Detailed Sustainability Report on Coles Limited and Its Current Issues

This report provides an executive summary of the sustainability report of Coles Limited, focusing on the current state of sustainability reporting. It identifies material issues such as increased carbon footprint, climate change, and Australian sourcing, which adversely affect the environment. The report details the practices and strategies employed by Coles Limited to mitigate these issues, including community partnerships, product quality and safety, and waste management. It also discusses the implications of these practices for various stakeholders, including suppliers, customers, and team members, in relation to financial decision-making. Recommendations are provided to enhance Coles Limited's sustainable operations, along with a conclusion that highlights the company's efforts in energy-saving initiatives and ethical sourcing. This report is a valuable resource for understanding Coles Limited's commitment to corporate social responsibility and its impact on the community.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Contemporary issues in accounting
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Executive summary
The current segment explains sustainability report of Coles Limited. The study highlights the
present state of sustainability of Coles Limited. The study even finds out some of the material
issues that are faced by Coles Limited such as increased carbon footprint and frequent climate
change as these issues adversely affect environment as a whole. Proper practices are explained
that in actual is the strategies followed by Coles Limited to minimize the identified issues so that
the company can act as in ethical and responsible way.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Sustainability reporting of Coles Limited........................................................................................3
Current state of sustainability reporting..........................................................................................5
Issues................................................................................................................................................5
Practices...........................................................................................................................................6
Implications for various stakeholders in relation to financial decision-making..............................7
Recommendations and Conclusion..................................................................................................8
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The current explain the sustainability report of Coles Limited (Coles.com.au 2017). In
this given assignment, appropriate prominence has been given on understanding the present state
of sustainability for the largest Australian retailer company named as Coles Limited. Coles
Limited focuses mainly on serving customers, suppliers, community and environment as a
whole. At Coles Limited, their main responsibility is to affect every aspect of business and
encourages being a little better on everyday basis (Coles.com.au 2017). Coles Limited is proud
to lend a helping hand to the many business organization where the team members and clientele
are involved in and across Australia. The current segment explains the issues that are faced by
Coles Limited and linked with practices so that the company can reduce or minimize the issue in
the upcoming financial year (Williams 2014).
Sustainability reporting of Coles Limited
Sustainability report is a report that is prepared by an organization that give detailed
information about economic, environmental, social and governance performance. Corporate
Social Responsibility can be termed as initiatives taken by Business Corporation for accessing
and taking responsibility for the company effects on social and environmental wellbeing. The
term CSR applies to efforts that go beyond what may be acquired by regulators or environmental
protection groups.
As rightly put forward by Smith (2017), Coles Limited has been committed for formation
of worth for its shareholders, communities, employees for more than a century from now
(Coles.com.au 2017). It is only possible to create long-term value with the shareholders, if the

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company engages in playing a positive role in the community as a whole. At Coles Limited,
sustainability is all about understanding as well as managing the impact that has on community
and the environment to ensure how the company engages in creating value in the near future.
The sustainability reporting of Coles Limited help in gaining proper understanding on how much
effort is required for the company to deal or act in a ethical or responsible way.
Current state of sustainability reporting
According to Reisch, Eberle and Lorek (2013), Coles Limited provides fresh food,
general merchandise, financial services, groceries as well as fuel and liquor to more than 21
million consumers on an average every week through its store system and online channels. Coles
Limited have more than 1,02,000 team members and operates nationwide store network of 787
supermarkets, 89 hotels, 865 liquor stores as well as 690 fuel and convenience outlets.
Issues
There are several material issues that are faced by Coles Limited and these are listed
below with proper justification:
Australian sourcing- One of the material issue faced by Coles Limited is Australian
sourcing. In order to check over the problem, Coles Limited signed the Food and Grocery
Code as well as issued a new code compliant terms and conditions that relates to supply
agreements to all Coles suppliers (Lodhia and Hess 2014).
Community partnerships and support - One of the material issues faced by Coles
Limited is community partnerships and support. In order to minimize the problem, Coles

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Limited supports national as well as local charities along with fundraising activity,
disaster relief and food donations (Henderson et al. 2015).
Product quality and safety- One of the material issues faced by Coles Limited is
product quality and safety (Coles.com.au 2017). In order to minimize the problem, Coles
Limited started delivering quality as well as affordable products to the customers and
improving brand range of brand. Coles Limited takes the responsible services of alcohol
very seriously and participates in industry-wide initiatives that are designed for producing
better health outcomes for the customers (Coles.com.au 2017).
Climate change- Coles Limited believes that the world is changing at a faster pace.
Climate change is present that include increased weather volatility, frequent weather
events as well as higher average temperatures and drier climates that have the potential to
impact the operations and supply chains (Coles.com.au 2017). The changes here had
already affected people all around the world and continue to have serious implications for
the customers, community as well as economy. On analysis, it is found that there are
various risks that are controlled or managed by Coles Limited as investing in Australia’s
response to climate change will deliver significant economic, social as well as
environmental benefits to the community as a whole (Griffith, Hammersley and Kadous
2015).
Increased carbon footprint- The issue that is faced by Coles Limited is increased
carbon footprint (Coles.com.au 2017). To that, Coles Limited is working or rather been
committed to minimize carbon footprint to deliver solutions that will help customers and
the community as a whole. Coles Limited is constantly working hard to improve the level

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of performance as well as publicly report on the progress as mentioned in the
sustainability report of the company (Edmonds et al. 2016).
Practices
According to Beattie (2014), Coles Limited is constantly exploring as well as investing in
significant environmental projects and partnerships for reducing environmental impact
(Coles.com.au 2017). Coles Limited is committed to offer customers on daily basis by providing
quality fresh products and better shopping experience. Coles Limited aims at building stronger,
deeper relationships with suppliers through reasonable transactions as well as continuing
agreement. In addition, Coles Limited believes in increasing the level of transparency of the
supply chain arrangement. Furthermore, Coles Limited works with business and administration
for improving contract labor practices for fresh products in Australia. The company drives
responsibly as well as ethically sourced products for the brand. Coles Limited promotes mental
health with the team members (Beattie 2014). Coles Limited launched Mind your health
programs by taking into consideration three pillars of approach that include alertness,
management and risk reduction (Coles.com.au 2017). Here, mental health is the main key pillar
of Coles Limited safety approach as well as invested in online heath assessments. Coles Limited
believes in diverting more waste from landfill as well as expanding use of ecological covering
and maximizing store recycling agenda. Coles Limited opened stores and operates for making a
step change improvement in safety performance in the most appropriate way. Coles Limited
mainly focus on increasing number of women leadership position in and across business. In
addition, the agenda is mainly supported by a central plan as well as complementary tailored plan
to each of the function in the business. Coles Limited believes in taking a holistic system to

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Indigenous service as well as have partnered with Excellence program that supports young
indigenous Australia for getting access to learning (Drury 2013).
Implications for various stakeholders in relation to financial decision-making
As rightly put forward by DesJardins and McCall (2014) Coles Limited is dedicated
towards reducing the impact on the surroundings as well as continuously investing in significant
environmental projects and partnerships for attainment of future goals and objectives. Coles
Limited is dedicated towards sustaining suppliers where they grow their trade and continues to
convey safe products for the clientele. Team members of Coles Limited are passionate about
making a difference. The company involves in supporting charity partners as well as reducing
the environmental impact as a whole. The main focus of Coles Limited is to continue work
towards attainment of sustainable future at the time of supporting Aussie farmers as well as local
community (Coles.com.au 2017).
Coles Limited conducts training and development programs for their team members that
they had achieved within the passage of years (Coles.com.au 2017). More than 780 internal
appointments are made from the retail leaders as well as retail operations graduate programs. In
case of stakeholder engagement, Coles Limited believes in maintaining trust of the customers in
offering best quality of products in terms of value. Coles Limited announced launch of Coles
Quality Academy for providing Coles brand suppliers with significant superiority organization
training as well as providing targeted training to the team members (Deegan 2013).
Safety at workplace is not yet achieved by Coles Limited (Coles.com.au 2017). Coles
Limited should maintain workplace safety of their members so that employees feel safe while

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working in the business organization. Coles Limited faced issues because of increase in manual
handling injuries in supermarkets as well as bringing computation method into line with other
divisions of Wesfarmers Limited (Chen and Schipper 2016).
Recommendations and Conclusion
It is recommended that Coles Limited should reduce the current issue and find strategies
to move towards dealing their operations in a sustainable way. It is suggested that Coles Limited
delivers training programs for improving level of safety leadership as well as promoting safety
awareness. At the end of the study, it is concluded that Coles Limited introduced two new energy
data coverage systems for keeping a track of energy usage as well as energy competence
projects. Coles Limited starts working with Green Building Council of Australia for finalizing a
Greenstar rating tool for future freehold supermarket developments. Coles Limited engages in
energy-saving initiatives as they have opened 620 stores and installed on refrigeration cases for
reducing nigh-time energy use. Coles Limited operates in more than 520 stores as well as
automatic lighting controls for reducing energy use outside trading period. In addition, Coles
Limited engages in operating 420 stores and has access to anti-condensate heater controls that
reduces energy use of the heaters in the doors. The study properly explains the current state of
sustainability report of Coles Limited and finds ways so that they can deal their operations in the
most ethical way.

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Reference List
Beattie, V., 2014. Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues,
theory, methodology, methods and a research framework. The British Accounting Review, 46(2),
pp.111-134.
Chen, Q. and Schipper, K., 2016. Comments and observations regarding the relation between
theory and empirical research in contemporary accounting research. Foundations and Trends®
in Accounting, 10(2-4), pp.314-360.
Coles.com.au. 2017. Coles Supermarkets. [online] Available at: http://www.coles.com.au
[Accessed 14 Sep. 2017].
Deegan, C., 2013. Financial accounting theory. McGraw-Hill Education Australia.
DesJardins, J.R. and McCall, J.J., 2014. Contemporary issues in business ethics. Cengage
Learning.
Drury, C.M., 2013. Management and cost accounting. Springer.
Edmonds, T.P., Edmonds, C.D., Tsay, B.Y. and Olds, P.R., 2016. Fundamental managerial
accounting concepts. McGraw-Hill Education.
Griffith, E.E., Hammersley, J.S. and Kadous, K., 2015. Audits of complex estimates as
verification of management numbers: How institutional pressures shape practice. Contemporary
Accounting Research, 32(3), pp.833-863.

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Henderson, S., Peirson, G., Herbohn, K. and Howieson, B., 2015. Issues in financial accounting.
Pearson Higher Education AU.
Lodhia, S. and Hess, N., 2014. Sustainability accounting and reporting in the mining industry:
current literature and directions for future research. Journal of cleaner production, 84, pp.43-50.
Reisch, L., Eberle, U. and Lorek, S., 2013. Sustainable food consumption: an overview of
contemporary issues and policies. Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, 9(2).
Smith, M., 2017. Research methods in accounting. Sage.
Williams, J., 2014. Financial accounting. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.