Analysis of Woolworths' CSR Policies and Sustainable Strategies

This essay provides a detailed analysis of Woolworths' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies and sustainable strategies. It explores how Woolworths integrates sustainability into its business model, examining the company's initiatives related to environmental impact, social responsibility, and economic value creation. The essay investigates specific CSR activities, such as reducing plastic use, promoting diversity, reducing food waste, and supporting community programs. It evaluates the positive and negative impacts of these practices on the company, society, and the environment, referencing relevant academic literature and the company's sustainability reports. Furthermore, the essay suggests the application of a shared-value approach and triple bottom line accounting to enhance Woolworths' CSR efforts, improve business performance, and create win-win solutions for the company and its stakeholders. The analysis includes strengths and weaknesses of Woolworths' CSR practices and provides recommendations for improvement. This essay is a comprehensive overview of Woolworths' approach to sustainability and its impact on various aspects of its operations.

Fundamentals of management
9/25/2019

Fundamentals of management 1
CSR policies and sustainable strategies of Woolworth
Sustainability is considered as an approach to the management of the company that aims for
maximizing and creating long-term social, environmental, and economic value. Corporate social
responsibility is taken as a model that helps the company to be socially accountable to its
stakeholders and the public for their actions and adverse impact on society (Orlitzky et al. 2011).
Through CSR activities business can make a positive impact on the society and environment
while boosting own image in the market (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2014). The report aim is to
understand the concept of CSR activities and sustainable approaches and policies used by the
companies that positively affect the society and environment. To achieve an aim a company is
chosen that is Woolworths, this helps in knowing the benefits that society, shareholders and
economy are getting because of appropriate sustainable practices and CSR activities of the
company.
Woolworths Group is one of the leading players in Australia and founded in 1924. The leading
group support many other brands that are Big W, Countdown, and Dan Murphy's. The company
aims to create better experiences for their communities, their customers, and people by working
together. “People are at the heart of everything they do”. Woolworths believe in empathy,
harmony, and compassion amongst their employees. The company aim to develop a "strong
sense of belongingness towards its employees and strives to attain its organizational goals
through continuous teamwork" (Woolworths, 2019).
Every company have their own CSR policies and sustainable strategies of the Woolworths
Company and their influence on working of the business. An organization use resources of the
society to grow better and bigger, to maintain the balance and to seek sustainable development

Fundamentals of management 2
companies use CSR model (Montiel, 2008). CSR activities help the companies to be accountable
for their operations and actions on social grounds (Malovica et al. 2008). As per the
sustainability report, the CSR activities and sustainable policies of Woolworth are given below:
a) The CSR activities of the company revolve around "listening to the concern of customers
by taking a step to reduce the amount of plastic bags used in packaging in the
supermarket”.
b) The company use more sustainable products in its product range to reduce the adverse
impact on society.
c) The company promote cultural diversity by creating teams by providing a workplace that
allows the diversified culture for the overall betterment of the organization
d) The company is ensuring and taking initiatives to reduce food waste and for that launched
“responsible sourcing program”.
e) The company is also promoting gender equality by creating a culture that provides access
to the same opportunities and resources to each member working in the organization.
f) The company promoted the recruitment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander to reduce
the factor of inequality.
g) The company makes efforts for a program of the Zero Hunger for that they provide relief
to those who need with the help of the Foodbank.
h) Woolworths take steps for sustainable development in the field of seafood and animal
welfare and for that, the company believes that their role is not limited to avoid negative
impacts of activities but to promote activities that benefit society.
i) The main initiative that the company takes includes sourcing environment sustainable
commodities from making sustainable supply chains.

Fundamentals of management 3
Woolworths implemented various strategies that are formulated in the field of accelerating
transformation, to enhance the environmental focus, addressing climate change, and providing
innovative services and products to the customer (Devin & Richards, 2018). Woolworths framed
strategies to focus on the lighting, temperature, refrigeration and to reduce the amount of energy
consumption. Briefly, the company is making a positive impact on the economy, society, and
environment through its different sustainable policies and initiatives. CSR activities have
negative as well as a positive impact on the company as CSR helps in reducing the gap between
customers and corporations and create a bond of trust with society (Baumgartner, 2014). Further,
CSR policies help the company to enhance employee’s productivity and aim to satisfy the
individual as well as corporate needs and elaborate the self-image. On other side, CSR activities
also negatively impact the company by reducing the productivity and efficiency of employees as
more investment by the company in CSR activities reduce the morale of employees and divert
their efforts towards the development of society. The negative impact of CSR can be also seen
on the investors as because of CSR activities the company is not able to maximize the profit or
invested lot of amount in sustainable practices and policies this will directly influence the
earning of shareholders (Shaw & Shaw, 2019).
Every CSR practice involves some strength and weakness that leads to the success and failure of
the sustainable policies. Some of these strength and weakness in relation to the Woolworths
company has been discussed. CSR activities of Woolworths prove to be beneficial for the
company as it has a great impact on the environment, the initiatives that company take to ensure
energy management, reduce plastic use and to promote equality, and diversity in the
organizational culture. This improves the image of the company in the market and helps them to
take an edge over its competitors. Further CSR activities help Woolworths to retain potential

Fundamentals of management 4
employees in the company by creating and developing the culture and policies for a positive
working environment. Ensure good corporate governance and attract more investors towards the
company. The weaknesses of the CSR initiatives of Woolworth is that the company profit is
mainly shifted to the development of society and more CSR activities will hamper the company
image and might reduce the sales of the company. Woolworth huge investment in CSR activities
will increase the expenditure of the company and affect the balance sheet (Methner et al. 2015).
The sustainable business practices of Woolworths prove to be successful for the company. Some
strategies prove to be impactful for the business whereas some hurt the company and society.
The company-formulate strategies for customer satisfaction, responsible marketing, and local
community engagement, fresh and safe food; reduce food waste, sustainable sourcing, labelling
and product information, food security and carbon emissions. The initiatives taken by the
company directly affect the community as in 2019 the company donated $14.8million as cash
donation and overall contributed an average of 1.40% of EBIT. Further, the success of its
sustainable practices can be measured by analyzing the goal achieved by the company in the year
2019; inclusion of its refrigeration management policy company reduced 11% gas leakage that
contributes in the reduction of carbon emission in the global environment. Climate change
strategy of the company also proved to be successful as the company exceeded its goal and
reduced 18% of consumption. The plastic reduction policy of the company is also successful as
in last year, 3 billion single plastic bags removed from their supermarkets. Therefore, it can be
said that somehow the CSR activities are the strength of the company and sustainable practices
and policies contributed positively and prove to be successful in developing a positive impact on
the environment, economy and society (Woolworths, 2019).

Fundamentals of management 5
In the current world, it is essential that company should follow the shared-value approach for
their sustainable business practice. Shared value approach is one of the management strategies
that majorly focus on the business that form the measurable value by determining and
acknowledging the issues. These issues are related to social factors, which are required to attain
by business (Maltz & Schein, 2012). It is examined that business case for corporate social
responsibility is exploring the new ways that help the companies to extract value and tangible
advantages through their programs related to CSR. As per the view of Porter & Kramer, (2019),
successful and meaningful CSR programme now includes more involvement between partners
and corporate that is essential to form a relationship of the company and a shared understanding
of everyone who needs and values. Considering the CSR activities of the company, it is
suggested to the company to apply the shared value approach as it might help the company to
produce win-win solutions.
Shared –value approach allows the company to determine and expand the connections among the
social/environmental and economic progress. The principles of the shared value that helps the
company include -
Initial principle includes redefining the products and services who are offering equivalence with
the underserviced social as well as environmental needs. Woolworths Company provides the
products and services that can meet the needs of the society in the market when the company
provides it at the lower prices. The value of company includes maintaining its sustainability
within the environment. The shared-value approach will make the Woolworths Company form
the partnership with company to provide hunger relief to people who are in need.

Fundamentals of management 6
Second principle is optimizing the value chain by acknowledging the issues that lead to cost
efficiency, higher productivity, improved quality, and satisfaction of stakeholders. The value of
the company majorly involves the sourcing which is becoming an issue because farmers are not
equipped with proper tools and do not have any proper ways to provide the food in market. The
company should adopt the shared value approach that will help company to focus on best
practice compliance program for the farmers and provide them additional services that include a
donation to local farmers, new ways of the organic product with use of technology, and many
others. Effective technology and organic products can contribute to improve quality and
productivity. This also meets social needs, as people are becoming health conscious due to which
they want healthy choices. Thus, the company should apply shared-value approach as will make
the company win the hearts of people by accomplishing their needs.
Third principle includes allow the local cluster development related to the social and
environmental issues that lead to the competitive orientation towards the collaborative, inclusion,
participative and outward orientation. The growing environment issues are due to working of
Woolworths. They should enhance recyclability of their brand packaging and contribute to
circular economy that helps business to bring the development in terms of the environment.
Woolworths Company should follow the approach of Zero food water that is going to help for
the landfill. This will help the Woolworths Company to form the win-win solution towards the
environment.
Fourth dimension is linked to reporting and metrics. The shared-value approach includes the
businesses design metrics and evaluates the performance by the socio-economic outcomes. The
development in society in terms of social and environmental needs is metrics that show that
Woolworth's company has taken the proper initiative or not. Financial performance is one of the

Fundamentals of management 7
major metrics that is considered by the company to measure the shared-value approach related to
CSR. The shared value approach in the CSR of the company will contribute effectively to
improve business of the company as people get attracted to the company because of their good
work.
Triple bottom line; the approach of the triple bottom line is one of the accounting frameworks
that include the three parts that are social, environmental, and financial (Alhaddi, 2015). The
triple bottom line assessment of performance might help the Woolworths Company to bring the
change in the approach to production or the natural resource extraction. The theory of triple
bottom line includes the three P that are people, planet and profit. These P are discussed below: -
People: - People element of triple bottom line includes the employees who work for the
company and leads to sustainability. Woolworths Company analyses the people in which they
check employee engagement for the CSR and diversity and inclusion. The evaluation of talented
employees has been a company wants to know their employees (Wilson, 2015). Woolworth’s
company will get the assistance, as they will know that their employees are aware of the triple
bottom line from the theory to reality or not. Company will evaluate that their employees are
equipped with specialized knowledge of environmental science, economics and accounting as
well as leadership skills. This will allow the company to use system thinking that contributes to
the company while making strategic decisions.
Planet: - Plant is an important element of the triple bottom line that shows that the companies
are willing to decline the ecological footprint, as it is possible or not (Miemczyk & Luzzini,
2019). The assessment of the planet will help the company to bring the changes in their approach
towards the sustainability of the Woolworths. The assessment of the Woolworths sustainable

Fundamentals of management 8
supply chain reflects the true picture of the company sourcing that can improve, as it will
contribute to improve the value for the stakeholders. The improvement in the supply chain
management of the company will affect the customers, employees, society and other elements
(Woolworths, 2018). In addition to this, waste and packaging analysis helps the company to
bring new strategies that can reduce the waste and improve the sustainability practice towards the
environment. The climate risk is essential to assess for Woolworths Company, as it will lead to
an impact on operations that are required to manage.
Profit: - Financial profitability is an essential element of the business, which is assess by the
company with the help of a triple bottom line. The assessment of profit will show the major
elements that contribute to improve it. The corporate conduct and ethics, trust, responsible
sourcing, community engagement, third party relationship and any others are the major elements
(Hussain, Rigoni & Orij, 2018). The analysis of the profitability might lead to changes, a
company will get to know that they can earn an adequate profit or not. If in case the results of the
assessment were not in the favour of the company then there is a need to take the required steps
by the company for bringing the changes within the environment.
In the end, CSR activity is one of the essential activities that are performed by every company.
The report includes the findings related to the CSR activities of the Woolworth Company in the
Australian market. This activity of the company makes them responsible enough to become
liable for the different operations and actions for the society and environment. There are different
activities that are performed by the company are discussed. Along with this, the company has a
wide range of the policies that help the company to conduct an activity of their business
operations. The company has attempted to work for the benefit of company, which include
employment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; company launched Zero Hunger, they

Fundamentals of management 9
work for gender equality and maintain the diversity. Further, it has been found that Woolworths
CSR strength and weakness has been discussed. In addition, failure of sustainable policies has
been analysed. The report shows that the shared-value approach has been suggested to the
Woolworths Company. This is explained with the help of the real-life example based on the
company. In addition, the triple bottom line approach has been explained which evaluate the
performance of the company and might contribute effectively in improving the operations and
actions of the company.

Fundamentals of management 10
References
Alhaddi, H, 2015, Triple bottom line and sustainability: A literature review. Business and
Management Studies, vol.1, no. 2, pp.6-10.
Baumgartner, RJ, 2014, Managing corporate sustainability and CSR: A conceptual framework
combining values, strategies and instruments contributing to sustainable development. Corporate
Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, vol. 21, no. 4, pp.258-271.
Devin, B and Richards, C, 2018, Food waste, power, and corporate social responsibility in the
Australian food supply chain. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 150, no. 1, pp.199-210.
Font, X, Guix, M & Bonilla-Priego, MJ, 2016, Corporate social responsibility in cruising: Using
materiality analysis to create shared value. Tourism Management, vol. 453, pp.175-186.
Hussain, N, Rigoni, U & Orij, RP, 2018, Corporate governance and sustainability performance:
Analysis of triple bottom line performance. Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 149, no. 2, pp.411-
432.
Málovics, G, Csigéné, NN and Kraus, S, 2008, The role of corporate social responsibility in
strong sustainability. The Journal of Socio-Economics, vol. 37, no. 3, pp.907-918.
Maltz, E & Schein, S, 2012. Cultivating shared value initiatives: a three Cs approach. Journal of
Corporate Citizenship, vol. 47, pp.55-74.
Methner, N, Hamann, R and Nilsson, W, 2015, The evolution of a sustainability leader: The
development of strategic and boundary spanning organizational innovation capabilities in

Fundamentals of management 11
Woolworths. In The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation (pp. 87-104). Springer,
Cham.
Miemczyk, J & Luzzini, D, 2019, Achieving triple bottom line sustainability in supply chains:
The role of environmental, social and risk assessment practices. International Journal of
Operations & Production Management, vol. 39, no. 2, pp.238-259.
Montiel, I, 2008, Corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability: Separate pasts,
common futures. Organization & Environment, vol. 21, no. 3, pp.245-269.
Orlitzky, M, Siegel, DS & Waldman, DA, 2011. Strategic corporate social responsibility and
environmental sustainability. Business & society, vol. 50, no. 1, pp.6-27.
Porter, ME & Kramer, MR, 2019. Creating shared value. In Managing sustainable business (pp.
323-346). Springer, Dordrecht.
Shaw, HJ & Shaw, JJ, 2019, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Justice and the Global
Food Supply Chain: Towards an Ethical Food Policy for Sustainable Supermarkets. Routledge.
Wilson, JP, 2015, The triple bottom line: Undertaking an economic, social, and environmental
retail sustainability strategy. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, vol.
43, no. 4/5, pp.432-447.
Woolworths, 2018, Woolworths Group sustainability report. Viewed on 25th September 2019,
<https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/195398_2018-sustainability-report.pdf>
Woolworths, 2019, Woolworths Group sustainability report. Viewed on 25th September 2019,
<https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/195583_2019-sustainability-report.pdf>