi, 2016). The
other authors believe that these two broad concepts are interchangeable. The study shows that the
management of the firm utilize both these concepts for sustainable reporting of the firm. These
helps them to provide a better understandable report to the particular stakeholders of the firm.

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Part B
Overview of the company
The company New Hope Corporation limited is a public company that is located in
Australia. The revenue earned by the firm is about $1,079 million per year. This revenue of the
firm is generated from the exploration, development and production and processing of coal, oil
and gas as well as the marketing and services of logistics for the products provided by the firm
(Newhopegroup.com.au, 2019). The company also set its business interest in port operation
agriculture and technologies. There is about 550 people working at the firm. The company
operates in many places in Australia such as Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The
head office of the firm is located in Brookwater, Queensland (Newhopegroup.com.au, 2019).
The Firm is listed on the ASX under the code NHC in the year 1904. The chairman of the
firm is Robert Milner and the CEO of the firm is Robert Neale. The total amount of tax and
government contribution for the year id $185.6 million. The contribution include the mining
royalties, payroll, taxes of the firm, fringe benefit tax, corporate taxes and other relevant taxes of
the firm (Newhopegroup.com.au, 2019). The equity of the firm is about 20 million for the year
2018 which is 4 million more than the previous year. According to the annual report of the firm
the key ratios such as price to earnings ratio is 8.86, which shows that the amount of money the
investor wants to invest for the company. The net profit earned by the firm is $253 million and
the EBITDA is $453 million. The price to cash flow ratio of the firm is 5.63 that measure the
worth of a particular price of a stock comparable to the operating cash flow per share
(Newhopegroup.com.au, 2019). The total debt to equity ratio of the firm is 18.40. This ratio is
used to evaluate the financial leverage of the firm. The return on equity ratio of the firm is 8.19

8CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING THOERY
this ratio measures the capability of the firm to generate the revenue from the investments of the
shareholders.
Sustainability Reporting Scoring Index
The general standard disclosure of a sustainable report according to the Global reporting
initiative are such as the strategy and the analysis, the company profile, the recognized material
aspects and the boundaries, the relationship with the stakeholders of the firm, the report profile,
Governance and the ethics and the integrity of the firm (Amran et al., 2015). The specific
standard disclosure are such as the management approaches disclosure and the indicators.
 The first column shows the required the standard disclosure that need to be disclosed
 The second column of the table presents the disclosures that should be reported for the
core option (Ong, Trireksani & Djajadikerta, 2016).
 The third column of the table shows the disclosures which should be disclosed for the
comprehensive option.
Scoring Index according to GRI
Material Aspects Score with relation to
companies following GRI
Non-GRI score
Health and safety 47% 22%
Environment 53% 19%
Community 56% 24.2%
Employee 60% 18%
Governance 44% 19%

9CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING THOERY
Based on the above table it can be stated that the company has scored highest in the field
of safeguarding its employees. The company has been compared with other companies around
the world who are reported to have followed the guidelines set up by Global Reporting Initiative.
Through the analysis of the scores it can be inferred that the company is effectively taking care
of its social responsibilities towards its employees (Mendes, Oliveira & De Souza Campos,
2019). In the field of governance, the company is reported to have scored the lowest among all
the other companies. Similarly, the table shows the comparison of the company with other
companies who are not abiding by the guidelines set up by Global Reporting Initiative. In this
context, it has been observed that the company has shown a lowest score. This means that the
company has prepared its report following the guidelines of GRI.
Extent and Quality of sustainability reporting
The sustainable report of the firm is presented in the annual report of the firm. The firm
had almost all the section that needed to be disclosed according to the GRI guidelines. The first
thing that is on the list is the strategy and analysis. The firm have mentioned the vision and
values at the sustainable report (Martínez‐Ferrero, Garcia‐Sanchez & Cuadrado‐Ballesteros,
2015). The firms mentioned the integrity, respect, success, resilience, and accountability under
the values of the firm. The firm have provided the information’s in detail. These provide a
general strategic overview about the firm (Odriozola & Baraibar‐Diez, 2017). These section of
the report provide information that may be needed in the other section of the report. The next the
firm mentioned in there sustainable report is about the identifications of the material aspects and
its boundaries. The organizational profile is missing from the sustainable reporting.
The quality product and resources of the firm have been mentioned, the efficient operations, the
access into the global markets by the firm, engaging leadership these are all include in the very
next section of the sustainable report. The points are explained in detailed to the users of the
annual report of the firm (Manning, 2017). These information’s provided by the firm are very
accurate and could be used the investors and the firm itself for the analyses. The next part of the
report is the details about the stakeholders of the firm. The stakeholders of the firms are the
investors, employees, consumers or the investors, the suppliers of the materials, community and
the government (Siew, 2015). The purpose of the engagement and what the firm provides and
plans has also been mentioned in the report. The next that is report profile section of the firm is

10CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING THOERY
provided in detail. The data, and the relevant charts have been provided in the sustainable report
of the firm. The imports of coal by the firm for the last ten years have been provided in the
report. The governance and the ethics section is not provided in the report.
Conclusion
This can be concluded from the above discussion that the firm New Hope Corporation
operates in the resource industry. The products offered by the firm is on the basis of coal,
exploration, producing, transportation, marketing of the related products and also provide a
logistic services to the consumers of the firm. The annual report of the firm have been analyzed
here in these report to gather the relevant information about the firm. The financial position of
the firm according to the annual report is stable as the ratios from the income statement of the
firm that have been analyzed explains that. The firm takes part in the corporate social
responsibility and is conscious of the social, environmental and economic impact of the
operation of the firm in the society. The importance of the corporate social responsibility and the
use of sustainable reporting by the firm have been discussed in the report. This explains that
corporate social responsibility add value to the firm and the brand image of the firm also
increased. The stakeholders and the shareholders of the firm uses the annual reports and the
sustainable reports that are provided by the firm. These reports are very useful and helps them to
understand the firm better and the also helps them to take better decisions of investing. These
scoring index of the sustainability reporting according to the standards of GRI have been also
shown in these report. The sustainable report that have been provided by the firm in their annual
report. These sustainability report have been analyzed properly according to the GRI standard.
The firm have included and mentioned all the sections in detail in the report. Some of the section
that need to be mentioned according to the GRI standard have been missing out in the report.

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References
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