Sustainability Assessment Report for Timberwell Construction

This report evaluates the economic, social and environmental performance of Timberwell Construction using the global sustainability reporting standards. It includes recommendations to improve sustainability performance and align with GRI standards.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT REPORT
Sustainability assessment report
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................2
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................2
Economic sustainability:............................................................................................................2
Environmental sustainability:.....................................................................................................4
Social sustainability:..................................................................................................................6
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................8
References list:...........................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
The current paper elucidates the assessment of the economic, social and
environmental performance of Timberwell Construction by measuring the impact of the
operations. Evaluation of the performance of organization is done by examination of the
global sustainability reporting standards that should align with the sustainability reporting of
organization. The best practice at the global level is to create alignment between the
disclosure of the environmental, social and economic performance and global reporting
initiative (GRI) standard. Uses with the help of sustainability report are able to assess the
contribution of organization towards sustainability development using the information
presented in the report. In the following report, the standards of GRI have been implemented
for evaluating the Timberwell Construction operations. Timberwell Construction is an
organization that is engaged in building residents and have experienced high employee
turnover in the recent years (Bakardjieva 2016). The given case study has been evaluated and
analyzed to identify any existing loopholes and accordingly the measures have been
recommended to improve the sustainability performance.
Discussion:
Economic sustainability:
Disclosure 201-2: Financial implications and other risk and opportunities resulting
from climatic change:
The management of issues pertaining to disclosure of sustainability issues is done by
the application of GRI standards in their sustainability report preparation. The reporting
entities are required to inform about the risk and opportunities description and recognition of

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their associated impact regarding the disclosure concerning economic performance.
Methodologies used for risk management along with cost associated and the implications of
the financials should be disclosed. There should be increased regulatory risks and
opportunities disclosure along with the cost and the financial implications. Several factors
such as increase cost and competitiveness influences the regulatory risks and increased
opportunities of energy based organizations (Tschopp and Nastanski 2014).
From the given case study that Timberwell construction is facing increasing warning
effects due to increased risk of bushfires due to its close association with Stanwell district and
change in climatic conditions. Rezoning of district specific areas has been done by
Timberwell by altering the plan relating to local environment and all such information should
be disclosed by organization in their sustainability report (Sierra 2017). In addition to this, it
is required by organization to make a disclosure about the risk management method of
bushfire safety.
Disclosure 205-3: Actions taken and confirmed incidents of corruptions:
Reporting entities as per this disclosure is required to inform about the dismissed
corruption incidents and total number of such incidents that is disciplined. In addition to this,
the outcome any public legal case and ongoing case by the employees against the corruption
should be reported. Stakeholders should be informed about any cases of public prosecutions,
incidents response and investigations (Kerr et al. 2018).
Case study depicts that a public corruption scandal was witnessed by Timberwell
involving five employees and two business partners for which the complaint was filed by the
state corruption commission. For seeking the council approval of company’s development

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application, bribe was offered to the project officers. Sustainability report should incorporate
the information such as contract termination with business partners and corruption incidents.
Disclosure 206-1: Legal actions for antitrust, anti competitive behavior and monopoly
practices:
Organization should make disclosure about completed and pending legal actions and
violations of monopoly and antitrust legislations. There should also be reporting about any
act that threatens the competitiveness and behaviors and act that is anti competitive along
with any other activities that restricts the entry of new entrants (Horner and Wilmshurst
2016).
Several complaints have been received regarding then operations of Timberwell and
allegations have been put regarding the misuse of market power, involvement in the exclusive
dealings and getting involved in the anti competitive activities. Timberwell has asked the
local supplier and contractors to withdraw their business by removing the competitive threat
from the suppliers, local contractors and other business so they do not face competitive threat.
Therefore, it is required by Timberwell to make reporting of their activities leading to
deterring and prevention of new entrant in the market. In addition to this, there should be
reporting of any legal proceeding on the organization.
Environmental sustainability:
Disclosure 301-2: Consumption of energy within the organization
The energy consumption should be informed to the stakeholders by the reporting
entity as per the disclosure requirement. Reporting of the methodologies, standard and the
assumptions made in computing the consumption of energy by organization should be done.
Energy consumption by way of renewable and non renewable sources should be properly

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segregated. Any double counting on consumption of energy should be avoided by adopting
appropriate measures (Parsa et al. 2018). In addition to this, conversion factors should be
employed for disclosing data by using both the factors that is local conversion and generic
factors. The total amount of energy consumption should be disclosed by the organization.
From the information in the case study, it is seen that Timberwell Construction has disclosed
the table of total consumption of energy which should be reported in the sustainability report.
In addition to this, the calculation tool used for computing the total consumption of energy
should also be incorporated in such report (Lee 2018). This would help the stakeholders to
evaluate that whether the organization is energy efficient or not based on the total amount of
energy that is consumed.
Disclosure 304-2: Significant impacts of product, activities and services on
biodiversity
Sustainability report of organization as per this disclosure should make reporting of
how the biodiversity is impacted by their operations. Such assessment can be done by
referring to the factors such as sites construction, habitat conversion, species reduction,
pollution and ecological process alterations. The direct and indirect impact of the operations
of activities on biodiversity can be mitigated by designing and implementation appropriate
organizational strategy so that the process of making decision by management is effective.
The information given in the case study about Timberwell depicts that the activities of
construction site contains some crucial flora and fauna attributes for which it has made them
to review the management plan of vegetation. The sustainability report of the Timberwell
Construction should contain such information report about the same so that a concrete view is
provided about the environmental performance to stakeholders. Site construction has also led

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to the development of frog of the population that is rare wallum sedge. Therefore, efforts
should be taken by the organization for the protection of such rare species. Information in the
case study depicts that proper strategy has been developed by Timberwell and all such
information should be reported in their published sustainability report.
Disclosure 307-1: Non compliance with environmental laws and regulations
This requires entities to pay considerable amount of fines for non compliance with
the environmental regulations and rules. Such events should be adequate disclosed in the
sustainability report along with any transactions that are non monetary. However, a note
mentioning that the organization is abiding with the rules and regulations and complies with
such environmental regulations would suffice for stakeholders. There should be adequate
disclosure about the amount of fines imposed and total number of cases that is in the dispute
resolution mechanisms (Sierra 2017). Nevertheless, in events of failure of complying with the
regulations and rules of environment, organization should take into account judicial and
administrative sanctions.
The operations of Timberwell would lead to inconsistency between residential
development and survival of frogs and it has been found that there would be irreversible
conversion of habitat. For development of site in Stanwell district, it is required by
Timberwell to comply with the environmental regulations and therefore, the environmental
agreement disclosure should be made.
Social sustainability:
Disclosure 401-1 Employee turnover and hiring of new employee
This particular disclosure requires to report about the employee turnover rate and any
new recruitment made by company. In addition to this, disclosure should also be made about

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the rate of turnover of employees based on their gender, caste, region and race. In addition to
this, the rate of joining and total number of employees in the organization based on factors of
race, caste and region should be reported for reflecting the social performance of
organization. Strategy development should optimally utilize the available talent and labor
which would draw talented and qualified employees (Fernandez et al. 2014).
From the information given in the case study, it can be seen that due to increase in
attrition rate, there has been increasing rate of joining of employees. Timberwell has hired
twelve new employees and the existing seven employees have left. Therefore, in the current
scenario, employees should be retained by the implementation of monthly roster and increase
in payment rate (Berinde and Andreescu 2015). All such information should be adequately
disclosed in the sustainability report along with the dissatisfaction and uncertainty of
employees.
Disclosure 406-1 Incidents of discrimination and taking corrective actions
This disclosure requires that any activities taken by organization that create
discrimination among employees should be reported. Some of the other factors that need to
be taken into account involve incident status, total number of incidents leading to
discrimination and actions that are taken by organization. Furthermore, disclosure of
corrective actions and incidents are done by referring to the implementation of remediation
plan and process of internal review management (Wagner and Seele 2017).
It is revealed from the information given in the case study that one of the employees
of Timberwell was discriminated due to his age against which he filed a case of workplace
harassment. It was alleged by him that he was discrimination because of his age since
existing workers were in the age group of 30-50. Timberwell has implemented has imparted

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training to its employees and updated the anti discrimination policies. However, organization
compensated his employee for such humiliation. Therefore, all such incidents to be reported
in the sustainability report.
Disclosure 413-1 Operations with local community engagement, assessments of impacts
and development programs
This particular disclosure required the sustainability report to incorporate the
measures taken by organization such as engaging with local communities, development of
program and assessing their operational impacts. There should be disclosure of evaluation
process for assessing the impact and the participation process. In addition to this, reporting
should be done about any consultation with the committees, process of including vulnerable
group and grievance process (Parsa et al. 2018).
It can be seen from the information presented in the case study that external review of
management plan and rehabilitation programs has been conducted alongside the rehabilitation
plan implementation. Stakeholders should be informed about such efforts and measures by
way of presentation of such information in their published sustainability report (Gallego et al.
2014). Hence, it is required as per the guideline of the reporting standard to make an adequate
disclosure of such incidents and measures in the sustainability report so that there is
transparency of information provided to the stakeholders.
Conclusion:
From the analysis of the information provided in the given case study about
Timberwell Construction, it can be said that although the organization accounts for proper
actions and measures when dealing with their sustainable performance, they should also
account reporting of sustainability matters by complying with the global reporting guidelines
of sustainability. The current report contains some loopholes that should be addressed by the

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adoption of the sustainability standards so that it depicts transparent information of social,
economic and environmental performance of company. furthermore, there should be adequate
segregation of the economic, social and environmental performance so that the sustainability
reporting is enhanced and proper information is provide dto the stakeholders.

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