Sustainability of the Firms

This document compares and analyzes the sustainability reports of Tata Steel and Amazon. It discusses the companies' operations, criteria for comparison, and credibility of their reports. The document also provides insights into the companies' growth strategies and value creation efforts.

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY OF THE FIRMS
Sustainability of the firms
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
1.1. Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
Choose and give an overview of two corporate sustainability reports?......................................2
2.1. Discussion.................................................................................................................................2
What company does?...................................................................................................................2
Define the criteria on which you will compare your two chosen sustainability reports?............5
Completeness:..........................................................................................................................5
Credibility:...............................................................................................................................7
Critically compare your two chosen sustainability reports?........................................................8
3.1. Recommendations...................................................................................................................20
4.1. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................23

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1.1. Introduction
Tata Steel:
According to the official website (Tatasteel.com, 2019), it was formerly known as the
Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO). It is a multinational steel producing company
that operates within many parts of the world. It is a subsidiary of the Tata group. It has a number
of manufacturing unit located within the 26 different countries of the world. The different
country ranges from Australia, China, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand and, the
United Kingdom. It employs about a total number of 80,500 people. Besides, it is ranked as
486th within the era of the year 2014, as per the Fortune Global 500 ranking of the world's
biggest corporations.
Amazon:
According to the official website of (aboutamazon.com, 2019), It is a multinational
company that has office in several parts of the country. On the other hand the brand Amazon
operates on e-commerce platform which is a trendy business concept in the present era of the
year 2019. It is an American based multinational technology company that is based in Seattle,
Washington that focuses primarily upon the e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial
intelligence. It was in the era of July 5, 1994 that the brand came into existence, it was founded
by Jeff Bezos. In the beginning of this business it was a bookstore and then it began to transform
into an innovative store. It is one of the largest internet company as compared to revenue within
the world. It is the second largest employer within the region of the United – States.
2.1. Discussion
What company does?
Tata Steel:

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Tata Steel is addressed as one of the world's largest steel manufacturing company which
produces approximately 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MnTPA). This figures as on 31 March
2017. Speaking about the business operation of the company it is a diversified steel producer
with major operations carried out within the region of Europe and Asia. The company has
manufacturing units which are located within the 26 countries and a commercial presence in over
50 countries. Besides, it is the second largest steel producer within the region of Europe with a
crude steel production capacity of over 12.1 million tonnes per annum (Tatasteeleurope.com,
2019).
Amazon:
Its services ranges from households products, clothing’s, utilities, utensils, and electrical
appliances, and much more. In the previous era of the year 1994, it was an online book store.
Moreover, its services ranges from such as that of to sell video downloads/streaming, MP3
downloads/streaming, audiobook downloads/streaming, software, video-games, electronics,
apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewellery. It also owns a separate online book store known as
the APub. This unit was launched in the era of the year 2009. However, the brand publishes its e-
books through means of Amazon Kindle (aboutamazon.com, 2019).

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Define the criteria on which you will compare your two chosen sustainability reports?
Completeness:
Tata Steel- On the proper evaluation of the sustainability report it was observed that the
majority of the information and data was not accurately cited within the indicators of the EC11,
EN10, EN11, EN22, EN 35, HR 2, HR 14, and LA 7. However, there are some proportions of
data, but they fail to depict out information’s in fair nature (tatasteel.com, 2019).
The sustainability report in practical nature is only regarding the Global Reporting Initiatives
Guidelines of 2002, on the preparation of the Corporate Sustainability Report. Speaking about
the security of the company the internal control and management systems are designed and
framed as such on one of the best model, and the quality of ISO is also undertaken based upon
the quality and environment management system. In practical the established data collection,
collation, and interpretation processes provide the basis for credible reporting of performance.
Speaking in terms of the guidance and supervision it is provided by the Directors on the
Board, Dy. Managing Director (Steel) and Dy. Managing Director (Corporate Services) they are
the qualitative body that keeps the entire focus align in track with the formulated business plan.
This authority body is reported and made aware of the ongoing business activities regarding the
sustainability effort, and also how the business is addressing the concerns and expectations of the
stakeholders.
The management has, on the other hand, stated commitment to progressively ensure
uniformity in reporting entity, and period across all indicators in subsequent reports. This is
apparent from the consistent coverage of this report over the previous report, for most of the
indicators. Besides, the concerning brand Tata Steel has made use of and adopted several

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measures to encourage adoption of sustainability principles across its supply chain. These
include mandatory disclosure by suppliers, Supplier Transformation Process, Vendor Bank
Financing, Online Acknowledgement of Tata Code of Conduct, etc. (Guthrie et al., 2016).
Amazon- Amazon claims that they operate to minimize the carbon emissions. They make efforts
for the achievement of their vision, they aim at optimizing the transportation network, improving
product packaging in order to drive efficiency within the distribution of products, implementing
energy efficiency precautions within the operations, and making use of the renewable sources of
energy in order to effectively operate the concerning business unit. They put more of the efforts
by making joint partnership with that of the other industries with regard to partnerships in order
to express support for action on climate change and to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon
economy.
However, Amazon has clearly declared that they support and promote initiatives and
programs that effectively contribute towards the impact of the climatic change within our planet.
It was in the early era of the year 2015, that Amazon expressed their feelings and efforts by
supporting the visionary programme within the region of the Paris, the programme is addressed
as the Paris Climate negotiations. In the early era of the year 2016, we filed an Amicus brief in
concern with that of the Google, Microsoft, and Apple which detailed our support for policies
that support renewable energy (aboutamazon.com, 2019).
As of the year of December 2018, the concerning brand Amazon make use of the solar
energy systems on an about 43 fulfillment facility rooftops worldwide. This solar system has the
potential to generate about 70 megawatts (MW) of power. Amazon has setup an objective with
the vision to host solar energy systems at a minimum of 50 fulfillment network buildings by the

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year of 2020. However, it was in the year of 2016, and within the month of September that the
concerning brand Amazon announced Amazon Wind Farm Texas, a new 253-megawatt (MW)
wind farm in Scurry County named as Texas, it is believed that it has the potential to generate
about 1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy on an annually basis. AWS focuses on
energy efficiency & continuous innovation within the data centers. Moreover, the concerning
brand claims that within the long-term planning the firm will make use of the only 100%
renewable sources of energy for the sole purpose of the global infrastructure.
Credibility:
Tata Steel- Speaking in terms of the concerning firm, Integrated Annual Sustainability
Report represents the value creation story of Tata Steel firm among all the stakeholders.
Moreover, it discloses to Robeco SAM DJSI Corporate Sustainability Assessment. On the other
hand, it also outlays the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) disclosure for Climate Change and
Water. It makes use of the WorldSteel data collection exercise. It also undertakes the
communication of progress to UNGC within the ten principals of Sustainability. It depicts out
the environment compliance reports. Besides, it also initiates the Carbon Disclosure Project
(CDP). There are other statutory disclosures as per the companies act, 2013 and SEBI regulations
(Benn et al., 2018).
Amazon- In the previous year of 2018, the concerning brand Amazon claimed that it has
reach the halfway o their visionary aim. They supported their statement by bringing out that nine
active projects which are listed among the Amazon Web Services sustainability page, this set of
the Amazon Web Services sustainability page aims to deliver more than 2 million megawatt-
hours of electricity. This includes the wind farm where the top authority body CEO, Jeff Bezos

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carried out some of the champagne bottle smashing in the era of the early period of October
2017. However, within the concerning year it has recorded about 5 Gig-watts of corporate power
purchase agreements (PPAs) for solar and wind. On the other hand taking into consideration of
their report, the massive growth rate within its cloud platform business is estimated to be about
$18.2 billion in revenue for the time period of about nine months (aboutamazon.com, 2019).
However, technically speaking Amazon's goal was never restricted to time factor; it never
introduced a particular specific date when it would be using the only source of the renewable
sources of the energy. However, Amazon should understand that it is the time to rethink within
its capital investments in new data centers.
Focusing on the factor that the rival brands like that of the Microsoft and Google.
However, the renewable energy sourcing strategies has the potential to become a checklist item
for businesses looking for cloud service providers that can provide assurances that their data
centers aren’t powered by aging coal plants.
Critically compare your two chosen sustainability reports?
Tata Steel:
In terms of growth three aspects are considered they are as below,

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Figure: 3 drivers for growth
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
In terms of CSR and social responsibility towards the environment, the business firm is planning
to make use of the innovative raw-materials and equipment’s to carry out their business activities
to reduce the hazardous elements and gases into the society.

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Figure: value creation using services and solutions
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
For Tata, continuous de-commoditization of steel has been the cornerstone of Tata-Steel
India branding journey.

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The business firm claims that to sustain within its consumer choices and preference
segment, they aim to provide product offering such as steel at a lower cost within the whole
world using greater operational efficiencies and business excellence. To achieve the operational
excellence, they make use of a long value chain spreading across the mining, iron-making, steel
making, casting, rolling, finishing, and delivering finished steel products to the end potential
customers. However, this is some of the aspects that makes the concerning firm a complex
business. However, it also offers various opportunities for undertaking improvement within the
value chain (Kopnina et al., 2018).
The primary main area of focus areas is acquiring a major proportion of the superior steel
properties, higher efficiency in iron ore & coal beneficiation, lower carbon rate in iron making,
optimized product mix, reducing waste generation, energy efficient processes, and higher
material utilization. To boost and accelerate the projects concerning excellence across the value

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chain within the era of the financial year 2015, various programs are launched such as that of the
Shikhar25 programme. This programme aims to seek and boost the improvement projects across
the value chain and attain their objective that is achieving the benchmark level while building
institutional capability. A total savings of 3,400 crores was acquired in the financial year of 2017
as a result of all improvement initiatives.
Figure: Operational excellence
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017

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Figure: Financial capital
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
Figure: Manufactured capital
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017

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Figure: Intellectual capital
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
Figure: Human capital
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
Figure: Relational capital
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
Its visionary statement states that “We aspire to be the global steel industry benchmark for
‘Value Creation' and 'Corporate Citizenship”.

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Figure: Ownership structure
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017

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Figure: Key performance indicators
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
The firm, on the other hand, is undertaking measure to invest in new technology
implementation like that of Hisarna in the Netherlands for smelting reduction technology to
produce steel from lower grade raw-materials without the need for coke making or
agglomeration processes and which positively impacts the CO2 footprint.
Figure: Sustainability planning process
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017

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Figure: Drivers for growth
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
Amazon:
The division in the current era of the time launched an initiative known as the
Amazon Sustainability Data. The initiative aims to management of the confidential data and
information’s. The initiative is being introduced to help in the activity of organizing the vast pool
of data that defines our beloved universe. The broad idea and concept is to get the organizations,
scientists, and individuals to share metrics, forecasts, images and other information about oceans,
air quality and species. Besides the Famine Action Mechanism, as proposed by the region of
United-Nations, World Bank, and International Committee of the Red Cross is making use of
this specific repository to track and monitor factors that is assumed to be one of the major causes
for the food insecurity so that regions of concern can be identified proactively
(aboutamazon.com, 2019).

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Figure: Sustainability planning process
Source: Sustainability report 2017
Figure: Sustainability strategy

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Source: Sustainability report 2017
3.1. Recommendations
Tata Steel:
 The sales and the marketing team should focus on the most developed and rival market
within the international boundary to understand the dynamic changes that take place. This set
of dynamic changes can be either like the business undertakings or like the consumer’s
choices and preferences. The search for the innovation should be regarding the construction
and infrastructure, automotive, packaging and engineering.
 Much of the investment should be carried out in the field of marketing mix and service
offering to transform the internal supply chain for improving the customer service levels.
 The different teams work closely with that of the consumers to understand different needs
which would depict out the production, supply chains, and delivery activities.
 Conduct a research programme which will aim at the development of cutting-edge
manufacturing and product technology. It should aim at improving the sustainability of steel
products through their life cycles.
Amazon:
 The concerning firm should aim towards making use of the renewable sources of energy for
the manufacturing process. On the other hand, the brand should make sure that the waste that
is being generated in the process of the manufacturing commodity should be free from any
harmful bacteria because of the touch of the workers and that of the local unions.
 Besides, the firm should make several efforts for the recycling of the waste that is being
generated at the single phase of the business process.

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 It should understand the concern of the minority segment of the consumer, the problem that
they face regarding the packaging. Accordingly, various commodities and products should be
manufactured.
 The harmful wastes and the chemicals that are being generated should not be dumped
directly into the nearby river or within the land located nearby as this will create a mess
within the near future time. This mess will generate much of the disease to the nearby local
communities.
4.1. Conclusion
After having a proper analysis of the sustainability report of both the firm, it is found that
it is the sustainability report that provides the essential data and information’s regarding the
business undertakings. This set of data and information’s helps in the formulation of statistical
charts and graphs which helps in understanding the areas of the skill gaps that stays in the hand
of the concerning business firm. It helps in the formulation of the strategic plans and steps and
elimination of any future errors by addressing it within the present context of time. Sustainability
reporting within the possession of the proactive organisation that learns, adapts, and continuously
improves surely will gain a competitive advantage in dealing with the challenging environment
that businesses face. Sustainability report, on the other hand, allows the individual business firm
to identify business risks or hotspots that were previously un-noticed and did not come into the
eye of the business professionals. It acts as an alert for the management body and entices them to
undertake necessary measures to tackle and deal with the present concerning issues of the
business firm. A sustainability report is a medium of opportunities for business firms.

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