Sustainability Reporting by Woolworths and Wesfarmers

This assignment analyzes the sustainability reports of two Australian companies, Woolworths and Wesfarmers, focusing on their adherence to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. The analysis compares the structure, content, and information presented in each report, identifying key differences based on their respective purposes. Additionally, the assignment explores the benefits of utilizing GRI reporting principles for companies.

Running head: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

1CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Purpose of Sustainability Report.....................................................................................................2
Woolworths..................................................................................................................................2
Wesfarmers..................................................................................................................................3
Stakeholders.....................................................................................................................................4
Differences between Sustainability Report.....................................................................................5
Importance of Sustainability Reporting...........................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................9

2CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Introduction
In the recent era, massive progress can be seen in the businesses all over the world and
the businesses are expanding is a very fast pace. Thus, the companies are able to generate more
amounts of revenues and profitability. However, it has been seen that the business activities of
these companies have negative effects on the environment, community and the people of
community. For this reason, it is the responsibility of the companies to adopt the strategies of
Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. In this situation, the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI) is considered as a major tool to promote sustainability and corporate social
responsibility in the companies. The main aim of this repost is to compare and contrast the
sustainability reporting style of two Australian companies that use GRI guidelines for
sustainability. For this report, two Australia corporations are selected; they are Wesfarmers
Limited and Woolworths Limited.
Purpose of Sustainability Report
It can be seen that both Woolworths and Wesfarmers use to prepare well-structured
sustainability report according to the guidelines of GRI. In case of both the companies, there are
some major purpose behind the development of sustainability reports. They are discussed below:
Woolworths
The major purposes of sustainability reporting in Woolworths are discussed below:
People: Creating diversity in the workplace is a major purpose of sustainability reporting in
Woolworths. Women should occupy 40 percent of the position of executives and senior
manager’s posts in Woolworths as per the sustainability strategy of the country. In addition, the

3CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
company has taken major initiatives to reduce the wage gap between men and women.
According to the initiative of Federal Government’s Employment Parity Initiative, including
indigenous people in the workforce is a major purpose of the sustainability reporting of
Woolworths (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017).
Planet: Another major sustainability reporting purpose of Woolworths is to make a healthy
Australia by reducing environmental pollution. There are two sub purpose sunder this initiative.
They are to work towards zero food wastage and to reduce carbon emission below 10% level
(woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017).
Prosperity: Another major purpose of sustainability of Woolworths is to establish a trusted
relation with their stakeholders. In this context, the purpose of Woolworth is to inspire the
customers to buy their products in the healthy and sustainable way. With the help of
sustainability reporting, Woolworths is determined to get the top quality ranking
(woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017).
Wesfarmers
The sustainability reporting purpose of Woolworths is discussed below:
People: Development of people is one prime purpose of sustainability reporting in Wesfarners. It
is the sustainability objective of Wesfarmers to provide safe workplace to the employees of their
company. The employees of Wesfarmers get better opportunities to enhance their career
(wesfarmers.com.au 2017).
Sourcing: Another major purpose of sustainability reporting in Wesfarmers is to maintain a good
relationship with the suppliers of their company. The company is determined to source products
in a responsible way without harming the environment.

4CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Community: It is the purpose of Wesfarmers’s sustainability initiatives to provide their
customers with safe products in order to make positive contribution towards the community
(wesfarmers.com.au 2017).
Environment: Another major purpose of sustainability reporting of Wesfarmers is to reduce the
amount of carbon emission in order to reduce the negative effects of climate change. In this
process, waste reduction is another sustainability purpose of Wesfarners. As a result of this
purpose, the company has taken many crucial initiatives to reduce the negative effects of
environmental pollution (wesfarmers.com.au 2017).
Governance: Another major purpose of the sustainability reporting as per GRI in Wesfarners is
to maintain robust policies for corporate governance.
Stakeholders
It needs to be mentioned that every business organization develop the sustainability
reports for some of the key stakeholders of their organizations. There is not any exception of this
fact in the cases of Woolworths and Westerners. In this context, it needs to be mentioned that
both Woolworths and Wesfarmers have the same stakeholders, which are interested in the
sustainability reports of these companies. The first stakeholder is the investors. As the people of
Australia become more environment and sustainability conscious, they consider the
sustainability reports before investing (wesfarmers.com.au 2017). The second stakeholder is the
community people. It can be seen that the operational activities of the companies affect the
environment and the community people. For this reason, the people of community are interested
in the sustainability reports of these companies as the sustainability actions will bring good for
them. The next stakeholder is the young Australian that is in need of jobs. It needs to be

5CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
mentioned that it is one of the major sustainable objectives of both the companies to create jobs
in the market. Due to this, the young Australian will be interested in the sustainable reports of
these companies (woolworthsgroup.com.au 2017). Thus, these are the major stakeholders of
these two companies for sustainability reports.
Differences between Sustainability Reports
From the above discussion, it can be seen that both Woolworths and Wesfarmers use to
publish their sustainability reports on yearly basis. In this context, it is crucial to mention that
both the companies use the guidelines of GRI at the time to prepare their sustainability reports.
The overall objective of both Woolworths and Wesfarmers is same for sustainability reporting.
However, there are some major differences between the sustainability reporting of Woolworths
and Wesfarmers. The major difference can be seen in the purpose of sustainability reports of
Woolworths and Wesfarmers. The three major purpose of the preparation of sustainability
reports of Woolworths are people, planet and prosperity (wow2016cr.qreports.com.au 2017).
Based on these three aspects, Woolworths uses to develop their sustainability reports. As per
2016 sustainability report of Woolworths, different type of description and information is
provided in it. However, in case of Wesfarners, it can be seen that the company has different set
of purpose of sustainability reports. Apart from the common purposes of sustainability, some
additional sustainability purposes can be seen for Wesfarmers; they are sourcing and governance.
It needs to be mentioned that the 2016 sustainability report of Wesfarners also includes all the
details and information regarding the purpose of sustainability (sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au
2017).

6CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Apart from the purposes, differences can be seen in the structure of the sustainability
reports of these two companies. It can be seen that there are four sections in the 2016
sustainability report of Woolworths; they are performance highlight, group review, business
review and other information (wow2016cr.qreports.com.au 2017). However, the structure of
2016 sustainability report of Wesfarners is different. There are four major parts in 2016-
sustainability report of Wesfarners; they are sustainability at Wesfarners, managing director’s
welcome, detail about the company’s major principles and details about the business of the
company. By observing the sustainability repots of both Woolworths and Wesfarmers, it can be
seen that the details about GRI reporting have been provided in different formats. In case of
Woolworths, all the GRI indexes are provided at the end of the report with the page numbers.
However, in case of the 2016 sustainability report of Wesfarmers, the GRI indexes are provided
in the form of footnotes in each page (sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au 2017). Thus, as per this
discussion, it can be observed that there are some crucial differences between the sustainability
reports of Woolworths and Wesfarmers.
Importance of Sustainability Reporting
It needs to be compulsory for the companies to publish their sustainability reports based
on the guidelines of GRI. The major reason is that the there are many benefits for the
sustainability report preparation as per the guidelines of GRI. They are discussed below:
Building Trust: Sustainability reports help in bringing transparency about non-financial
performance of the companies that helps in the reduction of reputation risks of the companies
(globalreporting.org 2017).

7CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Improved Systems and Processes: With the help of GRI guidelines, business organizations
become able to examine the effectiveness of internal management and business decision-making
processes of the companies (James 2015).
Vision and Strategy: Sustainability reporting helps the companies to properly engage with their
stakeholders. This particular process leads to the development of robust visions and strategies for
the businesses (Toppinen et al. 2012).
Reduction in Compliance Cost: The measurement of sustainability performance helps the
companies in complying with the regulatory requirements and this process reduces compliance
cost for the companies (Toppinen and Korhonen‐Kurki 2013).
Competitive Advantage: With the help of sustainability reporting, companies can build goodwill
in the market. This process provides them with the necessary competitive advantages
(Fernandez-Feijoo, Romero and Ruiz 2014).
According to the above discussion, it can be observed that there are many benefits of the
adoption of GRI guidelines for the preparation of sustainability reports. For this reason, it is
compulsory for the business organizations to prepare sustainability reports based on the
principles of GRI.
Conclusion
The above discussion shows the analysis and evaluation of sustainability reporting of
Woolworths and Wesfarmers. The above discussion shows that both the companies have
different purpose for the preparation of sustainability reports based on the guiding principles of
GRI. The analysis shows that there are some key differences between the sustainability reports of

8CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Woolworths and Wesfarmers. They are the structure, content and information in the
sustainability reports and others. The study also shows that there are many benefits of developing
sustainability reports based on the principles of GRI. Thus, it is compulsory for the companies to
adopt it.

9CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
References
Fernandez-Feijoo, B., Romero, S. and Ruiz, S., 2014. Commitment to corporate social
responsibility measured through global reporting initiative reporting: Factors affecting the
behavior of companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 81, pp.244-254.
globalreporting.org. (2017). The benefits of sustainability reporting. [online] Available at:
https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/The-benefits-of-sustainability-reporting.pdf
[Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].
James, M.L., 2015. THE BENEFITS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND INTEGRATED
REPORTING: AN INVESTIGATION OF ACCOUNTING MAJORS'PERCEPTIONS. Journal
of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 18(1), p.1.
sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au. (2017). 2016 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT. [online] Available
at: https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/media/1835/edited-extract-of-wesfarmers-2016-
sustainability-report.pdf [Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].
Toppinen, A. and Korhonen‐Kurki, K., 2013. Global Reporting Initiative and social impact in
managing corporate responsibility: a case study of three multinationals in the forest
industry. Business ethics: A European review, 22(2), pp.202-217.
Toppinen, A., Li, N., Tuppura, A. and Xiong, Y., 2012. Corporate Responsibility and Strategic
Groups in the Forest‐based Industry: Exploratory Analysis based on the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI) Framework. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 19(4), pp.191-205.

10CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY
Wesfarmers.com.au. (2017). Our approach to sustainability . [online] Available at:
http://www.wesfarmers.com.au/investor-centre/company-performance-news/our-approach-to-
sustainability [Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].
Woolworthsgroup.com.au. (2017). Corporate Responsibility - Woolworths Group. [online]
Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/community-and-responsibility/group-
responsibility/corporate-responsibility [Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].
Woolworthsgroup.com.au. (2017). Environment and sustainability - Woolworths Group. [online]
Available at: https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/community-and-responsibility/group-
responsibility/environment [Accessed 28 Oct. 2017].
wow2016cr.qreports.com.au. (2017). 2016 CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT. [online]
Available at: https://wow2016cr.qreports.com.au/xresources/pdf/wow16cr-full.pdf [Accessed 28
Oct. 2017].