Analysis of 7-Eleven's Sustainable Enterprise Strategies

This report examines 7-Eleven as a sustainable enterprise, focusing on its socio-cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions. It provides an overview of 7-Eleven, discussing its mission, vision, and values. The report analyzes the company's sustainability dimensions, with a specific emphasis on t...Read More

RUNNING HEAD: Sustainable Enterprise 0
7-eleven
Sustainable Enterprise

Sustainable Enterprise 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
7-Eleven- The Overview............................................................................................................3
Sustainability dimensions...........................................................................................................4
Environmental dimension as specific sustainable area..............................................................6
List and assessment of Indicators for monitoring......................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
A sustainable enterprise is a business which undertakes process that puts negative impact on
the society, economy, community and environment. A sustainable enterprise operates a
business so that it grows and earns a profit. It identifies the economic and social aspirations
inside and outside the organisation on which the enterprise depends. A well planned
sustainability program helps businesses to increase profits by generating savings, driving
growth and minimising risks. Creation of sustainable enterprise comprises renovating entire
value chain from material supply to product design, operations, sales and marketing to the
end of life. It also helps companies to recognise opportunities, risks and set priorities for the
implementation of programmes.
There are sustainable strategies to improve profits and reduce impact on environment. The
monitoring systems are made for measuring and monitoring sustainability of business at
regular intervals to bring efficiency in the operations. A proper monitoring system reduces
the risks associated with business (Valackienė & Micevičienė, 2015). It facilitates decision
making at appropriate time. The monitoring system also enhances the growth of organisation.
The monitoring system provides various measures to reduce loss incurred by company. The
monitoring system need to be updated from time to time to possess special skills. The
consideration of monitoring system represents dimensions of an organisation like socio-
cultural, economic and environmental. These dimensions can be measured with the use of
effective indicators. The sustainability indicators create understanding towards the path
adopted by business and the difference between the current and predicted position (Abdul-
Ali, Davis, Twomey & Knowles, 2017). The indicators are helpful in alerting to the business
before occurrence of any worst circumstances. The sustainability indicators point out the
weak points within economy, society and environment. There are two types of indicators,
traditional and modern. Quality of water and stakeholder profits comes under the traditional
indicators. The modern indicators consist of social, economic and environmental. These three
indicators are interconnected.
The indicators are important in resolving the issues faced by an organisation. The sustainable
enterprise also enables to gain knowledge and provide guidelines to solve present problems
of company. It also allows company to concentrate on the key issues. The effective indicators
functions to prove information about the system. The information provided by the effective

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indicators is reliable. It can be understood by a person who does not have any knowledge in
this field (Edgeman & Eskildsen, 2014).
In this report the focus is given on the sustainable enterprise dimensions 7-Eleven. These
dimensions are socio-cultural, economic and environmental. Further the brief overview of 7-
Eleven is given. The sustainability indicators applicable to the enterprise are discussed. It also
enables the list of indicators which can be used by the enterprise to monitor environmental
dimension.
7-Eleven- The Overview
7-Eleven is a convenience store. It is Australia’s first prefernce in convenience. 7-Eleven is a
private company and possessed by Withers and Barlow family. The first store was opened in
1977 in Australia. The company operates more than 670 stores. 7- Eleven has stores in
Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia.
It serves an average 7 customers per second and more than 228 million transactions are
conducted in a year. The company generate sales of almost $4 billion. The company is
specialised in convenience, retail, food and fuel. It has authorisation to run stores in Australia
from the US based 7-Eleven. It is the mission of company to be top in Australia at meeting
the changing need of customers (Steen, 2015). The vision is to uphold first position in choice
of customer’s preference and market growth. It can be made possible through sustainable
growth and by practicing highest level of ethical standards. The values of company defines
it’s spirit and how it conducts business activities with key stakeholders. The values of
company are to deal with fairness and reliability, attempt for excellence, bold in endeavour
and place customers at heart. The decisions taken at company are tested against the principles
to ensure the best choices are made all the time. The guiding principles are better for
customers, simpler for stores, quicker for everyone and deliver bang for buck. Whatever
company do for the product development and store team training is always ‘better for
customers’ (Chavarria-Barrientos, Batres, Perez, Wright & Molina, 2016). The company
believes on delivering a great customer experience. It takes care of everything and does
‘simple for stores’. The company focuses on finding new things to make operations efficient
and quicker for everyone. The ‘bang for Buck’ keeps the company focused on the operations
efficiently.

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The company introduced Slurpee, Big gulp, Big Bite and other proprietary products. 7-
Eleven redefines technology the way to shop. The company also supports loyalty programs to
cater new and digital savvy generation. 7-Eleven has also invested in the software and
business processes to revolutionize the operations of stores. It implements new equipment
and technology. The company is comprised of franchised and corporate stores. The majority
of it’s stores are franchised and corporate stores are important part of company. The
franchises work hard to achieve goals and deliver convenience to customers (Vasauskaite &
Gill, 2015). The selection process is planned to ensure every franchise that joins 7-Eleven has
focus on customers, leadership and communication skills, willingness to learn and adopt and
commitment to follow system and process of company (Edgeman, Neely & Eskildsen, 2016).
Over the forty years of operation, the company has become one of the largest retailers in
Australia. It has approximately 33.5% market share in Australia. The company is the largest
independent fuel retailer. The company is engaged in delivering the best possible range and
value to customers. The company makes sure that the customers, store manager, franchisees,
team members. Shareholders and suppliers are fairly rewarded (Anbarasan, 2018). 7-Eleven
is growing range of exclusive products, brands and services. In addition to the proprietary
brands, the company have a market leading supply chain. The supply chain allows having
fresh food delivered seven days a week. The company always look for new and innovative
products and services to provide more convenience to customers. It includes ATMs in every
store, public transport tickets, money transfer services, top ups and car wash services in the
selected stores. 7-Eleven makes it’s stores more convenient with well-planned layouts, fast
sale systems, selected locations, easy parking and by opening stores for 24 hours, whole
week, 365 days a year.
Sustainability dimensions
The sustainability dimensions capture the key areas of triple bottom line (people, planet and
profit). These sustainability dimensions are socio-cultural, economic and environmental. The
importance of sustainability is depicted by the sustainable dimensions. It can be defined by
impact of activities on the entire world.
The sociocultural dimension of sustainability involves the social and cultural aspects. It is
basically the ability of a company to assure welfare of society through education, security and
health by distributing it equally in all the social class. The socio cultural dimension includes

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the factors such as safety, satisfaction and heath of employees. It also includes the impact on
local community and customers. The socio impact is easy to measure than measurement of
environmental and economic impacts (Hejduk, 2016).
The social dimensions are applicable to 7-Eleven which includes generation of positive
outcome for the community, society, staff and customers. For instance, the company has
initiated several employment opportunities to the regional communities the jobs will not be
shifted to another country (Axelrod, Harmon, Russell & Wirtenberg, 2017)). The company
fulfils it’s obligation by updating products and services and adding more convenience to the
life of customers. The social issues are also considered by the 7-Eleven by undertaking
various measures and by sustaining communities around the globe (Sakas & Kutsikos, 2014).
The company has also partnered with Conversation International which is a non-profit
organisation to build a healthier and prosperous planet.
The economic dimension of sustainability connects sustainable development and
sustainability with the renewable energy systems. The company uses clean energy and
separates waste material. Basically it encounters the need of present without conceding the
ability of future generations to accomplish their needs. The stakeholders are company’s
customers since the company is for the convenience of customers (Salcedo-Perez &
Contreras, 2018). The company invests money for the updated products and services.
The economic dimensions of sustainability are applicable to 7-Eleven. It creates jobs and
employment multiplier effect. The economic dimensions impacts on company by creating
direct jobs and indirect and induced employment. It has resulted in increasing employment
rate of Australia (Weichhart, Molina, Chen,Whitman & Vernadat, 2016). 7-Eleven considers
it’s stakeholders as owners of bank and the customers are given the highest priority by
providing the best products at competitive prices. The company focuses on making life easier
of customers. The company works on a customer owned model which works for the benefit
of customers with respect to convenience (Lipsky, Friend, Abdul-Ali & Russell, 2017). The
company takes every possible step to influence customers and makes available the products
desired by them. 7-Eleven fulfils the responsibility towards environment which is ethical,
responsible and beneficial.
The environmental dimension of sustainability is required to fulfil requirements of present
generation in such a way that the need of future generations is not compromised. It focuses
on the impact of activities conducted on the environment (Sindakis, 2017). The environment

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dimensions of sustainability applicable to the company comprise protection of environment
and creation of healthier planet. It creates healthier planet by using progressive approach
which builds a strong and healthy planet.
The company is devoted to protect and deliver goods proficiently with the least
environmental bearing. It reduces the wastage and litter generated by packaging through the
waste hierarchy that is avoided, re-use, recycle, recover, contain and dispose. 7-Eleven
minimises adverse impact of packaging on humans and environment (Chofreh, Goni, Ismail,
Shaharoun, Klemeš & Zeinalnezhad, 2016). The company also ensures that the effective and
validated practices are put in place to address ecological concerns. The product development
and process is reviewed for packaging and the packed products. The company follows the
Sustainable Packaging Guidelines (SPG) to make sure that the product packaging is suitable
for resource efficient, low impact materials and recyclable at the end of life. The company is
equally committed to resource conversation and product stewardship (Cole, 2017).
The management of company is committed to reduce impact of operations on environment
and support packaging covenant’s performance goals and framework. The company has also
undertaken policies to improve design, recyclability and packaging content to improve
reprocessing systems for the post-consumer packaging. It should be observed that the
company is committed to work together with it’s product supplies to achieve goals and
targets (Upward & Jones, 2016).
There is a value based system which forms the business activities of 7-Eleven Australia. Such
system is helpful in fixing prime focus on economic, social and environmental. The company
undertakes a lot of initiatives to facilitate building capacity by conducting social programs
(Shirazi, 2018). The programs such as community investment program aims at putting
positive impact of business to the community. It can be made possible by prioritizing areas
which are concerned with the operations of company.
Environmental dimension as specific sustainable area
The specific sustainability dimension chosen for 7-Eleven is environmental dimension. The
reason behind selecting environmental dimension is that it considers itself as a customer
owned convenience store. It provides service for customers and makes available the
outstanding products and services at competitive prices. It creates the mutual prosperity
(Izvercian, Radu, Ivascu & Ardelean, 2014).

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List and assessment of Indicators for monitoring
The company aims to create positive environmental conditions for the customers, community
and shareholders. The environmental indicators are used to see whether a business meets it’s
environmental objectives. It is a diagnostic tool which is helpful to detect trends in the
environment. For instance the air quality and water quality can be used to estimate health of
consumers (Price, 2016). The environmental dimension can be monitored by a list of
indicators. The indicators include:
Economic environment:
The economic environment has a special implication which can be understood by the
following three points:
Economic system: 7-Eleven is required to know the prevailing economic system of Australia
in order to know the economic environment. It impacts the freedom or openness of business.
It is mainly of 3 types, socialistic economic system, capitalistic economic system and mixed
economic system. In the socialistic economic system, the company is focussed and regulated
by the government. The individuals or companies do not have liberty to carry on business
activities (Mauricio-Moreno, Miranda, Chavarría, Ramírez-Cadena & Molina, 2015). The
government retains the means of production. The company enjoys the benefits of centrally
planned economy. This system is less popular in Australia. In the capitalistic economic
system, the ownership of a business is given importance. It is also identified as free market
economy. All means of production like labour, land, capital etc. are maintained by the private
enterprises. The market force decides all the considerations like, what to produce, how to
produce and by whom it is going to be produced. There is freedom of consumption,
production, savings and investment. It is prevailing in countries like Australia. In the mixed
economic system, a business is owned by both individual and government. It is run by private
persons in the private sector, but activities are regulated by the government (Belz & Binder,
2017).
Economic policies:
The economic policies influence the business and are arranged to direct economic activities.
The activities include policies like, export-import, employment, taxation, agriculture, foreign
investment and more (Pickett, Corb, Matthews, Sundquist & Berg, 2015).
Economic conditions:

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The economic conditions are linked with possibilities of economic development of country.
The government has initiated various programmes for the welfare of people on the basis of
economic conditions. These programs influence business by advertisement policies,
discovery of markets, fetching new products in market and innovative means of production
(Hillary, 2016). There are several examples of economic conditions like flow of foreign
capital, level of economic development, supply of natural resources, rate of interest, foreign
trade and industrial development. There are some factors which clear out the impact of
economic environment on the company like the variation in economic environment results in
creation of mutual funds, leasing and venture capital business (Larner, Cheverst, MacDonald,
Hoile & Soutar, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that sustainability have a vital role to play in the
operations of an organisation. This report focuses on the three dimensions of sustainability
such as socio-cultural, economic and environmental dimension in the context of 7-Eleven
Australia. Further, the environmental dimension has been discussed in the report. It specifies
the suitable area and develops the list of indicators to monitor the dimension. The indicator
includes economic environment, policies and conditions. Some challenges are being faced in
the monitoring of these indicators.

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