Analysis and Evaluation of Sustainability Reporting of AGL Limited and Origin Energy

Running head: MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING
Managerial Accounting
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1MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Sustainability Strategy, Objective or Principles..............................................................................2
Reasons for Adopting Sustainability Approach..............................................................................3
Effectiveness of Reporting..............................................................................................................4
Areas of Strong Sustainability Performance....................................................................................5
Areas of Weak Sustainability Performance.....................................................................................7
Utilisation of Established Reporting Framework............................................................................8
External Assurance, Awards, Sustainability Ratings and Other Recognition.................................8
Layout, Appearance, Readability and Report Length.....................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
In today’s business world, the aspects of sustainability reporting have become equally
important like the aspects of financial reporting. The process of sustainability reporting makes
the companies able in taking into account different kinds of sustainability issues as results of
their business operations (Subramaniam et al. 2015). A sustainability report is considered as a
specific report that the companies publish about their economic, social and environmental impact
due to their everyday business activities. It needs to be mentioned that the sustainability
reporting assists the companies in measuring, understanding and communicating their
performance in the areas of economic, environmental, social and governance so that the link
between sustainability strategy and sustainability commitment can be established (Al-Shaer and
Zaman 2016). In the presence of all of these reasons, it is needed for the business organisations
irrespective of type, size and industry need to publish their sustainability report with the aim to
provide information about their sustainability performance to the required stakeholders. The
main aim of this report is the analysis as well as evaluation of different dimensions of
sustainability reporting of two of the Australian companies. The names of these companies are
AGL Limited and Origin Energy.
Sustainability Strategy, Objective or Principles
AGL: The main objective of AGL related to sustainability reporting is to create a sustainable
energy future for Australia with the assistance of the actions for developing a carbon-constrained
world so that they can become a more customer-centric business organisation. For this reason,
AGL has adopted and implemented the lower-emission technology. In addition, the company has
adopted the strategy to close their coal plants so that they can put their attention towards

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investigating the sources of renewable energy. In addition, another major objective of AGL for
sustainability reporting is to provide the sustainability information to the stakeholders (Davis et
al. 2015).
Origin Energy: The main objective of the sustainability approach of Origin Energy is the
disclosure of the performance of the company on the material environmental as well as social
issues. For this reason, Origin Energy has aligned the identified sustainability risks with the
operating as well as financial strategies in order to achieve the sustainability objectives. At the
same time, the company has adopted the strategy to engage with the stakeholders for the
identification of the sustainability issues important to them (De Villiers, Rinaldi and Unerman
2014). Lastly, it needs to be mentioned that another major objective of Origin Energy related to
sustainability approach is the disclosure of information about the performance in the key
sustainability areas.
Reasons for Adopting Sustainability Approach
Every company has some specific set of reasons for the adoption of sustainability
approach; and this is not any exception of this concept, in case of both Origin Energy and AGL.
The following discussion shows the reasons of both of these companies for the adoption of
sustainability approach.
AGL: The main reason for the adoption of sustainability approach by AGL is the desire of the
company for disclosing the crucial information of the sustainability initiative for their major
sustainability material issues. The major material areas in sustainability considered by the
company are public policy engagement, community engagement, workplace health are safety,
climate change profitability, evolution of the energy market, ethical conduct, renewable energy,