Sustainability Reporting in Accounting: A Detailed Analysis of Caltex

This report examines Caltex's sustainability reporting practices, focusing on how the company integrates environmental, social, and economic factors into its accounting and reporting processes. The research, conducted through a literature review, explores Caltex's sustainability management, reporting frameworks like GRI and CDSB, and integrated reporting approaches. It highlights the involvement of workers in identifying risks and opportunities, the inclusion of EHS and CSR reports, and greenhouse gas emissions data. The findings indicate that sustainability reporting has positively impacted Caltex by improving stakeholder relationships, enhancing brand value, and promoting transparency. The company's commitment to sustainable development is evident through its efforts to reduce emissions, maintain a safe working environment, and engage with the community, ultimately contributing to its long-term success and positive impact on the environment and society. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 1
SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN ACCOUNTING ON CALTEX
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Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 2
SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING IN ACCOUNTING IN CALTEX
Abstract
This research is on the Caltex Company and how they achieve sustainable development
through sustainability reporting. This research aims at establishing how Caltex invests its time
and resources in sustainability reporting and how it is impacting the organization. The research
design that we used is the literature review.
Introduction
Sustainability is difficult to describe on its own, but sustainable development is one that
can meet the present needs without implicating the future generations, from meeting their needs.
A sustainability report, on the other hand, is a report that contains information about the social,
economic and environmental performance in an organization.
Caltex is an Australian company that supplies fuel and integrates oil refining in the
market. Caltex ensures sustainability reporting because they want the growth of the future
generation. The company has adopted sustainability management to so that their environment,
economy, and society can co-exist in harmony. The company aims at creating a greener future
and this they do by pursuing new growing business in energy. The company has also created new
growth drivers that are eco-friendly.
In this research, we looked at the ‘Sustainability Reporting’ in Caltex that was published
since 2005. The report entails the sustainable development performance of the company and
other activities. It also involves how the sustainable development has impacted its stakeholders.
Some of the material issues discussed in the reporting are climate change green growth
strategies, customer satisfaction activities, and environmental management strategies.
Analysis

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 3
In Caltex, some of the workers ensured sustainability reporting by integrating the
company’s objectives, to sustainability. In a given strategy, the workers evaluated all the risks
involved in achieving the strategy that could affect the company’s social, environmental and
economic performance. Measures are then taken for the risks involved, and opportunities are also
identified.
In the sustainability reporting, we were also able to see that Caltex has involved some
reporting that shows its performance in the market regarding social, environment and economics.
One of the reports that the company has been covering has been Environment, Health, and safety
(EHS). In this report, they have included issues like the health of their workers, the rates of
accidents in the workplace, the company’s emissions of gases and other pollutants. Another
report that they included was the Corporate Social responsibility (CSR). In this report, Caltex has
included matters such as training and educating its employees, diversity in the workplace and
ethical issues in the workplace.
Caltex also involves greenhouse reporting in their sustainability reporting. As we are
aware, Caltex is engaged in the supply of fuel and thus releases a lot of gases in gases that are at
times poisonous in the atmosphere. Thus the company always includes a report on their gas
emissions and how they control these emissions and their efforts to ensure that the emissions are
not poisonous. The company follows suit the guidance provided by the Securities Exchange and
Commission regarding any information based on climate change or greenhouse gas emissions.
The company records the data of all the greenhouse gas emissions (Dobele, Westberg, Steel and
Flowers 2014).
Caltex uses and at times refers to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework for
their sustainability reporting. With this framework, they look at the issues that the company is

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 4
facing and focuses on its stakeholders. Another structure that the company uses is Climate
Disclosures Standards Board (CDSB). The CDSB aims at ensuring corporations disclose climate
is changing information in their reports by working with other professionals to develop a
framework that will generally be accepted for use (Haque and Islam 2015).
The Caltex Company focuses on integrated reporting in their sustainability reporting.
Here the company reports both financial and non-financial information in an integrated way.
This is different from the stand-alone reporting for financial and non-financial information. The
company includes sustainability information in its reporting regarding the social, environmental
and economic performance of the company.
Caltex ensures assurance in its sustainability reporting, this they achieve by the inclusion
of assurance providers that are professional, holding panels for stakeholders and other
individuals or groups. In their reports, they include the commentary of the stakeholders, group
and also the professional assurance providers. When providing the assurance, Caltex ensures that
they are accountable and follow the International Standard of Assurance Engagements (Guo
2018).
Findings
We found at that by including its workers in the integrated reporting positively affected
the company. They were able to add value to the company through the evaluation of the risks and
coming up with measures. This, in turn, added value to their clients because the services they
offered ensuring sustainable development in business objectives, sustainability reporting, and
assurance.
We found out that the sustainability reporting has also helped the company in its overall
success. The reports showed that Caltex is committed to environmental and social issues. Also,

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 5
they are aimed at ensuring that their employees and community at large are not affected shortly
and that they can meet their needs.
Caltex also aims at promoting transparency in their organization through the integration
of the financial and non-financial information in the reporting. All the members, stakeholders
and community at large can access the reporting and also give feedback (Gustafson et al. 2014).
This feedback helps the company in knowing their performance in regards to the society,
economy, and environment.
The sustainability reporting in Caltex has also been able to prove their efforts in
maintaining a good relationship with other parties such as the community around them and its
stakeholders. This good relationship has been able to be maintained due to the transparency that
Caltex has with its community. The community feels part of the company because they are aware
of what is going on in the company and can also see the efforts that the company is making to
ensure sustainability development. This also has lead to a good working environment because the
company and the community are in harmony with each other. This has led to the growth in
shareholder in the company which has also led to increase in the brand value (Haque, Deegan
and Inglis 2016).
Also, Caltex has been able to protect its reputation through the sustainability reporting.
Its customers and community at large believe that Caltex is an excellent source of fuel and it
never fails them (Heenetigala, De Silva, Armstrong and Ediriweera 2016). The company’s good
reputation has ensured that they have a good relationship with their clients. They have been able
to build trust with its clients because the clients believe that the organization will provide quality
service. The trust enables the company to gain loyal clients because of their high reputation.

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 6
Also clients want to believe that a company is in their best interest. For a company like
Caltex it ensures that their environment is safe and healthy for the society around. They ensure
that they do not cause any pollution in the environment be it from the gases or the noise
pollution. Some of the clients also have family members working in the organization and they
value how the employees are treated within the organization in terms of the working conditions.
The company aims at ensuring that the working conditions are nice and suitable for its
employees to attain sustainable development.
Caltex includes greenhouse gas emission data in its reporting. With this, they aim to
identify possible ways that they can use to reduce the emissions of the gases especially if they
are poisonous. The company has been able to do this by coming up with ways to emit gases that
ensure the environment remains safe and is not prone to climate change (Utama 2017). This will
ensure that the future generations are not affected by the poisonous gases which can affect their
health and also they will not be affected by any adverse climate changes that may result. These
include increased heat waves that may result from poisonous gases getting trapped in the ozone
layer.
Finally, we found that through the integrated reporting, the company has been able to
achieve sustainable development through identification of risk and coming up with measures that
can be used to eliminate the risks. Caltex has set up sustainability management that mainly
focuses on evaluating the risks that might come up due to the strategies. This management is
carried out by professionals who then come up with measures that can reduce or eliminate these
risks. The professionals have become very effective in ensuring that Caltex improves the
performance of the social, economic and environmental factors. This has led to sustainability
reporting and accounting (Dobele, Westberg, Steel and Flowers 2014).

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 7
Conclusion
Caltex Company has experienced growth over the last few years due to sustainable
development and management. The Sustainability Reporting that they have been doing since
2005 has benefited the company significantly. The stakeholders and other members have been
able to maintain a good relationship with the company, and this has caused its brand value to
increase and also its shareholders (Maroun and Garnett 2014). The increase in shareholders has
to lead to increased investments in the company which has benefitted the company significantly.
This has improved their economic performance (Bruns and Skretowska 2016).
Caltex Company has been able to achieve sustainable development. By ensuring that
their gases are not poisonous, they have improved their environmental performance in that their
environment has not been polluted. This way they have not contributed to any adverse climate
change. The efficient working environment has also improved the working conditions which
ensure maximum output from all employees (Abhayawansa and Guthrie 2014).
Finally, they have been able to improve their social performance. This is evident in the
excellent relationship they have been able to foster with groups and individuals in the community
and also its stakeholders by including them in the sustainability reporting. Thus Caltex has had a
positive impact on sustainable development (Dissanayake Xia and Wu 2015).

Sustainability Reporting in Accounting in Caltex 8
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