MGMT 6016 Corporate Sustainability

Corporate Sustainability
Coles Supermarket Australia Pty Ltd

Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
Overview of Coles and current Sustainability position..............................................................3
Sustainability reporting issues...................................................................................................4
Sustainability strategy proposal.................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
The competition between corporations has increased significantly, and they are
pressured to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry. They develop business
strategies which are targeted towards improving their operations and processes to ensure
that they generate a competitive advantage in the industry. Along with the development of
these strategies, the concept of corporate sustainability has increased substantially.
Sustainability policies are based on corporate governance principles which guide the
companies in determining the interest of their stakeholders and implementing policies to
maintain a balance between their interests (Norton, Zacher & Ashkanasy, 2014). The
importance of compliance with these policies has increased to ensure the company
maintains a positive brand reputation in the market and avoid adversely affecting their
stakeholders. The objective of this report is to provide a sustainability strategy proposal for
Coles Supermarket Australia Pty Ltd by evaluating the current sustainability policy of the
company. The overview of the company will be given in this report along with analysis of the
current sustainability policies. The key sustainability issued raised in the current strategy will
be discussed in this report. Lastly, a sustainability strategy proposal will be given for the
management of Coles which can assist the corporation in maintaining a balance between
the interests of its stakeholders.
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Overview of Coles and current Sustainability position
Coles Supermarket Australia Pty Ltd or Coles is an Australia based supermarket, retail
and consumer services chain which was founded in 1914. The company operates in retail,
supermarket and consumer services industry and its headquarters is situated in Melbourne
Australia (Coles, 2018a). The company operates in 787 supermarkets across different
locations in Australia, and it has also established online services from which the company
serves more than 21 million customers each week. The company has hired over 115,000 in
order to effective manage its operations (The Guardian, 2018). The corporation provides
them training facilities in order to ensure that they are able to improve their skills and
knowledge. The enterprise was purchased by Wesfarmers in 2007 after which it becomes a
subsidiary of Coles Group, and it manages its operations under Wesfarmers. The
corporation is known for offering affordable products to its services with lower prices and
heavy discounts. The products offered by the company include fresh meat, liquor, fuel,
groceries and general merchandise. The corporation has established 865 liquor stores, 89
hotels and 690 convenience outlets across the country and the company also offers many
services to its customers such as car, life, home, and landlord insurance, credit cards, and
others financial services relating to credit card, debit card and insurance policyholders
(Coles, 2018a).
The corporation has implemented a sustainability policy in the corporation which is
focused on responsibility managing the environmental and social impacts of the company.
The corporation focuses on the interest of its customers, suppliers and team members. The
management of the organisation focuses on the opportunities in the industry and making a
positive impact through reducing wastage, recycling, resources efficiency, responsibility and
ethical sourcing (Coles, 2018b). The corporation ethically and responsibility sources its
products to ensure that did not face any issues and their interest is not exploited. Currently,
the sustainability policy of the company is focused on halving food waste by 2020 in order to
reduce the number of unsold edible food which is thrown out by the company. The
corporation also transforms organic waste into energy and compost, and they also provide
them to farmers to feed animals. The organisation donates unsold edible food to more than
1,300 community organisations in order to support them through SecondBite. The
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