Analysis of Corporate Governance and Sustainability at JB HI FI

This report provides a detailed analysis of JB HI FI's corporate governance and sustainability practices. It begins by examining JB HI FI's corporate governance mechanisms, emphasizing their policies for shareholders, suppliers, and customers, and their commitment to ethical business operations in compliance with the ASX Corporate Governance Council Principles and Recommendations. The report then explores the link between sustainability and risk management, outlining the company's strategies to address economic, environmental, and social sustainability risks. Furthermore, the report examines JB HI FI's guidance for implementing environmental and social performance reporting systems, highlighting their adherence to ASX guidelines and initiatives to mitigate sustainability risks. Finally, the report discusses the practice of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by ASX-listed companies, emphasizing the benefits of voluntary CSR disclosure and the importance of industry-specific CSR reporting. The report concludes with a summary of JB HI FI's commitment to corporate governance and sustainability, emphasizing their alignment with ASX standards and their integration of sustainability into their risk management strategies.

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Executive Summary
The main aim of this report is to make an analysis on the corporate governance and sustainability
activities of JB HI FI. First part of the report shows the corporate governance mechanism of JB
HI FI. After that, the link of sustainability to risk management of JB HI FI is shown. In the third
part, the guidance of JB HI FI for sustainability reporting is show. The last part shows the
discussion about voluntary disclose of CSR activities by ASX listed companies.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Governance Mechanism of JB HI FI...............................................................................................3
Link between Sustainability and Risk Management.......................................................................4
Guidance for Implementing Environmental, Social Performance and Reporting System..............5
Practice of CSR................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
In today’s business world, Corporate Governance and Sustainability Reporting are
considered as two of the major factors for organizational success. Corporate Governance refers
to the mechanisms, processes and relations that help the business organizations in controlling and
directing their business activities (Tricker and Tricker 2015). On the other hand, Sustainability
Reporting is considered as the report that helps the organizations in providing information
regarding their economic, environmental, social and corporate governance performance to their
stakeholders (Ioannou and Serafeim 2017). Thus, the main aim of this report is to analyze and
evaluate various aspects of sustainability reporting and corporate governance for JB HI FI
Limited, Australia.
Governance Mechanism of JB HI FI
The board of directors of JB HI FI puts utmost importance on their effective corporate
governance mechanism for addressing various environmental and social matters. JB HI FI
develops their corporate governance policies for their shareholders, suppliers and customers.
Another major aim of the corporate governance mechanism of JB HI FI is to continuously
monitor and review the development of sustainability reporting. With the help of corporate
governance mechanism, JB HI FI ensures that all of their business operations are carried on
ethically and as per the high standard of corporate governance (jbhifi.com.au 2017). The annual
report of JB HI FI states that the company complies with all regulations and policies of 3rd
edition of the ASX Corporate Governance Council Principles and Recommendations.
Specifically, in the year of 2017, JB HI FI has fully complied with all the principles of ASX
Recommendations. In the year 2017, the board of directors of JB HI FI has approved the

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Corporate Governance Statement and effective from 14 August 2017. These are the corporate
governance mechanism of JB HI FI for sustainability (jbhifi.com.au 2017).
Link between Sustainability and Risk Management
The sustainability report of JB HI FI states that the company has three kinds of
sustainability risks in their business operations. However, JB HI FI has linked their sustainability
risks with their risk management procedures in an effective way. The first risk is Economic
Sustainability risk that affects the ability of JB HI FI to continue in their current economic
production level for long-term. As a part of risk management, JB HI FI has developed several
strategies to reduce economic sustainability risk like implementation of proactive management
system, provide encouragement to technological innovation and many others (jbhifi.com.au
2017). The next risk is Environmental Sustainability risk that affects JB HI FI to continue their
business operation by not harming the ecosystem or the environment. In this aspect also, JB HI
FI has linked this risk to risk management procure with the help of certain strategies. Some of
these major strategies are carbon disclosure project, the promotion of energy efficient products,
packaging agreements, recycling of mobile phones and others. The third risk is Social
Sustainability risk that affects the company’s ability to meet the social norms. The company has
developed certain risk management strategies to minimize this risk. Some of the major strategies
are various workplace-giving programs, different donation initiatives and many others. With the
help of these above-mentioned strategies, JB HI FI has linked sustainability to their risk
management systems (jbhifi.com.au 2017).

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Guidance for Implementing Environmental, Social Performance and Reporting System
The annual report of JB HI FI shows that the company follows certain guidelines for
implementing environment and social performance reporting system. It needs to be mentioned
that the company complies with all the required principles and standards for their environmental
and social performance. For this purpose, the company complies with the regulations of 3rd
edition of the ASX Corporate Governance Council Principles and Recommendations
(asx.com.au 2017). According to this guidelines, it is the responsibly of the business
organizations to disclose about all data and information regarding the environmental and social
performance. The annual report of JB HI FI states that the company has taken several initiatives
for mitigating the risks of sustainability. These initiatives have been taken to minimize the risks
of both economic and environmental sustainability risks. Thus, it is required for the company to
report about the progress of these sustainability initiatives. In present business world, investors
largely consider the sustainability activities of companies before investment. Complying with the
standards of 3rd edition of the ASX Corporate Governance Council Principles and
Recommendations helps JB HI FI to report their progress in sustainability initiatives in an
effective manner (asx.com.au 2017).
Practice of CSR
In the business environment of Australia, the ASX listed companies are required to
maintain four components; they are prescribed environment disclosures, obligation for
continuous disclosure, obligation for general reporting and obligation for periodic reporting
(researchonline.mq.edu.au 2017). it needs to be mentioned that the companies can become
greatly beneficial from the voluntary disclosure of CSR practices. First, the companies can
obtain defined CSR reporting framework for the elimination of potential sustainability

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manipulation. Second, in the presence of uniform CSR disclosure framework, there will be
greeted degree of comparability between the companies of ASX in terms of sustainability
reporting. Third, the stakeholders of the companies will be able to assess the CSR as well as
sustainability activities of the companies before investing. In addition, there are many other
benefits (Dhaliwal et al. 2012). However, CSR disclosure varies from industry to industry. For
example, the manufacturing companies affect the environment as well as community with their
production activities. For this reason, they are required to disclose more on CSR as well as
sustainability activities as compared to any service provider company. However, all the
companies are required to disclose their CSR as well as sustainability performance for their
stakeholders and investors (Chan, Watson and Woodliff 2014).
Conclusion
The above discussion shows that the board of directors of JB HI FI largely focuses on the
aspects of corporate governance as well as sustainability reporting. In this aspect, JB HI FI
complies with the principles and standards of 3rd edition of the ASX Corporate Governance
Council Principles and Recommendations for corporate governance and CSR activities. In
addition, the above discussion also shows that JB HI FI has linked their sustainability risks with
their risk management activities with the help of different sustainability strategies.

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References
Asx.com.au. (2018). Corporate Governance Council. [online] Available at:
http://www.asx.com.au/regulation/corporate-governance-council.htm [Accessed 5 Jan. 2018].
asx.com.au. (2018). Corporate governance principles and recommendations. [online] Available
at: http://www.asx.com.au/documents/asx-compliance/cgc-principles-and-recommendations-3rd-
edn.pdf [Accessed 5 Jan. 2018].
Chan, M.C., Watson, J. and Woodliff, D., 2014. Corporate governance quality and CSR
disclosures. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), pp.59-73.
Dhaliwal, D.S., Radhakrishnan, S., Tsang, A. and Yang, Y.G., 2012. Nonfinancial disclosure and
analyst forecast accuracy: International evidence on corporate social responsibility
disclosure. The Accounting Review, 87(3), pp.723-759.
Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2017. The consequences of mandatory corporate sustainability
reporting.
Jbhifi.com.au. (2018). Annual Report 2017. [online] Available at:
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/Documents/2017%20Annual%20Report.pdf [Accessed 5 Jan. 2018].
Researchonline.mq.edu.au. (2018). CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONTEXT:
THE CASE FOR COMPULSORY SUSTAINABILITY DISCLOSURE FOR LISTED PUBLIC
COMPANIES IN AUSTRALIA?. [online] Available at:
https://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/mq:3083/DS01?
view=true [Accessed 5 Jan. 2018].

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Tricker, R.B. and Tricker, R.I., 2015. Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices.
Oxford University Press, USA.