Sustainability Report Analysis for Harvey Norman Holdings Limited

This report provides an analysis of the sustainability practices of Harvey Norman Holdings Limited, a major Australian retailer. It begins with a brief overview of the company, its founders, and leadership. The core of the report focuses on a CVP (Cost-Volume-Profit) analysis, examining how different aspects of the company's operations impact its operating profit, particularly highlighting the contributions to community, employees, and the environment. The report then delves into ethical considerations within the company, including intellectual property rights and ethical standards related to employee treatment. Finally, it addresses sustainability issues faced by Harvey Norman, such as waste management related to cardboard and initiatives like recycling and reuse of materials. The report concludes with a list of cited references.

Running head: A STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
A Study of Sustainability Report
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Author Note

1A STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Table of Contents
Harvey Norman Holdings Limited.............................................................................................2
CVP Analysis.........................................................................................................................2
Ethical issues..........................................................................................................................3
Sustainability issues...............................................................................................................3
Referencing................................................................................................................................4

2A STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Harvey Norman Holdings Limited
Harvey Norman Holdings Limited is one of the largest retailer firms of Australia
dealing mainly in furniture. It primarily operates in franchises in Australia but the main store
is handled by Harvey Norman Holdings Limited. The company is founded by Gerry Harvey
and Ian Norman and is headed by Katie Page (chief operating officer) (Baghai, Everingham
and White 2000).
CVP Analysis
CVP or cost volume profit analysis refers to the analysis that revolves around the
breakeven point of cost and volume of goods that is determined and provides huge help to
managers in taking management decisions or any other decision related to business
economics. CVP is mainly concerned with the impact that different scales of production and
sales levels would have on operating profit.
In case of Harvey Norman Holdings Limited the impact different domains of
operating activities would have on operating income is that, the contribution by the company
towards the community sector accounts for a total of 43% compared to other companies.
Now community in accounting terms refers to the national, global and local area where the
company operates (CSRHub - Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR)
ratings on over 17,487 of the world’s largest public and private companies., 2017).
The next sectors that lead to an impact on the operating profit of the organization are
the employees or the employee sector. It is concerned with the welfare of the workers or
employees in terms of salaries or wages, compensation or benefits, required training related
to skills and safety. The cost incurred on the expenditure related to the employee sector has
an impact on operating profit for 42%.

3A STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
The third and most important sector that leads to operating profit is environment.
Environment refers to the surroundings in which the company works and the natural
resources that the company uses. The extent by which it affects the operating income is 51%.
Ethical issues
During the period of employment in Harvey Norman Holdings Limited an employee
may work you and in turn create items which must be secured by intellectual property laws,
like the laws that claim to protect or protect patents, copyright and trade marks, designs.
Therefore an employee of Harvey Norman all kinds of intellectual properties rights made
inside the boundary of work will very naturally be possessed by Harvey the organizational
entity. Other ethical standards of the company lie in the policies and regulations of the
company like anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. Harvey Norman Holdings
Limited has high ethical standards to resolve any kind of ethical issues like equal
employment policy, equal treatment of all employee policy (Van Der Laan and Dean 2010).
Sustainability issues
Sustainability issues in general refer to the issues that are faced by a particular
organization in achieving or maintaining its sustainability goals.
Harvey Norman Holdings Limited deals in furniture, consumer products in the
domain of electrical goods and computers. The company uses a lot of cardboard which if not
recycled will affect the environment and also have an impact on the operating profit of the
organization. Similarly the company takes enough initiatives to solve these kinds of
sustainability issues like it reduces the use of plastic bags, recycles the white goods and reuse
the wooden pallet (CSRHub - Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsiblity
(CSR) ratings on over 17,487 of the world’s largest public and private
companies., 2017).

4A STUDY OF SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Referencing
Baghai, M.A., Everingham, B. and White, D., 2000. Growth down under. The Mckinsey
Quarterly, pp.12-12.
CSRHub - Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) ratings on over 17,487 of
the world’s largest public and private companies. (2017). CSR information for Harvey
Norman Holdings. [online] Available at:
https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Harvey-Norman-Holdings
[Accessed 11 Sep. 2017].
CSRHub - Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsiblity (CSR) ratings
on over 17,487 of the world’s largest public and private companies.
(2017). CSR information for Harvey Norman Holdings. [online] Available
at: https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Harvey-
Norman-Holdings [Accessed 11 Sep. 2017].
Van Der Laan, S. and Dean, G., 2010. Corporate groups in Australia: State of play.
Australian Accounting Review, 20(2), pp.121-133.