Comparison of CSR practices of Commonwealth Bank and Telstra Corporation Ltd

This article compares the CSR practices of Commonwealth Bank and Telstra Corporation Ltd. It discusses their social reports, contribution towards sustainable development goals, and quality of social accounting approach. The article concludes that CSR culture is more evident in Telstra Corporation Ltd.

07 September 2018
Business, Society and Planet
Commonwealth Bank & Telstra Corporation Ltd.

Q i. Commonwealth Bank and Telstra
The Commonwealth Bank is one of the leading organisations of Australia that
provides a range of the financial services such as retail, premium, business, and institutional
banking, funds management services, insurance services, investment and share-broking
products and services and superannuation services. Being a multinational bank, the
organisation operates in the areas of New Zealand, Asia, the United States, and the United
Kingdom. According to the data stated in the Annual Report for the year 2018, the bank
served a total of $ 16.1 million customers and earned a total net operating income of $ 26132
million (Commonwealth Bank, 2018).
The company Telstra Corporation is an Australian telecommunication and technology
company that offers a full range of communication services such as mobile, internet access,
pay television and other products and services. The company was formed in the year 1992,
because of the merger between the Australian Telecommunications Corporation Limited and
Australia's domestic telecommunications carrier. Currently, the company is a leading
provider and competitor in the telecommunications markets. The company earned a total
income of $ 29042 million in the financial year (Telstra, 2018a).
Both the companies belong to different industries and therefore the comparison is
unfair in terms of the financial results, however, both the companies are major contributors
towards the Australian GDP and the sustainable business practices.
Q ii. Social Reports and Sustainability Reporting
Both the companies have reported being actively engaged in the social reporting
practices, in their respective areas of operations. While the company Telstra Corporation
prepared a separate sustainability report for the year 2018, the Commonwealth Bank

incorporated the results of the corporate social responsibility practices in the annual report of
the year itself.
The Commonwealth Bank recognises its main business objective to deliver balanced
and sustainable outcomes to customers, community, people, and shareholders. The areas of
the focus of the organisation for the year 2018 were the improvement of the financial
wellbeing of the customers and the community, building trust and reputation, promoting
Accountable, diverse and inclusive workforce and overall long-term sustainability. The
overall tone of the reporting of the social practices was short and crisp. In addition to the
above, the report made use of the pictures and the diagrams for clear understanding.
The Company Telstra named the report of its social practices as the bigger picture
report. The report is comprehensive and covers each materiality issue in detailed. The
graphical and the pictorial representations add on to the ease of the understandability of the
information contained therein. The company recognises its major social goals to be
inculcating ethics and governance in business practices, together with cultural values and
capabilities of the workforce. This is in addition to the technology inclusion, social and
environmental innovation, and efficient use of the environmental resources.
Q iii. Contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals
The organisation Commonwealth Bank described the applicability of the sustainable
goals on its business practices in general terms. The company did not provide any specific
contribution made towards the concerned sustainability goal. The company identified the
general sustainability development goals such as no poverty, good health, and well-being of
employees, gender equality, decent work and economic growth and others. The company
stated that the same is being incorporated in the various business practices.

However, the company Telstra reported in a detailed manner towards the applicability
of the sustainable development goals, the progress made on the same lines and the target for
the year 2020. The company recognised the major sustainable development goals applicable
to its business practices to be Goal number 5, 8, 9, and 13, on the lines of the gender equality;
conditions of the decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation and infrastructure
and climate actions. The company very well depicted how it is contributing towards each of
the identified goals.
Glimpses of the reporting on the sustainability goals by both the companies are
presented below.
(Source: Commonwealth Bank, 2018)

(Source: Telstra, 2018b)
Thus, as it is evident from the pictures above, the Telstra Corporation appears to be a
principled organisation in terms of the values and its approach towards identifying, reporting,
and acknowledging the performance on the concerned issues.
Q iv. Quality of the social accounting approach
Zadek et al, (1997) had prescribed the eight key standards of the quality, for the
critical evaluation of the social accounting procedures of the entities (Crane & Matten, 2016).
The quality of the social reporting of both the entities as per the above eight standards has
been described as follows.
Both the companies self-report their social activities. Following the principle of
inclusivity, the range of stakeholders, as identified by the Commonwealth Bank and Telstra,
is customers, employees, shareholders, regulators, media, communities, and service
providers.

On lines of comparability, both the companies are the members of the UN Global
Compact. The companies have been publically reporting on the CSR, which makes the
performances comparable over the years.
On the lines of completeness and evolution, the Commonwealth Bank was ranked as
the top Australian company and the top bank in the Global 100 Index of the most sustainable
corporations in the world. Moreover, it had scored a B for taking co-ordinated action on
climate change. The company Telstra has signed to the following voluntary sustainability
initiatives that are Australian Packaging Covenant, Global e-Sustainability Initiative, Joint
Audit Cooperation, Telco Together Foundation, FTSE4Good and more.
In terms of the management policy and systems, both the companies are engaged in
the internal data capturing and the reporting system. Both the companies’ non-financial
reporting is presented in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards.
The companies have fully disclosed the mandatory data in terms of the annual reports
of 2018 and selective disclosure of the ethical practices.
The Commonwealth Bank’s reports are independently audited by the PWC, and Ernst
& Young audits that of Telstra Company.
The companies are inclined towards continuous improvement of their activities. Each
organisation has set the targets for the future year performances.
Thus, it can be said that regardless of the aim or drivers of the social business
practices and the reporting requirements, the companies are engaging actively in addressing
the various material issues with respect to the stakeholders. In addition to the same, the
achievements are specifically highlighted in the projects, to gain the stakeholder confidence.

Q v. Reflection of the stated values
Commonwealth outlined the values in its annual report to be simple and action-
oriented, to do what is right; being accountable and dedicated to service, pursuing excellence;
and getting the things done. As per the evaluation of the social reporting, it is found that the
company is actively engaged in the community services through the CommBank foundation
(Commonwealth Bank, 2018). Some of the contributions made are as follows. In addition to
the below stated, the bank has employed 44.6 per cent women in the manager roles and
executive positions.
(Source: Commonwealth Bank, 2018)

For the company Telstra, the stated values are as follows in the picture (Telstra, 2018).
On the lines of the stated values, the company's 88 per cent of employees were trained
for the updated business-wide ethics and compliance. The company achieved a sustainable
engagement score of 74 per cent in the year 2018 and conducted the world-first 5G trials. The
company claims to reduce the carbon footprint by 24 per cent.
Q vi. Reflection on group discussion
The group had first met and discussed the activities in terms of the ethical business
practices of the Commonwealth Bank. The members were majorly concerned about the ethics
of the Commonwealth Bank. The organisation had faced an ethics check initiated by the
regulators last year (Stewart, 2017). The probe was on the lines of the governance and
accountability, because of accuse of breaching of the anti-money laundering rules.
On the evaluation of the report, we felt that there were no significant pieces of
evidence that ethics are a significant driver for Commonwealth Bank’s CSR activities. The
activities were more on the lines of the external pressure of the stakeholders and the
regulators.

The group had met for the second time to discuss the CSR activities of Telstra. The
company was in news for the service interruption in the year 2016 on the lines of the mass
ADSL and NBN internet outage that resulted in 10 per cent of the customers to be offline
(Carter, 2016). On the examination of the reports, it was quite evident that the company is
excessively engaged in the social business practices and reporting. The main reason for the
same seems to be the upcoming 5G project of the company. However, the research also
indicated to us that the company has very well balanced the demands of society and the
business objectives.
Conclusions
As per the research conducted in the previous parts and the comparisons made it can
be concluded that the CSR culture is more evident in the company Telstra, as compared to
that at the Commonwealth Bank.
The company comparisons enabled to understand that CSR activities are a crucial
aspect of the businesses of the twenty-first century. The companies are actively engaging in
the same, in order to build the social reputation and regulatory requirements.

References
Carter, L. (2016). Telstra outage: Executive apologises, says software bug caused latest
problem. Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-27/telstra-executive-
apologises-for-latest-network-outage/7453546
Commonwealth Bank. (2018). Annual Report 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank/about-us/shareholders/pdfs/
results/fy18/cba-annual-report-2018.pdf
Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2016). Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. UK: Oxford University Press.
Stewart, R. M. (2017). Commonwealth Bank Faces Ethics Check. Retrieved from:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/commonwealth-bank-faces-ethics-check-1503945230
Telstra Corporation Ltd. (2018a). Telstra Annual Report 2018. Retrieved from:
https://www.telstra.com.au/content/dam/tcom/about-us/investors/pdf%20F/2018-
Annual-Report.pdf
Telstra Corporation Ltd. (2018b). Bigger Picture, 2018 Sustainability Report. Retrieved
from: https://1u0b5867gsn1ez16a1p2vcj1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/
uploads/2018/08/Bigger-Picture-Report.pdf