University Report: Sustainability Reporting Analysis of AGL and ANZ

This report provides a detailed analysis of sustainability reporting, focusing on a comparison between AGL and ANZ. It examines the purpose of sustainability reporting for each company, their respective stakeholders, and a comparison of their sustainability reporting practices, including their adherence to the GRI framework. The report also explores the debate surrounding mandatory sustainability reporting. The analysis covers key aspects such as stakeholder engagement, corporate governance, and the companies' responses to environmental and social challenges. The report utilizes the sustainability reports of AGL and ANZ to highlight the differences and similarities in their approaches to sustainability, providing insights into the various aspects of sustainability reporting. The report also discusses the importance of transparency, stakeholder engagement, and the overall impact of sustainability reporting on business operations.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING
Sustainability Reporting
University Name
Student Name
Authors’ Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Purpose.......................................................................................................................................3
Stakeholders...............................................................................................................................5
Comparison of the sustainability reporting................................................................................5
Debate regarding mandatory reporting......................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Sustainability reporting exercise by corporations can help in generation of transparency,
assist the entire market to operate effectually, reflect the overall health of the nation, assist in
driving organization’s progress towards achievement of smooth, sustainable and the same
time inclusive rate of growth. The present study examines the primary purpose of
sustainability reporting from the perspective of each and every business entity, taking into
consideration compliance with the guidelines of GRI Reporting. In addition to this, current
report also identifies the stakeholders having an interest in the sustainability reports of each
business entity. Moving further, the study elucidates in detail the stark differences between
the sustainability reports of the two different companies. The current report explicates in
detail about sustainability reporting practice with special reference to the operations of AGL
and ANZ.
The Australian Accounting Standards Board necessarily does not indicate towards specific
accountabilities associated to the management of sustainability regulation (Child 2015).
However, features of various action schedules of AASB controls the functionalities of AASB
on the environment on the whole. In this regard, AASB spells out policies along with
measures for minimization of environmental influences by conforming with diverse
government policies associated to reduction of waste, energy conservation and many others.
Micheli and Mari (2014) mentions that according to the AASB regulations of annual report,
appropriate reporting on specifically sustainability in the long term on particularly finances of
public organizations adhere to the directives as well as guidelines laid down by the IPSASB
issued by suggested practice directives of RPG1 reporting practice. These was declared by
the “Recommended Practice Guideline RPG 1 Reporting” on the finances (Hahn and Lülfs
2014). Thus, sustainability reporting can be considered as a procedure of presenting

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information by means of which diverse stakeholders can analyse economic, social as well as
environmental aspects of business concerns that is referred to as the triple bottom line
procedure of reporting. Business concerns utilize sustainability practices for enhancing values
of the overall functionalities of the business. In addition to this the Code of Ethics for the
professional and expert accountants introduced during 2006 and modified during 2008 was
pronounced by the “Accounting Professional and Ethical Standards Board”. This code of
ethics presents diverse necessities of corporations to adhere to the directives of Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI).
Purpose
Purpose of sustainability reporting of ANZ is to inform their stakeholders regarding the way
they are managing and expecting current as well as future risks and opportunities associated
to economic, social as well as environmental factors. In addition to this, the company ANZ
also reports regarding their performance against targets of sustainability that are set for the
years and the way by which the management of the firm recognize and manage diverse issues
that can considered to be most material to the business as well as stakeholders of the firm
(Rinaldi et al. 2014). It can be hereby mentioned that ANZ is essentially a gold community
member of the GRI and uses framework of GRI for over a decade.
The purpose of the sustainability reporting of AGL is to present the way they operate and
deal with customers, engage with community and people and manage environment and at the
same time economic performance. In addition to this, the sustainability reporting of the firm
also reflects the adherence of the firm to the AGL Ethical Code of Conduct that aims to
reduction in the overall rate of diverse substantiated issues associated to unacceptable
behaviour. Furthermore, the purpose of this reporting practice is also to make the

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stakeholders aware regarding the public policy engagement strategy of the firm and best
practices as regards corporate governance adopted by the firm (Micheli and Mari 2014)

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Stakeholders
ANZ intends to earn trust and carry out fair as well as responsible banking by keeping pace
with the altering expectations of diverse stakeholders of the firm. As per sustainability report
of the firm, the management of the business concern maintains superior standards of ethical
business conduct and comprehending social as well as environmental influences of the
business decisions. The company’s sustainability reporting reflects that effective engagement
with the firm’s stakeholders is considered as a significant part of their business and is
embedded in their policies, procedures as well as nature of business operations (Junior et al.
2014). Analysis of the stakeholder engagement policy of the firm reveals that the main
stakeholders of the firm includes the customers, employees, shareholders, community,
governing bodies and regulators, industry associations as well as non-government
organizations Report reveals that the effective stakeholder engagement principle of the firm
ANZ is consistent with particularly the AA 1000 Stakeholder Engagement Standard. On
other hand, the firm AGL has a wide range of various stakeholders with diverse interests. The
management of the company is of the view that the company participates in different ongoing
as well as constructive conversation with the stakeholders in a bid to remain responsive to
diverse issues that are significant to company’s customers, financiers, regulators, employees,
landowners along with the wider community (Hahn and Lülfs 2014).
Comparison of the sustainability reporting
The sustainability reporting of the two different corporation viz. AGL and ANZ are hereby
discussed in detail below:
ANZ :

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ANZ is one of the largest financial services corporation in New Zealand that functions
particularly as a subsidiary firm of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited in
Australia. This is a publicly traded company with operations in the finance and insurance
industry. The primary purpose of ANZ is to successfully shape and develop a world in which
people as well as communities can thrive. For that, the company intends to generate a
balanced as well as sustainable economy where everyone can participate and make a better
world. Analysis of the sustainability report of the firm reveals that the corporate sustainability
framework of the firm supports the overall delivery of the business strategy of the firm and
intends to replicate the material social as well as environmental issues better and to keep in
line with the purposes of the bank. The company intends to carry out fair as well as
responsible banking, boost sustainable growth and enhance social and economic engagement
(Hahn and Kühnen 2013). The report mentions about the materiality matrix that the company
uses with GRI material aspect and the boundary. Some of the key material issues identified in
the report include corporate governance, business lending, environment footprint, sustainable
chain of supply and investment towards the community (Child 2015). In addition to this, the
other material issues of the company include diversity and inclusion, fraud and security of
data, consumer protection, anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism and fairness and
code of ethics among many others. The report also divulges the fact that the company has a
formal policy of stakeholder engagement that is again consistent with the AA 1000
Stakeholder Engagement Standard. This section on stakeholder engagement focuses on how
the company is engaged with a particular stakeholder group, stresses on the key issues that
are raised and comments on the same. The sustainability review also presents the corporate
governance along with the risk management that helps in understanding the material
sustainability risks that in turn has the capability to wear down the trust of the entire
community, finally influencing the capability to carry out business (Buhr et al. 2014).

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Thereafter, the sustainability report also elucidates in detail about the sustainability targets
and set group wide program in order to support the overall delivery of firm’s business
strategy and respond to diverse material sustainability concerns (Bonilla-Priego et al. 2014).
AGL:
AGL essentially publishes sustainability report on a yearly basis in order to provide
transparent account of the firm’s performance in association to the social, economic as well
as environmental challenges AGL as well as the energy industry encounters. the
sustainability report of AGL also presents material issues just as ANZ, in a specific matrix
reflecting the relative significance as judged by different internal as well as external
stakeholders. In addition to this, AGL also presents a sustainability framework that is
similarly presented by ANZ. It is by means of this sustainability framework, the company
presents the targets as well as commitments to undertake performance are instituted,
monitored and enumerated (Bebbington et al. 2014). Analysis of the sustainability report of
the firm reflects the fact that the firm presents an outline of the way the company operates
and encapsulates the entire advance to stakeholder engagement, ethical code of conduct,
maintenance of legislative compliance, corporate governance in addition to public policy
engagement. In addition to this, the report also presents performance information regarding
the firm’s key sustainability issues that are categorised into five different subjects namely
customers, people, firm’s economic performance, community and environment. Moreover
this report also reflects about a centralised data centre in which comprehensive data on
performance is made available. Evaluation of the report also replicates the fact that the
sustainability review of the firm is prepared and presented according to the Sustainability
Reporting Guidelines of Global Reporting Initiative (Barkemeyer et al. 2015). Thus,
evaluation of the report helps in reflecting the differences that exist between the two different

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reports. The report of AGL explicitly mentions about the adherence of the report to the GRI
guidelines while the report of ANZ does not mention about the GRI.
Debate regarding mandatory reporting
There are certain reasons that can explain the reason why mandatory reporting might not be
best possible move. There is concern that mandatory reporting can create a low common
denominator in particularly transparency (Amran et al. 2014). In this case, the government
establishes different key performance indicators that diverse corporations need to report on,
corporations might focus particularly checking the disclosure requirements in stead of
thinking about those issues that that the stakeholders think about (Alonso‐Almeida et al.
2014). Essentially, the mandatory disclosure would possibly indicate liability for disclosures
and can adversely affect transparency.

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References
Alonso‐Almeida, M., Llach, J. and Marimon, F., 2014. A closer look at the ‘Global Reporting
Initiative’sustainability reporting as a tool to implement environmental and social policies: A
worldwide sector analysis. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 21(6), pp.318-335.
Amran, A., Lee, S.P. and Devi, S.S., 2014. The influence of governance structure and
strategic corporate social responsibility toward sustainability reporting quality. Business
Strategy and the Environment, 23(4), pp.217-235.
Barkemeyer, R., Preuss, L. and Lee, L., 2015. On the effectiveness of private transnational
governance regimes—Evaluating corporate sustainability reporting according to the Global
Reporting Initiative. Journal of World Business, 50(2), pp.312-325.
Bebbington, J., Unerman, J. and O'Dwyer, B. eds., 2014. Sustainability accounting and
accountability. Routledge.
Bonilla-Priego, M.J., Font, X. and del Rosario Pacheco-Olivares, M., 2014. Corporate
sustainability reporting index and baseline data for the cruise industry. Tourism
Management, 44, pp.149-160.
Buhr, N., Gray, R. and Milne, M.J., 2014. Histories, rationales, voluntary standards and
future prospects for sustainability reporting. J. Bebbington, J. Unerman and B. O’Dwyer, eds,
pp.51-71.
Child, J., 2015. Organization: contemporary principles and practice. John Wiley & Sons.

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Hahn, R. and Kühnen, M., 2013. Determinants of sustainability reporting: a review of results,
trends, theory, and opportunities in an expanding field of research. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 59, pp.5-21.
Hahn, R. and Lülfs, R., 2014. Legitimizing negative aspects in GRI-oriented sustainability
reporting: A qualitative analysis of corporate disclosure strategies. Journal of Business
Ethics, 123(3), pp.401-420.
Junior, R.M., Best, P.J. and Cotter, J., 2014. Sustainability reporting and assurance: A
historical analysis on a world-wide phenomenon. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(1), pp.1-11.
Micheli, P. and Mari, L., 2014. The theory and practice of performance
measurement. Management accounting research, 25(2), pp.147-156.
Rinaldi, L., Unerman, J. and Tilt, C., 2014. The role of stakeholder engagement and dialogue
within the sustainability accounting and reporting process. Sustainability accounting and
accountability, pp.86-107.