Comparative Analysis of Sustainability Reports: Tata Steel & Amazon

This report provides a comparative analysis of the sustainability reports of Tata Steel and Amazon, focusing on their approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The introduction provides an overview of the purpose of the report and thesis statement, setting the stage for the subsequent analysis. The report then delves into detailed overviews of both companies, examining their business operations, and sustainability initiatives. The analysis includes a comparison of the reports based on completeness and credibility, evaluating the extent and reliability of the information presented. The report critically compares the two sustainability reports, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses in areas such as environmental impact, social responsibility, and stakeholder engagement. Finally, the report offers recommendations for improvement and concludes with a summary of the key findings and insights gained from the comparative analysis. The assignment is a report that critiques and compares two corporate sustainability reports, Tata Steel and Amazon, based on specific criteria and provides recommendations for improvements.

Running Head: SUSTAINABILITY OF THE FIRMS
Sustainability of the firms
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
1.1. Introduction...............................................................................................................................2
Choose and give an overview of two corporate sustainability reports?......................................2
2.1. Discussion.................................................................................................................................2
What company does?...................................................................................................................2
Define the criteria on which you will compare your two chosen sustainability reports?............5
Completeness:..........................................................................................................................5
Credibility:...............................................................................................................................7
Critically compare your two chosen sustainability reports?........................................................8
3.1. Recommendations...................................................................................................................20
4.1. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................21
References......................................................................................................................................23

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1.1. Introduction
Tata Steel:
According to the official website (Tatasteel.com, 2019), it was formerly known as the
Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO). It is a multinational steel producing company
that operates within many parts of the world. It is a subsidiary of the Tata group. It has a number
of manufacturing unit located within the 26 different countries of the world. The different
country ranges from Australia, China, India, the Netherlands, Singapore, Thailand and, the
United Kingdom. It employs about a total number of 80,500 people. Besides, it is ranked as
486th within the era of the year 2014, as per the Fortune Global 500 ranking of the world's
biggest corporations.
Amazon:
According to the official website of (aboutamazon.com, 2019), It is a multinational
company that has office in several parts of the country. On the other hand the brand Amazon
operates on e-commerce platform which is a trendy business concept in the present era of the
year 2019. It is an American based multinational technology company that is based in Seattle,
Washington that focuses primarily upon the e-commerce, cloud computing, and artificial
intelligence. It was in the era of July 5, 1994 that the brand came into existence, it was founded
by Jeff Bezos. In the beginning of this business it was a bookstore and then it began to transform
into an innovative store. It is one of the largest internet company as compared to revenue within
the world. It is the second largest employer within the region of the United – States.
2.1. Discussion
What company does?
Tata Steel:

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Tata Steel is addressed as one of the world's largest steel manufacturing company which
produces approximately 27.5 million tonnes per annum (MnTPA). This figures as on 31 March
2017. Speaking about the business operation of the company it is a diversified steel producer
with major operations carried out within the region of Europe and Asia. The company has
manufacturing units which are located within the 26 countries and a commercial presence in over
50 countries. Besides, it is the second largest steel producer within the region of Europe with a
crude steel production capacity of over 12.1 million tonnes per annum (Tatasteeleurope.com,
2019).
Amazon:
Its services ranges from households products, clothing’s, utilities, utensils, and electrical
appliances, and much more. In the previous era of the year 1994, it was an online book store.
Moreover, its services ranges from such as that of to sell video downloads/streaming, MP3
downloads/streaming, audiobook downloads/streaming, software, video-games, electronics,
apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewellery. It also owns a separate online book store known as
the APub. This unit was launched in the era of the year 2009. However, the brand publishes its e-
books through means of Amazon Kindle (aboutamazon.com, 2019).

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Define the criteria on which you will compare your two chosen sustainability reports?
Completeness:
Tata Steel- On the proper evaluation of the sustainability report it was observed that the
majority of the information and data was not accurately cited within the indicators of the EC11,
EN10, EN11, EN22, EN 35, HR 2, HR 14, and LA 7. However, there are some proportions of
data, but they fail to depict out information’s in fair nature (tatasteel.com, 2019).
The sustainability report in practical nature is only regarding the Global Reporting Initiatives
Guidelines of 2002, on the preparation of the Corporate Sustainability Report. Speaking about
the security of the company the internal control and management systems are designed and
framed as such on one of the best model, and the quality of ISO is also undertaken based upon
the quality and environment management system. In practical the established data collection,
collation, and interpretation processes provide the basis for credible reporting of performance.
Speaking in terms of the guidance and supervision it is provided by the Directors on the
Board, Dy. Managing Director (Steel) and Dy. Managing Director (Corporate Services) they are
the qualitative body that keeps the entire focus align in track with the formulated business plan.
This authority body is reported and made aware of the ongoing business activities regarding the
sustainability effort, and also how the business is addressing the concerns and expectations of the
stakeholders.
The management has, on the other hand, stated commitment to progressively ensure
uniformity in reporting entity, and period across all indicators in subsequent reports. This is
apparent from the consistent coverage of this report over the previous report, for most of the
indicators. Besides, the concerning brand Tata Steel has made use of and adopted several

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measures to encourage adoption of sustainability principles across its supply chain. These
include mandatory disclosure by suppliers, Supplier Transformation Process, Vendor Bank
Financing, Online Acknowledgement of Tata Code of Conduct, etc. (Guthrie et al., 2016).
Amazon- Amazon claims that they operate to minimize the carbon emissions. They make efforts
for the achievement of their vision, they aim at optimizing the transportation network, improving
product packaging in order to drive efficiency within the distribution of products, implementing
energy efficiency precautions within the operations, and making use of the renewable sources of
energy in order to effectively operate the concerning business unit. They put more of the efforts
by making joint partnership with that of the other industries with regard to partnerships in order
to express support for action on climate change and to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon
economy.
However, Amazon has clearly declared that they support and promote initiatives and
programs that effectively contribute towards the impact of the climatic change within our planet.
It was in the early era of the year 2015, that Amazon expressed their feelings and efforts by
supporting the visionary programme within the region of the Paris, the programme is addressed
as the Paris Climate negotiations. In the early era of the year 2016, we filed an Amicus brief in
concern with that of the Google, Microsoft, and Apple which detailed our support for policies
that support renewable energy (aboutamazon.com, 2019).
As of the year of December 2018, the concerning brand Amazon make use of the solar
energy systems on an about 43 fulfillment facility rooftops worldwide. This solar system has the
potential to generate about 70 megawatts (MW) of power. Amazon has setup an objective with
the vision to host solar energy systems at a minimum of 50 fulfillment network buildings by the

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year of 2020. However, it was in the year of 2016, and within the month of September that the
concerning brand Amazon announced Amazon Wind Farm Texas, a new 253-megawatt (MW)
wind farm in Scurry County named as Texas, it is believed that it has the potential to generate
about 1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy on an annually basis. AWS focuses on
energy efficiency & continuous innovation within the data centers. Moreover, the concerning
brand claims that within the long-term planning the firm will make use of the only 100%
renewable sources of energy for the sole purpose of the global infrastructure.
Credibility:
Tata Steel- Speaking in terms of the concerning firm, Integrated Annual Sustainability
Report represents the value creation story of Tata Steel firm among all the stakeholders.
Moreover, it discloses to Robeco SAM DJSI Corporate Sustainability Assessment. On the other
hand, it also outlays the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) disclosure for Climate Change and
Water. It makes use of the WorldSteel data collection exercise. It also undertakes the
communication of progress to UNGC within the ten principals of Sustainability. It depicts out
the environment compliance reports. Besides, it also initiates the Carbon Disclosure Project
(CDP). There are other statutory disclosures as per the companies act, 2013 and SEBI regulations
(Benn et al., 2018).
Amazon- In the previous year of 2018, the concerning brand Amazon claimed that it has
reach the halfway o their visionary aim. They supported their statement by bringing out that nine
active projects which are listed among the Amazon Web Services sustainability page, this set of
the Amazon Web Services sustainability page aims to deliver more than 2 million megawatt-
hours of electricity. This includes the wind farm where the top authority body CEO, Jeff Bezos

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carried out some of the champagne bottle smashing in the era of the early period of October
2017. However, within the concerning year it has recorded about 5 Gig-watts of corporate power
purchase agreements (PPAs) for solar and wind. On the other hand taking into consideration of
their report, the massive growth rate within its cloud platform business is estimated to be about
$18.2 billion in revenue for the time period of about nine months (aboutamazon.com, 2019).
However, technically speaking Amazon's goal was never restricted to time factor; it never
introduced a particular specific date when it would be using the only source of the renewable
sources of the energy. However, Amazon should understand that it is the time to rethink within
its capital investments in new data centers.
Focusing on the factor that the rival brands like that of the Microsoft and Google.
However, the renewable energy sourcing strategies has the potential to become a checklist item
for businesses looking for cloud service providers that can provide assurances that their data
centers aren’t powered by aging coal plants.
Critically compare your two chosen sustainability reports?
Tata Steel:
In terms of growth three aspects are considered they are as below,

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Figure: 3 drivers for growth
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
In terms of CSR and social responsibility towards the environment, the business firm is planning
to make use of the innovative raw-materials and equipment’s to carry out their business activities
to reduce the hazardous elements and gases into the society.

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Figure: value creation using services and solutions
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017
For Tata, continuous de-commoditization of steel has been the cornerstone of Tata-Steel
India branding journey.

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The business firm claims that to sustain within its consumer choices and preference
segment, they aim to provide product offering such as steel at a lower cost within the whole
world using greater operational efficiencies and business excellence. To achieve the operational
excellence, they make use of a long value chain spreading across the mining, iron-making, steel
making, casting, rolling, finishing, and delivering finished steel products to the end potential
customers. However, this is some of the aspects that makes the concerning firm a complex
business. However, it also offers various opportunities for undertaking improvement within the
value chain (Kopnina et al., 2018).
The primary main area of focus areas is acquiring a major proportion of the superior steel
properties, higher efficiency in iron ore & coal beneficiation, lower carbon rate in iron making,
optimized product mix, reducing waste generation, energy efficient processes, and higher
material utilization. To boost and accelerate the projects concerning excellence across the value

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chain within the era of the financial year 2015, various programs are launched such as that of the
Shikhar25 programme. This programme aims to seek and boost the improvement projects across
the value chain and attain their objective that is achieving the benchmark level while building
institutional capability. A total savings of 3,400 crores was acquired in the financial year of 2017
as a result of all improvement initiatives.
Figure: Operational excellence
Source: Sustainability report 2016 – 2017