Business Sustainability Report: Wesfarmers Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Wesfarmers' sustainability practices. It begins by defining sustainability and highlighting its importance for businesses in today's competitive landscape, focusing on Wesfarmers, a conglomerate based in Western Australia. The report outlines Wesfarmers' vision and mission concerning sustainability, emphasizing their commitment to shareholders, employees, customers, and the environment. It then details the governance mechanisms in place, including the roles of the board of directors in approving strategies, protecting stakeholder interests, and reviewing policies. The report also examines specific guidelines for environmental and social performance, such as supporting the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and setting targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The report highlights initiatives like energy efficiency improvements and the adoption of renewable energy sources across different Wesfarmers businesses. The conclusion underscores the significance of sustainability for long-term business success, summarizing the key aspects of Wesfarmers' approach to environmental and social responsibility.

SUSTAINABILITY REPORT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Vision and Mission.................................................................................................................3
Governance mechanism..........................................................................................................3
Guidelines...............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Sustainability is defined as the ability of to maintain anything at a particular level. In this
competitive world it is very necessary for companies to maintain sustainability because of
intense competition the resources are used to a large extent but the resources are very scarce.
Therefore, it is very necessary for companies to maintain sustainability. For the present report the
chosen company is Wesfarmers (Jenkins, Annandale and Morrison-Saunders, 2003).
It is a conglomerate company which is headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. This
company was founded in 1914 as a cooperative which provides merchandise and services to
Western Australia. The report will outline the vision and mission relating to sustainability.
Further it will discuss the governance mechanism used to address sustainability. At last some
guidelines will be highlighted in implementing environment and social performance.
MAIN BODY
Vision and Mission
Vision
We aim to achieve satisfactory return for the shareholders by looking after our employees and
providing them with safe working environment and also taking care of the needs of customers
and taking care of the environment and to make sure that the activities of our company are safe
for environment (Wesfarmers Sustainability report 2018, 2018).
Mission
 To reduce the emission intensity of the business and to improve the climate change
resilience especially focusing on energy efficiency.
 To maintain good corporate governance policies for maintaining the level of
environment.
 We strive to reduce the waste of landfill and water use wherever it is possible to reduce.
With all the mission and vision, it is clear that the company focuses on the sustainability
as it is evident from the mission of company that it focuses on every stakeholder of the company
and the environment as well.
Governance mechanism
The company is very committed in providing satisfactory returns to all of its stakeholders
by fulfilling its corporate responsibilities and obligation towards all of its stakeholders and the

environment. For addressing the issue of sustainability, the things which Board of members can
do are as follows-
 The board’s role is to provide for the approval on the strategic actions which are taken on
order to improve the working of the company in favour of environment protection and
development (Frey, Iraldo and Melis, 2008).
 The board aims at protecting and improvising the interest of all the shareholders and
other stakeholders by working in direction of their needs fulfilment and protection of the
environment.
 The managing director is responsible for managing the day- to- day operations of the
company. It is done because of the reason that this looking over the work by the director
will motivate the employees to work hard and with more effectiveness and productivity.
 Another work of the board of directors under governance mechanism is to review all the
policies and strategies relating with the corporate governance and whether the company is
following all the principle properly or not. One more role of the board of directors is that they have to review all the business
operations and the different plans made in accordance with the changes taking place
within the business environment. The board must also make some risk mitigation measures which can be used at time if the
risk occurs. This will help the company because the risk occurs unknowingly and if the
company has some plan in advance then it will help the company as it does not have to
waste time in thinking what to do. They just have the plan ready with them which they
just have execute (Simnett, Vanstraelen and Chua, 2009).
Guidelines
There are many guidelines set for the company to be followed for fulfilling the needs and
requirements of the company in context with different stakeholders of the company and most
importantly the environment. The company proactively participates in managing the risk related
with the climate change as it affects the business to a large extent.
 Wesfarmers support the recommendations of Task Force on Climate related Financial
Disclosures (TCFD).
 Also, there is a lot of emission of green house gases directly and indirectly from the
industrial business and also emission of other gases and diesel and fugitive emissions

from the coal mining. Therefore, for managing these emissions with help of many
initiatives like adaption of technological advancements and use of energy efficient
initiatives to be used by the company.
 As a result of the use of energy efficient initiatives and technology advancement there has
been a reduction in these emissions by 6 % as compared to the last year emission.
 Also, the different business of Wesfarmers has individually set different targets to reduce
the emission of green house gases. Like Bunnings has set to accelerate the energy
reduction with help of more renewable energy installation and lighting efficiencies and
for this it will use 25 solar PV system and install 19 LED retrofit in year 2019.
 Another business that is Coles has set the target of reducing its greenhouse gas emission
by 30 % till the year 2020 (Williams, Wilmshurst and Clift, 2011).
 The departmental store that is Kmart has set the target of reduction of 20 % energy per
square metre till December 2020.
CONCLUSION
With the analysis of the whole report on sustainability it is concluded that maintaining
sustainability is very essential for a business to exist for a long and in profitable manner. The
report started by outlining the vision and mission of Wesfarmers in respect of sustainability. The
vision comprised of focusing on fulfilling the needs and requirement of every stakeholder of the
company and also a major focus was led on environment and sustainability of the environment.
Further the assignment outlined the governance mechanism which the board of directors use
to address the issue of sustainability such as monitoring and evaluating the strategies used for
corporate governance and many other governance mechanisms. In the end some of the guidelines
were highlighted in order to maintain the environmental and social performance of the business
such as setting up of some targets, compliance with some standards and many other related
factors.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Jenkins, B., Annandale, D. and Morrison-Saunders, A., 2003. The evolution of a sustainability
assessment strategy for Western Australia. Environmental and Planning Law
Journal. 20(1). pp.56-65.
Simnett, R., Vanstraelen, A. and Chua, W.F., 2009. Assurance on sustainability reports: An
international comparison. The accounting review. 84(3). pp.937-967.
Frey, M., Iraldo, F. and Melis, M., 2008. The impact of wide-scale sport events on local
development: An assessment of the XXth Torino Olympics through the sustainability
report. Available at SSRN 1117967.
Williams, B., Wilmshurst, T. and Clift, R., 2011, September. Sustainability reporting by local
government in Australia: Current and future prospects. In Accounting Forum (Vol. 35,
No. 3, pp. 176-186). Taylor & Francis.
Online
Wesfarmers Sustainability report 2018. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/media/2467/sustainability_website_2018.pdf >