Analysis Of The Sustainability Report Of Westfarmers

Sustainability is defined as the process of maintaining, enhancing and balancing the business environment.

Sustainability emerged as a component of corporate principles in response to supposed public dissatisfaction over the long-term harm caused by a focus on short-term profits. Sustainability should be managed by management sector of any business organization and if the business becomes successful to maintain sustainability then it will generate worth for all stakeholders.

The sustainability report of Westfarmer has undertaken various initiatives towards people, society, environment, economy and governance for making their business environment more sustainable. Some of the initiative which is undertaken by the management during the year 2016 and 2017 in order to compare the sustainability of Westfarmers Group is discussed below.

People Initiatives: Westfarmers has focused more to employee women in their company. In the year 2017, there are 54% of women and 46% of men in the company which used to be 55% women and 45% menas at 30 June 2016. The main motive of the company is to increase in the number of female at the workplace in order to increase opportunities for women. The overall number of women in manager or above roles was increased to 32% from 30% during the year 2017. Westfarmers employed more than 4,000 IT members.

Safety Initiatives: Westfarmers business has undertaken safety initiatives this year in order to provide safety awareness among the people and prevent them from the specific area of risk. In the year 2017, Westfarmers focus to provide safety at work place for the employees and also make arrangement for safety training program to their employees in order to reduce injury rate. This year the total recordable injury frequency rate decreased by 16% to 28.3% from 33.6%. However, total injury frequency rate was reduced by 15.2% from 39.4% to 33.4% in the year 2016.

Community Initiatives: Westfarmers being an Australian company always think for the welfare of the people so that the company tries to provide safe and standard product to their customers. Hence, Westfarmers contributes $73 million to community organization across Australia and New Zealand as direct funding as well as Westfarmers generates more than $68 billion as revenue during the year 2017. On the other hand, in the year 2016, $57.8 million has contributed by the selected company for the warfare of community (Sustainability report 2016 and 2017).

Environmental Initiatives: The initiatives of Westfarmers in term of environment are to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases from their operational activities and implementation of effective strategies during climate change. Climate change is regarded as one of the important matter for environmental and social sustainability concern which is related to the business.

The management of company identify the main reasons for climate change is because of human activity and to control such changes in climate Westfarmers has follow two strategies regarding recycling the waste and reuse the waste. In 2017, a company reduces in the use of water. They use approximately 6000 megalitre out of which 32% is recycled water at Curragh mine site. Similarly, Coles adopted a strategy of single use of plastic bags from all stores countrywide over the next year. In the year 2016, Westfarmers installed infrastructure in order to connect harvested water to Curragh’s industrial water system.

Personal Development Initiatives: Westfarmers gives more priority regarding personal development initiatives. In order to develop people a company has started to provide training and development program to all employees. In the year 2017 and 2016, Westfarmers provided different training including on- the job training, training to develop skills in technical fields, training for customer service and team work and leadership training. During the year 2017, 3,783 hours training is provided to their employees which are 32% more hours as compared to the last year.

Initiatives for Ethical Sourcing: Westfarmers always uphold good and strong relationship with their suppliers because it helps in enhancing the economy of a company which is beneficial to their stakeholders as well. Westfarmers have relationships with 18,000 suppliers during the year 2017. Similarly, a company has paid $46.4 billion to their suppliers. However, there was a relationship with more than 15,000 suppliers of Westfarmers in 2016 and a company paid $45.525 million to their suppliers.

Initiatives for Governance: Westfarmers company Board and Management Company duty is to provide a good direction and monitor to the management of Westfarmers to achieve a strategic plans and objectives. The Board’s responsibility is to defend the interest of the company as well as its stakeholders while the managing Director responsibility is to manage day to day operation of Westfarmers business.

Conclusion

Westfarmers is maintaining sustainability to their business undertaking new initiatives in terms of people, community, environment, ethical sourcing and so on. The total recordable injury frequency rate (TFIR) decreased by 16% in the year 2017, whereas TFIR reduced to 15.2% in 2016. It means there are improvements in the rate of injury.