Sustainable Business Management of Wesfarmers

This report discusses the sustainable practices of Wesfarmers, a conglomerate of Australia. It covers the company's background, major causes of unsustainability, and best practices in safety, diversity, climate change resilience, and recycling and waste. The report also evaluates the sustainability performance of Wesfarmers and concludes that the company has successfully planned different sustainability practices to reduce carbon emissions.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY
Wesfarmers
Sustainable Business Management
8/3/2019

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Background of Wesfarmers....................................................................................................2
Major causes of organization’s sustainability........................................................................2
Wesfarmers sustainability best practices...............................................................................3
Safety performance............................................................................................................3
Diversity.............................................................................................................................5
Climate Change Resilience................................................................................................6
Recycling and waste...........................................................................................................7
Sustainability performance of Wesfarmers............................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
Sustainability is with time becoming very essential for all the businesses across every
industry. As per the analysis, there are over 62% of the managers consider that sustainability
strategy is essential to remain competitive in the market and another 22% of the managers
believe it will be important in the yet to come period (Haanaes, 2019). Sustainability is
considered as the methodology of the business for establishing long-term value concerning
how a selected firm works in the economic, social, and ecological environment (Jovovic,
Draskovic and Delibasic, 2017). This report intends to discuss in brief about the sustainable
practices of Wesfarmers Company which is a conglomerate of Australia. The report is
comprised of different information related to sustainable practices such as the environmental
impact of the company's practices and social impact.
Background of Wesfarmers
Wesfarmers Limited is the well-organized conglomerate of the Australian market with
headquarters in Western Australia Perth. Majorly company operates its business in Australia
as well as New Zealand. The company is involved in the retailing, coal mining, and safety,
industrial, and fertilizer products. In relation to revenue, Wesfarmers is the leading
organization of Australia overtaking Woolworths and BHP. It is also known in the Australian
market for offering maximum employment to around 220000 employees (Wesfarmers,
2019a).
Major causes of organization’s sustainability
As discussed above Wesfarmers is involved in different types of businesses with a diversified
portfolio in order to target different segments of customers and attain competitive advantage
against key players in the market. However, some of the segments of the company are

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resulting in carbon emission which is being considered as the major cause of its
unsustainability (Sustainability Report, 2018). The stages that are involved in the life cycle of
Wes farmer's coal mining are:
In addition to this, the company also contributes to the indirect emission that is extracted
from the use of electricity for executing the operations.
Exploration
Mine-Site Design and Planning
Construction
Production
Closure and Reclamation

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Wesfarmers sustainability best practices
Safety performance
As discussed above Wesfarmers is known in the Australian market for offering maximum
employment to the people. This raises the requirement for the business to prioritize the
security of the team, suppliers, employees, as well as visitors. For monitoring the safety
performance, the company makes use of total recordable injury frequency rate TRIFR and
lost time injury frequency rate LTIFR. These measures represent the injuries that take place
in the company per million hours worked by the workforce and long-term suppliers
(Wesfarmers, 2019b). The company is regularly focusing on continuous enhancement in the
safety leadership strategies and enhancing the mental as well as physical health of the team
members. This practice of the company has a positive impact on reducing the injuries of the
employees as presented by the below images.

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Source [(Wesfarmers, 2018a)]
Safety Initiatives by different units of Wesfarmers
 Bunning introduced a cut-resistant glove for the employees as the port of its initiative
‘Protect Your Hands'.
 Coles concentrated on safety leadership and culture with encouraging employees to
participate in the safety training according to their role in the company.
 Kmart launched a new model of governance in order to grab the opportunities for
improvement and increase monitoring and supervision by the safety health checks
executed by the zone manager.
 Target's safety project is comprised of the endowment of training for the managers
under the Asian Safety Sourcing program and the Supply Chain Safety Management
Processes.
Diversity
Wesfarmers is focused on developing an inclusive culture within the organization that hitches
the power of thought diversity and experience in their teams. Diversity has resulted in
enabling the business to meet the demand of all the customers and stakeholders. Wesfarmers
is majorly focused on establishing gender equality and hiring Indigenous people all over its
workforce. Company has created and executed a policy of Diversity that is focused on
fostering at every Group level. For instance, Coles has established the guidelines for the
Gender Affirmation and Transition for ensuring a sympathetic environment of working for its
transgender as well as gender diverse employees. On the other side, the workforce of the
company is balanced with around 54% of female as team members (Wesfarmers, 2019c).

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Source [(Wesfarmers, 2018a)]
Climate Change Resilience
All the divisions of Wesfarmers are focused towards identifying ways to enhance energy
efficacy, decrease the level of emission from its operations as well as supply chain and
contribute to developing renewable as well as low-emissions technologies. In the year 2018,
the reduction in the emission of the company was determined by energy efficacy schemes at
Coles, Office works and Kmart. Regular utilization of the nitrous oxide abatement technology
implemented in the nitric acid pants of CSBP resulted in decreasing emissions of greenhouse
gas (Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 2014).

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Source [(Wesfarmers, 2018a)]
Recycling and waste
In the year 2018, the company reduced its waste to landfill by around 4% to over 154
thousand tonnes (Wesfarmers, 2018a). This is major because of the waste diversion projects
executed by Target, Coles, and Officeworks.

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Source [(Wesfarmers, 2018a)]
Recycling and waste initiatives
 Coles introduced the rollout of Plantic™ packaging for its broad variety of private
labeled meat products. The specified packaging is considered to be recyclable and is
designed with renewable as well as recycled materials.
 The electronic free recycling waste service of Officeworks enables consumers to
dispose of sensibly of the unwanted products which ensure that raw materials could
be again used.
Sustainability performance of Wesfarmers
According to the Wesfarmers Sustainability Report of 2018 highlights is performing in
different areas such as people, environment, society, etc.

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Diversity – There is 24% increasing the workforce of the company to 5228 which belong
from the Indigenous community (Wesfarmers, 2018b). This data reflects that the Group is
still the largest employer in Australia of Indigenous people.
Safety – According to the analysis, there is a reduction of around 15% in the overall
recordable injury frequency rate (Wesfarmers, 2018b)
Communities – All the divisions of the company introduce a community program that works
for supporting the strategy of the business and enables teams to contribute back efficiently to
the community.
Climate Change Resilience – There is 3% decrease in the carbon emission of Scope 1 and 2
and 6% decrease in the intensity of the emission, which is majorly due to energy efficiency at
different divisions of Wesfarmers that are Officeworks, Kmart, and Coles (Wesfarmers,
2018b).
From all the executed sustainable practices, the company has offered a satisfactory return to
the shareholders, looked after their workforce and offered them a safe and satisfying working
environment. In addition to this, the company has taken care of its patrons and fulfilled their
needs. Wesfarmers has also worked to reduce its negative impact on the environment by
ensuring its sustainable practices.
Conclusion
The above report has presented the insights of the sustainability and corporate social
responsibility practices adopted by Wesfarmers in the Australian market in order to
contribute towards improving the environment, society, and economy. From the analysis of
the report, it has been identified that Wesfarmers is majorly involved in executing different
safety programs for ensuring employees wellbeing. Besides this, different divisions of

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Wesfarmers such as Coles, Kart, Target, etc. are also working towards reducing the carbon
emission to safeguard the environment. In the conclusion, it could be said that in spite of
having the cause of its unsustainability that is carbon emission, Company has successfully
planned different suitability practices to reduce it with the corporation of all the divisions.

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References
Committee for Economic Development of Australia (2014) The Economics of Climate
Change [online]. Available from
https://www.ceda.com.au/CEDA/media/ResearchCatalogueDocuments/PDFs/22090-
Economics-of-Climate-Change.pdf[accessed 3 August 2019]
Haanaes, K. (2019) Why all businesses should embrace sustainability [online]. Available
from https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/why-all-businesses-should-embrace-
sustainability/ [accessed 3 August 2019]
Jovovic, R., Draskovic, M., and Delibasic, M. (2017) The concept of sustainable regional
development – institutional aspects, policies and prospects. Journal of International Studies,
10(1), 255-266.
Sustainability Report (2018a) Reporting carbon emissions [online]. Available from
https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/our-data/reporting-carbon-emissions/ [accessed 3
August 2019]
Wesfarmers (2018a) Wesfarmers Sustainability Report [online]. Available from
https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/media/2467/sustainability_website_2018.pdf
[accessed 3 August 2019]
Wesfarmers (2018b) Wesfarmers Sustainability Report Released [online]. Available from
https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/util/news-media/article/2018/09/16/2018-wesfarmers-
sustainability-report-released [accessed 3 August 2019]

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Wesfarmers (2019a) About Wesfarmers [online]. Available from
https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/our-report/about-wesfarmers/ [accessed 3 August
2019]
Wesfarmers (2019b) Safety performance [online]. Available from
https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/our-principles/people/safety/safety-performance/
[accessed 3 August 2019]
Wesfarmers (2019c) Diversity [online]. Available from https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/our-
impact/people/diversity/about-diversity [accessed 3 August 2019]