Stakeholder groups addressed by Woolworths
In a highly competitive environment, the objective of business sustainability along with integrated reporting is high in all the business sectors (De Villiers, Rinaldi and Unerman 2014). In compliance with the sustainability reporting, important information can be collected regarding economic, social, environmental along with governance performance of selected companies. The current paper will focus on explaining the sustainability reports of two major organizations such as Westfield and Woolworths those are renowned retail organizations of Australia. It is also gathered that these two companies are developed their sustainability reports through abiding by the guidelines explained within the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards (Flower 2015).
Woolworths and Westfield companies are observed to publish the sustainability reports for some objectives that are explained below:
- Woolworths Company offers important information to all its external as well as internal stakeholders concerning several sustainability actions through abiding by the GRI standards (Jain and Winner 2016). Additionally, the company also makes sure that the success of its consumers on an international level. Through implementing GRI sustainability standards, the company has the opportunity or carrying out sustainable operation in a responsible and safe manner. Woolworths Company’s management considers sustainable reporting as an important and influential aspect that supports in development of extended term values for the internal and external stakeholders. Lastly, the company also abides by GRI reporting because of the reason that it needs to develop values associated with safety, trust, respect, excellence and reliability (James 2015).
- Westfield Company is associated with offering GRI reports with an intention of attaining exceptional standards in the areas of safety, environment management, rigidness, effectiveness, governance and safety. In addition, the company offers GRI reporting to offer affirmative community and environmental results (Kaspereit and Lopatta 2016). For this reason, it intends to consider numerous sustainability concerns of business in accordance with four important segments. This encompass responsible business conducts, economic development along with safety maintenance in the organization.
Woolworths is observed to have an important stakeholder group that are explained within the sustainability report of the company in the year 2017. The major stakeholder group includes the contractors and the staff and they require following sustainability report in attaining a viewpoint of leadership framework and its management performance as well as the overall growth opportunities (Kräusche and Pilz 2018). Another stakeholder group of Woolworths includes its consumers as well as clients. For this stakeholder group sustainability report is vital as they focus on attaining necessary data regarding costs, performance as well as sustainability of organizational products. Shareholders and the investment communities are another important stakeholder group of Woolworths as they focus on attaining information concerning business performance, strategy implementation and company governance. The local residents and the society are otherf stakeholders those desire to attain relevant information on employment opportunity, business operation effects along with economic and social along with economic contributions (Manetti and Bellucci 2016). Lastly, government is another vital stakeholder for Westfield and Woolworths and these companies have the responsibility of making sure that they are aligned with GRI framework for research and development. The companies also deal with the issues in dealt by local community.
Westfield has a distinct group of stakeholders those have vital importance for the company. The first stakeholder group includes employees and the demand information regarding health and safety measures and concerns related with sustainability and training (Shoaf, Jermakowicz and Epstein 2018). Consumers are another important stakeholder as they desire to understand features of the products and service quality for taking future purchase decisions. The suppliers and the contractors are another important stakeholder group as their interest is organizations make sure of open product and practice needs. Another stakeholder group encompass local communities and they seek information regarding business operation effects on the society. The government and the regulators are another stakeholder group those intend to attain information regarding economic and environmental impacts of business conducts (Talbot and Boiral 2018). Finally, shareholders are another stakeholder group as they seek to attain insight regarding the company’s economic performance.
- Similarities in reports of Woolworths and Westfield- One of the biggest similarity that has been gathered from the sustainability reports of these two companies is that they abided by the standards set by GRI for generating their sustainability reports (Tschopp and Huefner 2015). In addition, detailed elaborations regarding vital sustainability concerns are disclosed on these two reports that might have material impact on the companies such as Woolworths and Westfield. In addition, elaborated account of stakeholders might be revealed from these organizations published sustainability reports.
- Differences in reports of Woolworths and Westfield- There are certain differences present within the sustainability reports of Woolworths and Westfield. Woolworths has reported its sustainability performance situation that is not observed in case of Westfield (com.au. 2018). In addition, a sustainability scorecard might be observed in the sustainability report of Westfield. Lastly, one more difference is seen in Woolworths that has decided to disclose all its vital information regarding the importance of sustainability reporting while nothing has been explained in the year 2017 regarding the case of Westfield.
Stakeholder groups addressed by Westfield
Information Quality
There are major three aspects which impacts the quality of information and these are relevance, comparability as well as reliability. For these two companies it has been gathered that they follow GRI guidelines, it implies that they have offered all important data concerning the sustainability concerns (Woolworthsgroup.com.au. 2018). This makes sure that the external and internal stakeholders of these two companies that the information offered is important. In addition to that, the main sustainability areas encompass social, rights, social rights along with safety. Woolworths Company offers important information to all its external as well as internal stakeholders concerning several sustainability actions through abiding by the GRI standards. The Woolworths and the Westfield has disclosed important information concerning risk management initiative that considers to deal with concerns regarding climate change along with sustaining safe and healthy work surrounding (Jain and Winner 2016). For this reason, the sustainability report is prepared in an efficient manner for the stakeholders. For this reason, the formats of the sustainability reports are easy for the users to realsie that makes sure of the comparability feature of such reports.
Relevant Standards and Framework Consistency
For recognizing the materiality concerns, the GRI standards that are followed by Woolworths and Westfield encompass G4-17 to G4-23 (Kräusche and Pills 2018). In addition, for offering better governance-based information, the company comply with the GRI standards set within the G4-34 to G4-52 (Manetti and Bellucci 2016). To maintain environmental disclosures, both of these organizations abide by G4-DMA based standards.
Following such standards, both the Woolworths and Westfield focus on maintaining healthy lives along with promoting well being for all ages. The companies also consider making inclusive as well as equitable quality information regarding offering unlimited access to reliable, affordable, sustainable as well as modern energy for all its consumers (Manetti and Bellucci 2016). In abiding by the GRI standards of sustainability, both the companies focus on promoting the inclusive and peaceful communities for sustainable development. This also offers access to justice for all its consumers along with developing efficient, responsible as well as inclusive institutions at every level. Certain aspects of this sustainability guideline ensure that these organizations strengthen the means of implementation along with revitalizing international partnerships with sustainable development of Woolworths and Westfield (Jain and Winner 2016).
Information Addressing Stakeholder Needs
Every kind of stakeholders that these companies have focus on attaining an understanding regarding sustainability performances of Woolworths and Westfield (Tschopp and Huefner 2015). For such causes, important information is also needed in consideration to these companies social and environmental performances, corporate governance as well as measures in making sure of workforce safety. In consideration to the evaluation carried out, it has been gathered that both of the companies such as Woolworths and Westfield offer certain important information concerning the above indicated sustainability features through abiding by the standards set by GRI (Tschopp and Huefner 2015). For this reason, it can also be explained that stakeholders belonging to both of these retail companies might gather numerous sustainability data through sustainability report evaluation of Woolworths and Westfield.
Conclusion
The explanation of GRI implementation in the organizations such as Woolworths and Westfield, it is gathered that they have confirmed to the GRI guidelines in order to report important information related with sustainability performance. It is also gathered that important stakeholders of these companies include employees, consumers, creditors, shareholders, government and society. One of the biggest similarity that has been gathered from the sustainability reports of these two companies is that they abided by the standards set by GRI for generating their sustainability reports. In addition, detailed elaborations regarding vital sustainability concerns are disclosed on these two reports that might have material impact on the companies such as Woolworths and Westfield. The paper also revealed that Woolworths and Westfield have abided by the necessary GRI guidelines in developing their sustainability reports for addressing its stakeholder information requirements.
References
De Villiers, C., Rinaldi, L. and Unerman, J., 2014. Integrated Reporting: Insights, gaps and an agenda for future research. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 27(7), pp. 1042-1067.
Flower, J., 2015. The international integrated reporting council: a story of failure. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 27, pp. 1-17.
Jain, R. and Winner, L.H., 2016. CSR and sustainability reporting practices of top companies in India. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 21(1), pp.36-55.
James, M.L., 2015. Voluntary Sustainability Reporting: A Case Exploring Ethical, Regulatory, and Strategic Considerations. Journal of the International Academy for Case Studies, 21(1), p.91.
Kaspereit, T. and Lopatta, K., 2016. The value relevance of SAM’s corporate sustainability ranking and GRI sustainability reporting in the European stock markets. Business Ethics: A European Review, 25(1), pp.1-24.
Kräusche, K. and Pilz, S., 2018. Integrated sustainability reporting at HNE Eberswalde–a practice report. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 19(2), pp.291-312.
Manetti, G. and Bellucci, M., 2016. The use of social media for engaging stakeholders in sustainability reporting. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 29(6), pp.985-1011.
Shoaf, V., Jermakowicz, E. K. and Epstein, B. J., 2018. Toward Sustainability and Integrated Reporting. Review of Business, pp. 38(1).
Talbot, D. and Boiral, O., 2018. GHG reporting and impression management: An assessment of sustainability reports from the energy sector. Journal of Business Ethics, 147(2), pp.367-383.
Tschopp, D. and Huefner, R.J., 2015. Comparing the Evolution of CSR Reporting to that of Financial Reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(3), pp.565-577.
Westfield.com.au., 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2018, from https://www.westfield group.com.au/icms_docs/189425_corporate-responsibility-report-2017.pdf
Woolworthsgroup.com.au., 2018. Retrieved 10 June 2018, from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/189426_2017-cr-report-gri-index.pdf
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
