Analyzing Sustainable Engineering Practices: Haigh's Chocolates Report

This report critically examines the sustainable engineering practices, specifically focusing on the green supply chain management at Haigh’s Chocolates. The report begins with an introduction that provides the nature, historical, current, and future context of the case study. The objective is to analyze Haigh’s Chocolates’ green practices against critical success factors such as quality of human resources, government support, top management commitment, and customer awareness. The analysis reveals strengths and weaknesses in Haigh’s practices, highlighting employee engagement, top management’s commitment to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and the use of recyclable materials. However, it also identifies areas for improvement, such as the need for enhanced marketing communication and the elimination of plastics. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of these factors for effective green supply chain management and offers recommendations for improvement, providing a comprehensive overview of Haigh’s Chocolates’ sustainability efforts and their alignment with sustainable engineering principles. The report finds that the green supply chain management at Haigh’ lacks an incorporation with sustainable engineering concepts and practices.

Running head: SUSTAINABLE ENGINEERING PRACTICES
Assignment 3 - Current Trends and Solutions using Sustainable Engineering Practices
[Haigh's Chocolates]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Executive summary
This study is aimed at analysing sustainable engineering practice at Haigh’s Chocolates. The area
to review is being chosen as the green supply chain management at Haigh’s. It is being critically
analysed against a set of critical success factors for the green supply chain management. The
report finds that the green supply chain management at Haigh’ lacks an incorporation with
sustainable engineering concepts and practices.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Objective....................................................................................................................................4
3.0 Sustainability factors.................................................................................................................4
4.0 Summary....................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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1.0 Introduction
The report critically examines the chosen case study on the basis of range of articles on
sustainable engineering practices like the green supply chain management. The chosen case
study reports on environmental sustainability practices by Haigh's Chocolates. The chosen
subject area to be critically analysed is “Green Supply Chain Management”. According to the
chosen case study, Haigh's Chocolates appears to be involved in green schemes to attain business
sustainability.
The nature of the case study as evident from the report is about applying green schemes
to everything that are a part of the supply chain operations of Haigh’s. It includes but not limited
to like packaging of products, recycling process and so on. There are historical, current and
future contexts attached with the green supply chain management. These days operating just for
the sake of revenues no longer exist. It has largely been replaced by operating in the context of
society, economic and environmental development. There are examples that show how few
reputed firms have faced criticism for their ignorance to environmental development. Nestle for
anti-deforestation, Nike for child labour and so on (Gong et al. 2018). As a result, sustainable
business practices across the global firms is now increasingly growing. Indeed, integrated
reporting (IR) framework is increasingly becoming a part of worldwide firms (Camilleri 2018).
The future of sustainable practice will see range of engineering technologies coming to the
existence. These technologies will be used by worldwide firms to help their business attain
sustainability.
The main purpose of this assignment is to critically analyse the green supply chain
management practices at Haigh’s Chocolates. The sustainable practices are being analysed

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against a range of scholarly articles on sustainable engineering or the green supply chain
management practices.
2.0 Objective
The main objective of this report is to critically analyse the green supply chain practices
at Haigh’s Chocolates. The objective is being served by evaluating green practices in the case
study company against a set of critical success factors of the green supply chain management.
The critical success factors to be considered for this report are ‘Quality of Human Resources’,
‘Government Support System’, ‘Top Management Commitment’ and ‘Unawareness of
customers’ (Dou, Zhu and Sarkis 2018).
3.0 Sustainability factors
In this section of the report, a critical analysis of the green practices at Haigh’s
Chocolates is being done by evaluating these practices against a set of chosen factors. These
factors are critical success factors for a green supply chain management.
Analysis against set of chosen factors: -
Quality of Human Resources
Human resource management has an important role to play in ensuring a sustainable
green practice. This also holds true in context to Haigh’s Chocolates. An adherence to the green
supply chain management is hard to happen until the different related tasks are allocated to the
right people. Task allocation does not have a direct of the human resource management.
However, they are a part of task allocation team and are responsible also for communicating and
letting people reach to their concern departments. Hence, the quality of HRM at Haigh’s will be

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considered to have done a great job if it was able to communicate and facilitate activities related
to green schemes.
Haigh’s is fortunate to have staffs who are highly dedicated and involved as well. It is
always beneficial to have such staffs in the company. As observed by Darmawan and Sinaga
(2018), employees are a valuable asset to any organization. The article further says that
employees must be nurtured and retained to reduce the rate of attrition and enhance employee
engagement. Employee engagement as according to Abdolshah, Khatibi and Moghimi (2018) is
a storehouse of creative thoughts. The human resource management at Haigh’s has been able to
enhance employee engagement. It is evident in the range of works that staffs are involved into.
Appropriately dealing with suppliers is one of the most critical tasks to conduct. Suppliers will
rarely say that their materials are defective. Indeed, it is the responsibility of the buyer firm to
ensure that everything is in appropriate place. To do so it needs to have staffs who are heartedly
dedicated to their job responsibilities. This is where Haigh’s performs better. Haigh’s has staffs
who cautiously check products being shipped from suppliers. Staffs ensure a close look at the
packaging. In addition, suppliers are also being instructed for introducing new methods to lessen
the waste. There are instances when some packaging is resend to suppliers, so that, these can be
used for recycling.
It has already been identified from above two paragraphs that human resource
management has an essential role to play in ensuring the green supply chain management at
Haigh’s. The HRM has been dealing effectively with employees. Consequently, employee
engagement is pretty good in the company. However, the HR manager must have a few meetings
with the top management team at Haigh’s. The agenda of the meeting should be enhancing its
capability in marketing communication. A collaboration between top management and the HRM

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would result in identifying suitable techniques to be adopted to rejuvenate the marketing
communication (Stokes et al. 2018).
Government Support System
The national government is committed to support business with sustainable practices both
verbally and in written forms. It is evident from range of advertisements, which are given
permissions to be broadcasted on Television during popular daily soaps or any events. It is also
evident from their policy making. The government has some strict legal policy to promote the
sustainable business practice. A business is often and so criticised from the national government
and are also being forced to face the strict legal actions when it go against the sustainable
practices. These all indicate that the national government is seriously committed to
environmental wellbeing. However, few of their actions do not go in line with what they have
said both verbally and in written. Instead of discouraging the imports of cheap materials from
outside the country the government is more focused on a hike in the tax rates of imported items
(Feng et al. 2018). This is not probably the best way to stop cheap materials form coming to
Australia. It is because the move will also affect those manufacturers that source quality
materials from around the globe. For example, Haigh’s Chocolates has the UTZ Certification and
source 70% of the beans from only the UTZ certified farms (Haighschocolates.com.au 2019).
Now, in such situation the increased tax will affect the pricing of chocolates that are healthy. The
move may also discourage employers such as Haigh’s to stop offering quality products at
cheaper rates. This will eventually impact its business strategy and will be needed to realign with
middle to higher income groups. Hence, there can be significant reduction in the volume sales of
Haigh’s dark chocolates. The accessibility rate to dark chocolates will also decrease for the low-

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income groups (Young et al. 2018). Overall, this is nothing but discouraging the production of
healthy chocolates in the name of tax.
Top Management Commitment
Leadership according to Ma and Seidl (2018) is essential to inspire excellence in work.
Leaders know what to do in different situation. They are self-motivated and motivate others to
work in favour of the organizational goals. They have capabilities to sense the needs to undergo
the change. Leaders in collaboration with the HR managers analyse the different operating
domains in the company. Such activities help to identify areas that are underperforming. Until
and unless leaders are involved into analysing the company’s overall performance they won’t
arrive to the solution. These are some of the reasons why leadership or top management
commitment is essential to conduct the green supply chain management.
In context to Haigh’ Chocolates, the leadership in the company appears to be on the
target with respect to new operations goal. They seem like being aware of the importance of
executing the green supply chain management. This is why they have initiated a range of
programs to ensure that Haigh’s is practicing the green supply chain. One of such moves is the
philosophy that the leaders follow for packaging. They are always intended at reduce, reuse and
recycle till the moment it is possible. Haigh’s is also the first company to sign for the Australian
Packaging Covenant (Haighschocolates.com.au 2019). However, the effectiveness of the move
will depend on the quantity of items being enrolled for recycle and reuse. As argued by
Mathivathanan, Kannan and Haq (2018), conducting a recycle program is largely ineffective till
the moment it happens on a larger platform. Indeed, this is truly a very good initiative being
adopted by leaders at Haigh’s; however, the success will lot depend on how it actually turns out
in long-term.

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The use of 100% recyclable items as claimed by Haigh’s is another notable feat towards
maintaining a green supply chain management. It shows utilisation of latest and emerging
engineering works by Haigh’s leaders. For example, it is being instructed by leaders to use glass,
cardboard boxes, gift wrapping paper and cardboard boxes made up of materials that are 100%
recyclable. Plastics are placed in plastic bin while the shrink wrap is send to recycled products
manufacturer (Haighschocolates.com.au 2019). However, plastics can never be biodegraded, it
rather breaks down into smaller pieces. It means that if Haigh’s leaders are committed to deliver
on the green supply chain management, they must get rid of using plastics and find its best
alternative. The use of printers using vegetable-based inks is though a good move considering
that this will not emit carbon. This is also environmentally certified.
Unawareness of customers
This is perhaps a major area of concern for Haigh’s in regards to maintaining its green
supply chain. Customers are not generally aware of facts like chocolates can even be beneficial
to the health. However, this is true. Dark chocolates are contained with ingredients, which are
beneficial to health (Cantini et al. 2018). Unawareness to customers in regards to dark chocolates
require extensive marketing stuffs in variety of forms. A range of marketing channels is needed
to be used to make people aware of the health benefits of dark chocolates. As opined by Chernev
(2018), effective promotion of products can also encourage impulse buying.
In context to Haigh’s Chocolates, this can be said that the company has an extensive
marketing reach. It is already into a variety of marketing channels such as Television
advertisements. The company makes a portion of its revenues directly from selling satellite
rights. However, the fact that the company is aimed at maintaining and retaining the green
supply chain operations, additional efforts will also be required. Additional efforts mean

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including a range of more marketing techniques. With regards to marketing communication,
public relationship (PR) events can be organised. Such events full of opportunities and provide a
real-time interaction with the media and viewers. Moreover, apart from magazine advertisement
PR events are effective ways to be descriptive while explaining the products and the changes
being introduced to it. It gives opportunity to media and the viewers as well. They can ask
number of questions, which will only enhance their knowledge of the product. Moreover, when
such events will be covered in popular daily newspapers or at any compatible platform will make
some sense for the purpose it serves (McCamley and Gilmore 2018).
4.0 Summary
To conclude, this can be said that Haigh’s Chocolates is involved into range of practices
to ensure the green supply chain management practices. The company’s leadership is able to
identify the areas to incorporate with sustainable engineering practices. This report has also
discussed a few of those areas. However, the green supply chain management at Haigh’s faces
some barriers as well. One of the barriers is strict government policy on imported items. Notably,
70% of the beans that Haigh’s use are imported. Additionally, recycling process is not also fully
incorporated with engineering practice. It clearly lacks the understanding of sustainable
engineering. For example, plastics management in the recycling programs of the company.
However, plastics cannot biodegrade. It is better not to use plastics than manage it.

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