Essay: Corporate Governance And Social Responsibility For Businesses.

Describe about the Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility for Business Organisations.

Business organisations nowadays are increasing become concerned about their social and environmental impacts for achieving sustainability. Sustainability reporting is regarded as publishing information by the business companies about the actions taken by them for protecting society and environment.  Sustainability reporting is becoming an integral part of the corporate governance framework of the businesses (Bell, 2011). Corporate governance is regarded as the approach adopted by the organizations for managing and governing its regular business activities and processes.  The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) provides a framework for the business organisations regarding the development and disclosure of their sustainability reports (Aras and Crowther, 2010). In this context, the present report aims to analyse and compare the sustainability reporting and disclosure analysis of BHP Billiton and Woolworths as per the GRI framework.  The report provides a detail explanation regarding the corporate governance and social responsibility issues involved in business decision-making. Also, it implements sustainability reporting principles and practices as per the GRI framework in the development of integrated reporting known as environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting. In addition to this, the report provides reflective thinking for developing an understanding of the importance of sustainability reporting and corporate governance and their relevance for the job role of accountant or manager.

Sustainability reporting and disclosure analysis comparisons between the sustainability reports of BHP Billiton and Woolworths Limited and G4 GRI Guidelines

Sustainability and corporate governance plays an important role in measuring the performance of a business corporation. The corporate governance framework of an organisation develops and implements standard guidelines that the employees must strictly adhere for carrying out their job role (Brennan, 2011). As such, the rules and policies implemented by a business through establishing its corporate governance framework is essential for promoting accountability and trust in its operational activities. It defines the rights and duties of each stakeholder of a company and lays down the detailed procedures and rules regarding the decision-making on conducting the business processes. Thus, corporate governance framework is important in an organisation for developing the goals and objectives of a business corporation and defining the manner for reaching the goals (Cavusgil, Rammal and Freeman 2011). It is essential for an organisation in developing and maintaining stakeholder engagement by determining the relationships between corporate management, administrative authorities, external and internal stakeholders. The business organisations are placing greater emphasises on developing and publishing their sustainable reports for achieving the trust of its stakeholder (Schaltegger, Bennett and Burritt, 2006). It is essential for the business companies to promote their sustainable development by promoting the economic, social and environmental development through their business operations. Sustainability report published by a business corporation provides a measure of its economic, social and environmental performance. The identification of the shortcomings through developing sustainability report helps the business managers in taking critical decisions for improving their economic, social and environmental performance. Therefore, it can be said the corporate governance and sustainability reporting plays a critical role in business decision-making (Claasen and Alpin-Lardies, 2010).

Sustainability reporting and disclosure analysis comparisons between the sustainability reports of BHP Billiton and Woolworths Limited and G4 GRI Guidelines

BHP Billiton Plc is an Australian company that is ranked among the world’s top producers of major commodities including iron ore, coals, copper, uranium and many other minerals. Thus, it is recognised a prominent mining company around the world actively involved in production of important minerals and ores. BHP Billiton is a mining company and therefore it has integrated sustainability issues in its strategic approach for protecting environment and society from any of the negative impacts of its operational activities (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2009). Sustainability is an integral part of the company’s strategy as it ensures the integration of health, safety, environmental and social factors in decision-making process. The company places strict emphasises on managing its internal material risk that is necessary for presenting the quality of environment. The company has developed and implemented an effective corporate governance framework for maintaining integrity and accountability in its business operations. The corporate governance framework of the company is maintained and developed through the implementation of Code of Business Conduct. The sustainability report and corporate governance framework developed by the company can be stated as highly effective in facilitating its decision-making process. The decision-making process of the company is supported through providing in-depth information obtained from sustainability reports and corporate governance reporting mechanism regarding its environmental and social performance. Thus, business managers can take decisions regarding the improvement needed in the operational processes for promoting development of society and environment (BHP Billiton: Taking the long view Sustainability Report, 2015).

On the other hand, Woolworths Limited is also regarded as a sustainability leader in the retailing sector of Australia. The company is recognised as largest supermarket chain of Australia and mainly offers food, liquor and improvement products to the customers. The company has also adopted an effective corporate governance framework for promoting transparency and authenticity in its business operations in the minds of its stakeholders. Effective corporate governance is the core of the company’s strategy for enhancing the stakeholder values and achieving long-term development. The code of conduct developed by the company maintain and establishes the moral and ethical standards regarding ensuring the protection of the customers, suppliers, employees and local communities. The code of conduct of the business is developed for preventing the occurrence of misconduct by any of its employees in the workplace. The company also abides by the legislative and regulatory reforms regarding the protection of the environment and society. The sustainability strategy of the company is developed mainly for emphasising on its social and environment responsibility issues. In this context, the company has also adopted its sustainability committee that reviews the performance of the company on basis of safety, health and community investment (Woolworths Limited: Corporate Responsibility Report, 2015). Thus, it can be said on the basis of comparison of both the reports that sustainability report of both the companies provides an in-depth knowledge regarding the corporate governance and social responsibility issue involved in their decision-making process.

Theoretical knowledge of the corporate governance and social responsibility issues involved in business decision making

The sustainability report of the company is developed as per the standards of International Council of Mining and Metals (ICMM) and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework. The company’s mission is to develop long-term value for its shareholders through acquiring and development of natural resources. The company values in promoting sustainable development through becoming environmentally responsible by promoting health and safety of community where it operates its business activities. Global Reporting Initiative determines the standard guidelines for all the business corporations and developing and maintaining their sustainability reporting (Dimitriades,. 2007). The sustainability report of the BHP Billiton is developed on the basis of GRI initiatives with providing proper disclosure regarding the company’s corporate governance policies and environment responsibilities. The corporate governance provides proper information regarding the company’s code of Business Conduct determining its business standards that need to be maintained for carrying out its daily work operations. The corporate governance framework of the company plays an important role by determining the practical implementation of the commitments and values determined in its code of business conduct. The code of business conduct of the company is developed in various languages for providing assistance to all its employees and contractors to carry out the operational functions in an ethical manner. The internal as well as external stakeholders of the company are provided with several reporting mechanisms for addressing the issues related to the corporate governance. Thus, it helps the business managers for identifying the improvements needed in the company’s corporate governance framework (King, Owusu and Braimah, 2013).

The sustainability reports of the company are also developed in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the company through its corporate governance framework. The effective governance of natural resources is vital for maintaining sustainability for the company. The company as such developed its Charter that defines its commitment for governance and meeting the stakeholder’s expectations as per the guidelines established in its code of business conduct. The sustainability report of the company also provides clear information regarding the various strategic actions undertaken for promoting economic and social development. The environment, social and governance (RSG) factors are the integral part of its business strategies governing and controlling its daily business operations. The report extensively covers all the activities and the subsequent impacts of its activities on the environment and society (BHP Billiton: Taking the long view Sustainability Report, 2015). The quality of information disclosed in the sustainability report of the company helps it in meeting stakeholder expectations through promoting trust and accountability in the business operations. The stakeholders can easily assess the company’s performance and thus take appropriate decisions for marinating their stake in the company (Tilt, 2009).

Integration of the sustainability accounting reporting principles and practices (including the Global Reporting Initiative) into the development of Sustainability reporting and integrated reporting known as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting

The main reporting principles under the GRI sustainability reporting principles are stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, materiality and completeness. As discussed above, BHP Billiton has provided sufficient information regarding its roles and responsibilities towards its major stakeholders including employees and customers (Simons and Macklin, 2014). The company has properly disclosed all the safety standards adopted by it for ensuring protection of all its employees during performing their daily job role. The company is involved in mining operations and therefore has to place special importance on complying with all occupational and healthy safety standards for effectively managing all the workplace hazards. The sustainability report also discloses proper information regarding the initiatives undertaken for protecting environment and society.  The company is also strongly dedicated towards identifying the material issues that impact its performance at each stage of its value chain. The sustainability committee developed by the company is mainly involved in reviewing the sustainable performance and implementing proper strategies for promoting environment and social development. The completeness principle of GRI is also achieved by the company through providing complete information on all its sustainability issues through integration of its economic, social and governance (ESG) practices (BHP Billiton: Taking the long view Sustainability Report, 2015).

On the other hand, Woolworths Limited also abides by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) reporting standard and principles of stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, materiality and completeness. The corporate governance framework of the company is established for maintaining stakeholder value through disseminating them complete information regarding the business processes and activities continuously. The company provides a complete disclosure reading its risk management strategy, privacy policy, materiality, sustainability strategy and code of conduct in accordance with the GRI reporting principles. The risk management strategy of the company is established for identifying the business risk that the company is likely to face in the future direction. It helps the senior management of the company in developing strategies for mitigating the business risks identified in advance. The implementation of risk management framework helps the company in achieving confidence of all its stakeholders (Ringold, Holla, Koziol and Srinivasan, 2011). The company is also strongly committed in complying with the National Privacy Principles that determines the standards to be adopted for storing, accessing, and disclosing the personal information collected as part of the business operations. The sustainability strategy of the company aims to meet the standard guidelines and principles of Accountability AA1000 Assurance Standard that helps it to prioritise the issues related to its financial strategy, policy-related performance, business based norms, stakeholder behaviour and societal norms. As such, the sustainability strategy of the company plays an important role in providing all the material information to its stakeholders about its various operational areas taking effective decisions regarding improving its business process and procedures through assessing the performance in its major operational areas (Woolworths Limited: Corporate Responsibility Report, 2015). Thus, it can be said from analysing the sustainability report of both BHP Billiton and Woolworths that they effectively abide by the reporting standards of GRI in developing theirs sustainability report.

Influence of Societal Values on sustainability reporting and disclosure analysis comparisons between the two sustainability reports and G4 GRI Guidelines in the United States and the United Kingdom

Corporate governance, as such, enables the decision-makers of a business corporation to implement proper decisions regarding the nature of business processes to be adopted for carrying out its operational functions. Corporate sustainability is becoming highly essential for business organisations to optimise the efficiency and effectiveness that leads to its improved profitability and productivity (Cunningham et al., 2014).  The reports developed by the business companies about their sustainability performances helps them to analyse the shortcomings in their performances on economic, social and environmental parameters. Corporate governance and social responsibility issues plays an important role in the decision-making process of the businesses operating in the UK and the USA.  However, there is a difference in the corporate governance and social responsibilities undertaken by the business firms operating in both the countries for business decision-making. The regulation of corporate governance and social responsibility issue in the UK is monitored and supervised by different rules such as listing rules, combined code of conduct and code of market conduct. Listing rules are the corporate governance rules that are to be followed by all the business entities operating in the UK listed on the stock exchange for maintain accountability in the business operations (Dowdney, 2005).

The combined code on corporate governance mandates the UK business entities to publish a statement in their annual reports about complying with the listing rules. In addition to this, Code of Market Conduct is developed and maintained by the financial services authority for maintaining privacy of sensitive and confidential information obtained about the financial market. On the other hand, the US corporate governance framework and social responsibility issues is determined by the rules and legislations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (Daizy and Das, 2003). The legislation mandates the business entities operating in the US to adopt ethical and moral standards for carrying out their business activities. In addition to this, the SOX also impose fines and penalties on the corporations in case of nay non-compliance with the code of ethics and moral standards. However, there is no such mandatory requirements on the UK firms to adopt code of ethics but only requires the business to provide relevant information regarding its accounting procedures and auditing reports (Ringold, Holla and Koziol, and Srinivasan, 2011). Thus, it can be stated that corporate governance plays a vital part in business decision-making of the US firms in comparison to the UK business firms.

The US business firm’s places great importance in integrating sustainability approach in their business goals and objectives. The US companies developed their sustainable reports in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards and guidelines. In addition to GRI, the US companies also strongly emphasise on integrating Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Dow Jones Sustainability Index for measuring and assessing their sustainability performance on the basis of environmental and societal development (Carbon Monitoring for Action, 2016). The US companies such as Ikea, Puma and Unilever are recognised around the world to be most sustainable companies and abiding by the GRI standards and guidelines. The corporate sustainability reporting is not mandated for the business corporations by any country. However, the business companies are emphasising on developing their sustainability reports as per the standards of GRI for achieving stakeholders trust and gaining long-term sustainability (Publicsector     sustainability   reporting: Remove      the       clutter, reduce the       burden, 2012). As such, the US firms have started to disclose the relevant information regarding their stakeholder’s inclusiveness, materiality, sustainability context and completeness in their sustainability reporting. However, the UK firms still have to place importance on developing sustainability reports as per the GRI standards (Daizy and Das, 2003).

Conclusion and Recommendations

Conclusion

Every aspect of corporate governance principles and sustainability reporting has been examined in case of Woolworth and BHP Billiton to make recommendations on how to improve the sustainability reporting standards. It has been found that both the companies fulfil the requirements of corporate governance standards and both companies have taken all the measures to improve the corporate governance. It has been reported that Woolworth has put extra efforts to make the governance while BHP Billiton is using methods of corporate governance that make work little more difficult. Woolworth follow agile framework of reporting while BHP Billiton believes in keepings the things simple and easy to understand. As BHP Billiton is in energy sector, yet it does not present the proper GRI guidelines followed in the report (GRI, 2016). While making the analysis on the sustainability reporting requirements in context of two companies it can be say both countries have same G4 GRI guidelines to present the sustainability report. Talking about the sustainability reporting in the context of the UK and the US, it can be said that companies of both the countries positively take interest in reporting their performance to the stakeholders. It has been found that there are minor changes of reporting framework of both the countries.

Recommendations to improve the corporate governance and sustainability reporting in case of Woolworth and BHP Billiton

There are specified requirements that every organization must compile in the sustainability reporting in order to report maximum content to the stakeholders. Woolworth and BHP Billiton are two big companies in Australia and it is mandatory for both the companies to fulfil the requirements of G4 GRI reporting while making the sustainability report. Also there exist a wide scope of improvement for business companies operating in countries like United States and United Kingdom for developing sustainable reporting as per the in the GRI guidelines. Following are some of important recommendations that both companies and countries should compile in their sustainability reports in order to make most beneficial for stakeholders.

Improving the content presented in report:

Organization must clearly identify its stakeholders and must clearly tell what they done to respond on their reasonable expectations and values in the company. It must be understood by the companies that expectations, values and interest of stakeholders are the key points that impact the reporting in sustainability reporting. Organization must include the proper information regarding the performance of company (RG: Sustainability reporting Guidelines, 2016). The main aim of sustainability reporting is to tell the stakeholders on how the organization is working for improving the economic, environmental and social values at local, national and global level. Reporting on individual performance does not fulfil the requirements of preparing the sustainability reporting (McGinn and Lipsky, 2015). Therefore, it is responsibility of management to put sincere efforts to show how company is actively involved in the keeping environment safe and social value on priority. Sustainability reporting should reflect the impact of economic, environmental and social factors on the performance of organization. It is suggested to companies to make a thorough check for the completeness of the sustainability report to make sure all important aspects have been taken care of (Phillips, 2012).

Improving the sustainability reporting quality:

It should be kept in mind while reporting on the performance of company that both positive and negative aspects have been included in the report (EPRA: Reporting, 2016). As it can be understand that no organization can be always good and always bad. Sustainability reporting should be done in such manner that information of prior period time can be compared with current performance. There must be use of table and charts to present the information on the performance of the companies. Management must check for the accuracy of the information presented in the sustainability report as any wrong information will lead to misconduct of social reporting standard and false information can be passed to the stakeholders (G4: Sustainability reporting Guidelines, 2016). One important thing must be kept in mind while making the sustainability filling that any major change in sustainability reporting must be communicated to the stakeholders (McNeil and Malena, 2010).

Thus, the overall above discussion has helped me to a great extent in developing a proper insight regarding the concepts of corporate governance, ethical and moral obligations on social responsibility concepts. I have developed knowledge about the significance of having an effective corporate governance framework in business corporations. The corporate governance framework established the code of conduct regarding the ethical and moral principles that a business corporation should abide for carrying out its daily operations. In addition to this, the companies should also adopt proper sustainability strategy for ensuring protection of environment and society and achieving long-term growth and development (Palmer,2016). The sustainability reporting reports published by the companies such as BHP Billiton and Woolworths Limited has helped me to develop an insight about the importance of maintaining a sustainability committee in the company. The sustainability committee is essential in a company for directing the roles and responsibilities of all board of directors regarding promoting sustainable growth and development. Thus, as such the business companies are required to conduct proper induction of all its employees to provide them proper knowledge of all the corporate governance policies adopted by them for achieving sustainability. I have also acquired knowledge about the role of training sessions to be developed for employees that aims at inculcating skills and competencies in the employees so that they are able to perform their job role in a sustainable way.

The corporate governance policies of BHP Billiton and Woolworths Limited also provided an insight into the ASX principles regarding corporate disclosure requirements. It also provided significant information to me about the various elements of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that the business organisations implements for achieving sustainability. The differences in the GRI reporting framework of business corporations operating in different countries such as the US and the UK is also being highlighted during the above discussion. The identification of the differences has proved to be highly beneficial for me to acquire knowledge about the standards guidelines that should be adopted by the businesses for meeting the GRI sustainability reporting standards. The overall discussion has widened my knowledge about the domains of sustainability reporting and corporate governance principles for optimising the corporate performance. It will further support my job role as an accountant or manager in the business corporations through developing proper knowledge about the various sustainability strategies to be adopted for ensuring long-term growth and development of a business corporation.

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