Essay: Sustainability Reports Of Wesfarmers And Woolworths - Ethical Analysis.

Over Weeks 11 to 13, you are required to meet as a group to choose two Australian companies that participate in either Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or Integrated Reporting (IR). Specifically, as a group, students identify the two companies, their sustainability or integrated reports for the same year and collect any further published information on the company's approach to sustainability or non-financial reporting.

Using the companies identified by the group, students are required to individually complete the assignment in two parts.

1.Based on your two chosen companies, you should compare and contrast in a Report on their GRI or Integrated Reporting Output and Objectives and make a judgement on whether the companies' sustainability reports reflect the principles of the GRI/IR.

2.Choose one of the companies identified by the group and explain why you think the chosen company is ethical or not, based on either utilitarian or deontological/duty-based ethics theories covered in Week 8. Your answer should consider both actions your chosen company reports that might be viewed as ethical, and actions your chosen company reports that might be viewed as unethical.

Comparing and Contrasting the Sustainability Reports

Sustainability Report is considered as a major report that provides the stakeholders with the information about the environmental, social and governance performance of the business organizations. The main aim of the report is to compare and contrast the sustainability reports of two of the major Australian companies; they are Wesfarmers Limited and Woolworths Limited. It needs to be mentioned that both the companies develop their sustainability reports as per the guiding principles of Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI).

The above discussion states that both the companies follow the principles of GRI in order to report their performance in diverse areas of sustainability. The following discussion shows the objectives and outputs of GRI reporting of both Wesfarmers and Woolworths:

Wesfarmers: The main objective of the GRI reporting of Wesfarmers is to provide their major stakeholders with the information of their performance in the fields of sustainability and business responsibility. The main stakeholders of Wesfarmers are customers, employees, investors, suppliers and government (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). The outcomes of these reports are the information of these two companies in the areas of people, sourcing, community, environment and governance. The major outcomes are reduction in the injury frequency rate from 25% to 15%; 40003 factories in the audit program; 5228 number of Indigenous employees; contribution to the community worth $86.6 million and others (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018).   

Woolworths: In case of Woolworths, the main objective of the company of GRI reporting is to provide information about the performance of the company in the areas of sustainability. The 2018 sustainability report of Woolworths shows the output of their sustainability performance in three years; they are people, planet and prosperity. The outputs of performance of Woolworths in people aspect are 201,000 employees, 30% increase in the members of Woolworths Group Network, 14.16% decrease in total recorded injury frequency rate, 50% female members in the board and others (woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2018). The performance in planet aspect is 100 million kilogram of total odd bunch sold, 2211 mwh solar power generation, decrease in carbon emission and others. The performance in prosperity is more than 280 own brand products, 1.25% of EBIT as community contribution, cash donation of 1.24 million (woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2018).

Comparison and Contrast: It can be seen from the above discussion that both the companies have similarity in the fact that they develop their sustainability report as per the standards and principles of GRI. In addition, both Wesfarmers and Woolworths have the same objective for GRI reporting that is to provide the major stakeholders with the information of the aspects of sustainability performance (globalreporting.org, 2018). However, the presence of difference can also be seen. Wesfarmers considers more areas of sustainability reporting than Woolworths. The sustainability areas of Wesfarmers are people, souring, community, environment and governance; where the considered areas of Woolworths are planet, people and prosperity. It implies that the stakeholders can gain more sustainability related information from the sustainability report of Wesfarmers rather than Woolworths.

 Principles of GRI: As per the principle of GRI, the companies are needed to identify the stakeholders for sustainability reporting and the report should present the performance of the companies in the material sustainability contexts. In addition, the repots must contain both the positive and negative suatinabiity performance of the companies. Provide information should must be comparable by the stakeholders and the information must be accurate and in detailed basis (globalreporting.org, 2018).

Principles of GRI

It can be seen from the 2018 sustainability reports of both Wesfarmers and Woolworths that these companies have complied with all the principles of GRI. They have identified specific stakeholders for providing sustainability information about the material sustainability aspects like people, planet, sourcing, environment, prosperity, community and others (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). However, it needs to be mentioned that both of these companies have not provided much information about their negative performance in the sustainability aspects. In addition, these companies have provided the information in such a manner so that the stakeholders can compare them.   

Conclusion

As per the above discussion, both Wesfarmers and Woolworths follows the principles and standards of GRI that helps them in providing the information of their sustainability performance to the major stakeholders. However, more detailed information of sustainability can be seen in Wesfarmers as compared to Woolworths.

Deontological Ethical Theory: Deontology can be considered as an ethical theory that involves in the use of rules for distinguishing right and wrong. The connection of theory can be seen with philosopher Immanuel Kant. As per Kant, all ethical actions follow some specific universal laws like ‘do not lie’, ‘do not steal’, ‘do not cheat’ and others (Paquette, Sommerfeldt & Kent, 2015). It needs to be mentioned that there is not any complexity in the application of deontological rules as it is only required for the people and the organizations to comply with the rules for doing their duties. The fitness of the rules of this theory can be seen with the natural intuition of human being about what is right or unethical (Bernstein, 2014). In this context, it needs to be mentioned that there are certain types of ethical concepts and theories under deontological theories and they are as follows:

Divine Command: It can be considered as the most common form of deontological morals that are derived from obligation from a god. Thus, the actions will be considered as ethical when they are in the ethical agreements and rules set by the god (Chakrabarty & Bass, 2015).

Duty Theories: This deontological theory indicates towards the fact that an action will be considered as ethical when it is done with accordance to the duties and obligations (Sandler, 2013).

Right Theories: According to the concept of this deontological theory, an action will be considered as morally ethical when it is accomplished by providing adequate respect to all human rights.

Contractarianism: As per the concept of this deontological theory, an action is considered as morally ethical when it takes place as per the rules that rational moral agents would agreed upon for mutual benefits.

Monistic Theory: As per the concept of this deontological theory, an action is considered as morally right if it complies with any single deontological principle.

It needs to be mentioned that the sustainability reporting of Wesfarmers can be proved as either ethical or unethical in the lights of these deontological theories and the below discussion shows this:

The earlier discussion indicates towards the fact that Wesfarmers complies with the principles and standards of GRI for preparing their sustainability reports where ethics play a crucial part. The analysis of the 2018 Sustainability report of Wesfarmers shows the fact that one major aim of the company is to act ethically in all of their business dealings (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). This particular aspect supports the very rule of deontological theories to follow the ethical rules while doing the duties. It can be seen from the 2018 Sustainability report of Wesfarmers that both ethical sourcing and human rights have become recognized as the most material sustainable issue. This particular aspect supports the rules of right deontological theory as Wesfarmers respects the rights of human rights (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018).

It needs to be mentioned that Wesfarmers has the obligation to follow all the rules and regulations of GRI framework at the time to report their sustainability issues. For this reason, Wesfarmers has complied with the regulations and standards of GRI and it supports the principles of deontological theories (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). One crucial aspect is that Wesfarmers does not cheat on their responsibilities towards environment, community and sustainability as they have fulfilled their sustainability responsibilities towards their people, sourcing, community, environment and governance (wesfarmers.com.au, 2018). Thus, based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that Wesfarmers has completed their sustainability related responsibilities in the most ethical manner. All these aspects proves that Wesfarmers has been ethical in sustainability as per the regulations of deontological theories. It also needs to be mentioned that there is not any unethical aspect in the sustainability reporting of Wesfarmers as the company has well covered all the aspects of sustainability in the most ethical manner (Hayry, 2013). Hence, there is not any unethical sustainability practice in Wesfarmers.

References

Bernstein, J. M. (2014). Recovering ethical life: Jurgen Habermas and the future of critical theory. Routledge.

Chakrabarty, S., & Bass, A. E. (2015). Comparing virtue, consequentialist, and deontological ethics-based corporate social responsibility: Mitigating microfinance risk in institutional voids. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), 487-512.

Global Reporting Initiatives. (2018). Reporting Principles and Standard Disclosures. Retrieved 4 November 2018, from https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/GRIG4-Part1-Reporting-Principles-and-Standard-Disclosures.pdf

Hayry, M. (2013). Liberal utilitarianism and applied ethics. Routledge.  

Paquette, M., Sommerfeldt, E. J., & Kent, M. L. (2015). Do the ends justify the means? Dialogue, development communication, and deontological ethics. Public Relations Review, 41(1), 30-39.

Sandler, R. L. (2013). Environmental virtue ethics. International Encyclopedia of Ethics.

Wesfarmers. (2018). Sustainability Report. Retrieved 4 November 2018, from https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/

Wesfarmers. (2018). WESFARMERS SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018, from https://sustainability.wesfarmers.com.au/media/2467/sustainability_website_2018.pdf

Woolworths Group. (2018). Sustainability. Retrieved 4 November 2018, from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/community-and-responsibility/group-responsibility/

Woolworths. (2018). 2018 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT. Retrieved 4 November 2018, from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/195398_2018-sustainability-report.pdf