Business, Society & Planet: Comparative Sustainability Report Analysis

This report provides a comparative analysis of the sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports of Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) and Coles Supermarkets Australia. The report begins with executive summaries and introductions to both companies, highlighting their industries and CEOs. It analyzes the presentation of social reports, critically evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and identifies major issues covered, such as CBA's focus on financial results and Coles' waste reduction efforts. The report also examines key sustainable development goals, sustainability phases, and company values, assessing how well these values align with their approaches to social responsibility. CBA is identified as a 'sustaining organization,' while Coles is considered 'strategically sustainable.' Recommendations are provided for both companies to enhance their sustainability practices. The report concludes with a discussion of both companies' alignment of their company values with their approach to social responsibility, and suggests areas for improvement.

Running Head: BUSINESS SOCIETY & PLANET
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Institutional Affiliation

BUSINESS SOCIETY & PLANET 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sustainability derives from social responsibility, where a company uses its position and
power to make a difference to improve. The two companies chosen for this report are
Commonwealth Bank Australia and Coles Supermarket Australia. Both companies are in the
third wave of sustainability and have a prominent social position, they lack some ways that
can increase the efficiency of the company if they focus more on them. The report has
summarized some recommendations for both companies to inculcate practices that will make
them stronger in terms of sustainability.
CONTENT
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S
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................4
Commonwealth Bank Australia.....................................................................................................4
Coles Supermarkets Australia........................................................................................................4
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL REPORTS.....................................................................4
Commonwealth Bank:...................................................................................................................4
Coles Supermarket:........................................................................................................................5
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL REPORTS.................................................................................5
Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................................................5
Coles Supermarket.........................................................................................................................5
MAJOR ISSUES COVERED IN THE SOCIAL REPORTS................................................................6
Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................................................6
Coles Supermarket.........................................................................................................................6
KEY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS...............................................................................6
Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................................................7
Coles Supermarket.........................................................................................................................7
SUSTAINABILITY PHASE.................................................................................................................7
Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................................................7
Coles Supermarket.........................................................................................................................8
COMPANY VALUES..........................................................................................................................8
Commonwealth Bank....................................................................................................................8
Coles Supermarket.........................................................................................................................8
COMPANY VALUES ALIGNMENT WITH APPROACH TO SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY...........9
Commonwealth Bank:...................................................................................................................9
Coles Supermarket:........................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Sustainability branches from social responsibility where a firm uses its position and
power to make a difference for the better (Sloan, Klingenberg & Rider, 2013). It seeks to
meet the requirements of the current generation and includes the issues of corporate social
responsibility. The two companies chosen for this research paper are as follows;
Commonwealth Bank Australia: - Commonwealth is a banking chain in Australia
and belongs to the financial industry. It has businesses spread across New Zealand, UK, The
United States and Asia. Matt Comyn is the CEO and managing director of this chain.
Coles Supermarkets Australia: - Coles is an Australian retail, supermarket and
consumer services chain with Headquarters in Melbourne, Australia. George Coles founded
the business in 1914, and its currently lead by CEO Steve Cain.
Corporate sustainability has been branched into two sectors, based on the amount of
investment namely high sustainability companies and low sustainability companies. The
more sustainable a company, the more positive responses and standing it can get in the
industry. Marketers use this as a base on which they can help their companies achieve new
milestones. From the study of public reports by these companies, it can easily be stated that
both of them fit into the category of high sustainability ones due to their active involvement
in CSR activities (Ioannou & Serafeim, 2017).
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PRESENTATION ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL REPORTS
Commonwealth Bank: - CBA represents their policies and values regarding CSR and
sustainability by providing detailed aspects of every field be it the environmental sector, the
social sector or the educational and industrial sector. Their website provides CSR goals, plans
and the current rate of target achievement for the general public to witness and share through
which they portray their social standing (Eccles, Ioannou & Serafeim, 2014). They also show
the specifics which include a potential number of investments and the time and effort it
would take to reach those goals.
Coles Supermarket: - Coles displays all the sustainability and CSR activities through its
articles and blog posts which contain the company’s goals for the future and how they are
working to achieve them. The style of the company is catchy as it shows an array of pictures
of the CSR activities that the company does. Short phrases and details in numbers highlight
what the viewers want to see in a summarised pattern of writing.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL REPORTS
Commonwealth Bank: -When critically analysed, the reports of CBA show off the
following strengths and weaknesses;
1. Informative website data which has all the recurring and updated details of the
activities, goals and long term plans along with an understanding of how the
company promises to deal with them.
2. The website content can be overwhelming at times as summarised information is
not available. Not every common man is capable of understanding analytical
reports. For this, report summaries should also be made available, and pictures are
added to make it more interesting to the common eye.
Coles Supermarket: - When critically analysed, the reports of Coles portrayed the following
strengths and weaknesses respectively;
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1. Their strength lies in making a direct approach towards their audience by providing
summarised content that is described in an easy to understand language. The analytics
are also shown from the reports but in a manner that makes it interesting to consume
with the eye. Pictures of different projects, activities and campaigns provide an insight
into the company's policies and help them connect with the people (Moldan,
Janoušková & Hák, 2012).
2. The drawbacks to their reports are scarcely available documents that contain the
extended versions of the data displayed in blogs and articles of the company as only
limited information is provided in the summarised content for articles.
MAJOR ISSUES COVERED IN THE SOCIAL REPORTS
Commonwealth Bank: - It was labelled as the most sustainable brand in Australia in 2018.
Following are the main points that show where their focus lies regarding sustainability;
1. Keeping promises when it comes to giving financial results.
2. CBA supports major technology advancements and partners with a variety of
universities to host such forums.
3. Plan in action to save $15 Billion by 2025 for financing low carbon projects.
4. Placement of Solar panels in all of CBA’s branches.
5. Higher rate of women representatives in the firm.
6. Doing business with only those organisations that take environmental sustainability
seriously.
7. Continuous reduction of their own emissions of materials that may become a cause
for pollution.
8. Working to embed an approach to responsible lending in all types of businesses.
Coles Supermarket: - They base their research and development in the following eight basic
commitments;
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1. 90% of waste diversion from the landfills.
2. Reduction of food waste in the Coles Supermarket.
3. Donation of unsold edible food from Coles Supermarket.
4. Providing 100 million meals to Australians in need.
5. Making all Coles brand packaging recyclable by 2020.
6. Notable reduction of excess packaging.
7. Providing in-store soft plastic recycling options to customers and employees.
8. Introducing new labelling to promote recycling.
KEY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
The key sustainability goals can be defined through a series of sustainability
principles that are classified as Technology principles, governance principles, shareholder
principles, industry principles and society principles. Sustainability transitions portray how a
company or business uses their resources to convert investments into assets for the society
and environment in the long run. (Markard, Raven & Truffer, 2012; Schaltegger, Lüdeke-
Freund & Hansen, 2012)
Commonwealth Bank: - The key sustainable development goals for CBA are energy
efficiency, less environmental pollution through their organisational ventures along with
responsible lending and investing. CBA believes that environmental pollution and climate
changes are one of the major setbacks of modern advancements, hence their focus on solar-
generated electricity, contribution to climate change saving funds and promises of dealing
only with businesses that take sustainability seriously (Lang et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2015).
They have also launched a variety of campaigns for the sole purpose of creating awareness
regarding environmental pollution and how people and businesses can contribute towards
healthier surroundings.
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Coles Supermarket: - The key sustainable development goals for Coles are waste reduction
and recycling of products. As a chain belonging to the retail industry, Coles is aware that
modern FMCG companies and brands have not only increased the production of quality food
but also the amount of waste that contributes to pollution. It is evident through their research
that they plan to make a change in the retail industry through a reduction in food and
packaging wastage. Their main targets are bringing about a trend where retailers take
responsibility for their own waste and promote recycling to ensure the issue of landfills is
catered properly.
SUSTAINABILITY PHASE
A company that works on sustainability can choose to be a part of sustainability at
any phase. It depends upon the type and time of social and environmental issues that the
company wishes to highlight and tackle. (Dunphy & Benn, 2013). The sustainability phase
can be located and measured through a scale that comprises of 3 waves that are further
divided into six levels as follows;
1. Rejection
2. Non-Responsiveness
3. Compliance and risk reduction
4. Efficiency
5. Strategic sustainability
6. The sustaining organisation
Commonwealth Bank: - CBA can be classified as the company being in the sixth phase of
sustainability which is the sustaining organisation. The reason for this classification is that the
company has managed to achieve and maintain its values and policies when it comes to
environmental, climatic, social, industrial and educational sustainability prospects. Further
proof is the fact that it was also named as the most sustainable company of Australia in 2018
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because it stayed true to its vision and promises regarding CSR and sustainability (Andrew,
Wickham, O'Donohue & Danzinger, 2012).
Coles Supermarket: - Coles is still at a stage where it needs to implement many more ideas
and practices that make it a sustainable company better than the others. It can be classified as
the third wave’s phase strategically sustainable. It is currently working on how to make itself
a better sustainable company by bringing about innovation in terms of recycling, reducing
waste and packaging and by transferring waste accumulated at the landfills (Dahl, 2012;
Singh, Murty, Gupta & Dikshit, 2012). Coles has clear a definition and vision of what it
wants to achieve and is on the train of progress to make it happen through innovative and
efficient CSR campaigns.
COMPANY VALUES
Commonwealth Bank: - CBA has the following vision statement & value standards for their
brand respectively;
“Our vision is to excel at securing and enhancing the financial wellbeing of people,
businesses and communities. This builds on our customer-focused culture, our sense of
responsibility and our desire to keep getting better.” (The CommBank app. n.d.)
1. INTEGRITY, saying and doing what’s right.
2. COLLABORATION, working as one team.
3. EXCELLENCE, doing your best.
4. ACCOUNTABILITY, taking ownership.
5. SERVICE, helping others and supporting the community.
Coles Supermarket: - Coles has the following vision statement & value standards for their
brands respectively;
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"We strive to offer real value to our customers by lowering the price of the weekly shopping
basket, improving quality through fresher produce and delivering an easier, better shopping
experience every day of the week." (Cole Careers, n.d.)
1. Inspiring customers.
2. Being bold.
3. Focusing on freshness.
4. Building great careers.
5. Simplicity.
6. Transforming liquor.
7. Creating a trusted value.
8. Caring passionately.
9. Being one team.
10. Delivering a better store network.
COMPANY VALUES ALIGNMENT WITH APPROACH TO SOCIAL
RESPONSIBILITY
Commonwealth Bank: - Their most important approach to social responsibility resonates
with their value addition of providing service by helping others and supporting the
community through changes in their CSR policies and increasing efficiency and safety of the
environment by various practices (Chan, Watson & Woodliff, 2014). Although they take
measures to inculcate equality in terms of genders working in the organisation, it does not
reflect directly through their company values.
Coles Supermarket: - Cole’s focuses on their values in a very direct manner as their values
are not necessarily focused on long term gains and instead on the development of their own
brand first. They want to emerge as a socially responsible brand by recycling their own
products and packaging and using to tackle both hunger and poverty in Australia along with
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environmental pollution caused by a retail chain. (Grunert, Hieke & Wills, 2014) The value
that they focus the most on is delivering better and more responsible store networks along
with inspirational customer factors.
CONCLUSION
The reflections on this group discussion can be summed up in the understanding that
although both companies are in the third wave of sustainability and have a prominent social
standing, lack in some ways that can increase the efficiency of the company if focused more
on. Further discussions revealed the following points that were noted to be useful for both the
companies to inculcate as practices that make them stronger in terms of sustainability
(Lozano, 2015).
1. Cultural references, a lack of policy for people from different religions, races and
cultures leaves space for better employment and industrial sustainability practices.
People from different ethnicities should be encouraged to invest in the company to
bring an array of fresh ideas and employee confidence.
2. Detailed CSR practices to be displayed on the company profiles where common
people and businesses both can have direct access to how serious the company takes
sustainability.
3. Social media campaigns to promote ongoing
celebrations/campaigns/activities/awareness programs and their links on company
profiles to create a presence.
4. Sustainable companies are known to be more emotionally and rationally invested in
the well-being of the environment and people, and that increases the positivity of the
company image.
5. Both the companies are doing what they can to stand out in their respective industries
with relation to being a more sustainable business.
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6. Socioeconomic factors need to be taken into consideration as well because they are
usually neglected even though they are at the highest risk.
Leaders of modern times are aware of the impact and importance that CSR and
sustainability have. (Kiron, Kruschwitz, Haanaes & von Streng Velken, 2012; Roca &
Searcy, 2012) It provides uplift for the company image, branding and also marks the
company as socially and economically responsible. It should not be limited to a specific
number of details and activities as there are many spectrums to cover that need the aid of
technologically advanced and financially stable sectors. (Epstein, 2018). With time, this rate
of reliability and focus on sustainability is only bound to increase and those businesses
choosing to ignore it may face decreased profitability and a lack of positive social image.
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