Global companies today take up several social development goals in the course of their regular operations. These SDGs find mention in their sustainability report which implicitly show their importance to the organisations’ operations. The aim of the task is to study the SDGs of two global companies by taking Vodafone and Coca Cola, with more emphasis to their Australian business. The paper would first discuss the two companies, their markets and core businesses in brief. Then it would go on delve into the issues these companies are facing and how they are tackling these issues.
Company and markets
Vodafone is a British multinational company based in the United Kingdom and is listed primarily on the London Stock Exchange and secondarily listed on NASDAQ (vodafone.com, 2018). The extract of the financial statements of Vodafone shows that it has earned a profit of EU 2788 million for the year ended March 31, 2018.
Vodafone’s main markets are Asia, Europe, North America and Australia where it operates using subsidiaries and partnership formats. Vodafone Australia or Vodafone Hutchison Australia Pty Limited is the merger between Vodafone and Hutchison 3G Australia (vodafone.com.au, 2018).
The core business of Vodafone Australia consist of provision of communication networks to both individual customers and business customers. It provides data plans and mobile plans for both these customer segments. It offers customer services through a strong customer support team and its official website (vodafone.com.au, 2018).
Company and markets:
Coca Cola Company is the largest non-alcoholic beverage marketing company in the world based in the US and having subsidiaries in hundreds of countries. It is public limited company listed on NASDAQ showing average performance in the stock market (bloomberg.com, 2018). The financial performance of the Coca Cola has been average as pointed out in the below figure.
The market of Coca Cola includes North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. Coca Cola Amatil like its mother company is listed on ASX which allows it to exploit the stock market of Australia to support its core buisiness (coca-cola.com.au, 2018).
The core business of Coca Cola Amatil, the Australian subsidiary of Coca Cola Company is to manufacture and market non-alcoholic beverages. The company owns brands like Coca Cola, Minute Maid and Fuze Tea (coca-colacompany.com, 2018). The company also sponsors events in the sports and entertainment sector.
The social reports of Vodafone point out the two biggest social issues the company and its products face (vodafone.in, 2018). The first issue is that the transmitting towers emit immense amount of radiation and are creating concerns in Australian cities like Brisbane (aph.gov.au, 2018). The second issue which Vodafone faces is that radiation which mobile phone and gadgets like modems release while operating which pose threat to health of users. Moreover, the radiation emitted from the transmission towers lead to serious environmental issues. The radiation causes global warming and also effects other forms of life like birds and animals (weforum.org, 2018).
The two social and environment issues which Vodafone poses while offering services to its customers namely, radiations from towers and hardware have huge ambit. The radiations affect the health of the immediate users but also the communities living around them (Morgan et al. 2015). The radiations are also detrimental to the environments and bio systems. Moreover, the towers also emit greenhouse gases which is contributing to global warming (weforum.org, 2018).
The first issue which Coca Cola has created is slashing wages of its Australian workers. The company is also charged with the allegation of supporting child labour in Australia. This is because the American beverage giant has acquired a sugar mill which is reputed to use child labour. The company also exploits water reserves in Australia and Africa which is also one of the main issues it has created (Karnani, 2014).
The issues Coca Cola created are very deep and grave. The slashing of the wages of the workers show lack of strategic human resource management (Wittenbrink, 2016). The child labour issue which the company is attracted by acquiring the sugar mill using child labour shows serious violation of laws framed by the ILO (ilo.org, 2018). The exploitation of water reserves by Coca Cola bottling plants caused serious breach of environmental laws of Australia. Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 prohibits manufacturing companies from exploiting the water reserves of Australia and degenerating them (environment.gov.au, 2018). Thus, Coca Cola Company by exploiting the water reserves have created not only legal but also environmental and social issues.
The sustainable development goals of Vodafone encompasses ending poverty, fight inequality, injustice and manage climate changes. The British multinational company is working in association with the United Nations and contributing towards these UN initiatives by allocating its technology in these fields (Karnani, 2014).
The addresses the sustainable development by taking appropriate measures which are mentioned in its CSR reports. The British multinational company empowers women by providing them training to bring about their socio-economic development. Vodafone is encouraging use of renewable energy sources like solar power in countries like Australia. This is evident from the fact that the company has installed solar panels to generate solar energy and cut down greenhouse gas emissions (Gherardi, Guthrie & Farneti, 2014).
The social development goals of Coca Cola as revealed by the sustainability report encompasses agriculture, climate protection, community development, human and workplace rights, packaging and recycling, climate change management, restoring water reserves and empowerment of women (ccamatil.com, 2018). The company though presented serious issues by creating the issues like exploitation of water resources and indirectly child labour, it has also addressed many of these issues in its SDG report.
Coca Cola is addressing these social issues explicitly as a part of corporate social responsibility. The company is emphasising sustainable sourcing of raw materials for its products like tea to bring about economic development of farmers. This SDG activity of Coca Cola encompasses several countries like India and China. The American multinational beverage giant is training women using its CSR arm, the Coca Cola Foundation which explicitly shows its effort to encourage gender equality and women empowerment. The company is also training women and encouraging their entrepreneurial skills (environment.gov.au, 2018). This analysis shows that Coca Cola is implementing its SDGs explicitly.
Gray et al (1997) mention the following eight key principles of social accounting which the two companies follow:
Inclusivity:
Inclusivity refers to the social accounting of refers to the communication between the companies and their stakeholders. The stakeholders include customers, investors, the government bodies, international bodies, suppliers and the society at large. The two companies namely, Vodafone and Coca Cola are inclusive which is evident by their adoption of their SDGs. As far as Vodafone is concerned, the company is encouraging its customers to use ebills instead of paper bills. Coca Cola is encouraging sustainable agriculture and women empowerment. This shows that both the companies are following the inclusivity principles of social accounting.
Comparability:
The principle of comparability refers to the system of comparing between the two companies on the grounds of SDGs. The two companies disclose their sustainability reports in public on their respective official websites. This allows the stakeholders like investors and customers compare between sustainable measures of these companies with other companies especially their competitors. This allows them to take better decisions regarding important areas like investment.
Completeness:
The completeness principles of social accounting refers to presenting both negative and positive aspects of sustainability practices of business organisations. The two companies Vodafone and Coca Cola reveal not only their successes but also their failures. They clearly pointed out out areas where they have not succeeded in gaining significant success rates. This shows that the two companies confirm to the principle of completeness.
Evolution:
Evolution refers to the changes which the organisations bring in order to comply with the requirements of the stakeholders. The adoption of flat organisational structure is a perfect of evolution.
The multinational companies have their sustainability policies which are parts of their core policies. The sustainability policies of them today are governed by top CSR officials which ensure that their social gaols are achieved.
The business organisations under this principle disclose their business results on public platforms like on their official websites and websites of the stock exchanges they are listed on. It is evident that both the companies Vodafone and Coke publish their results on these platforms. This shows that they confirm to the system, of disclosure.
The companies undergo audit and verification by external identities under this principle of external verification. The two companies comply with the system.
The companies keep on taking measures to improve their operations under this principle. The two companies Coke and Vodafone use innovation to improve their products and achieve higher limits of customer’s satisfaction.
An analysis of the social reports of Vodafone and Coca Cola shows reflection of their values to a large extent. The companies have successfully contributed towards managing climatic changes and bringing about development of social issues (Morgan et al., 2015). For example, Vodafone has adopted women empowerment as a part of its human resource policy. The company encourages women employees to take up responsibilities and promote them to higher posts. The presence of Iris Meijer and Kerry Philip in directorial positions explicitly proves that the company implements its SDGs towards gender equality (vodafone.com, 2018). Vodafone is encouraging customers to use online bill payments and sends ebills to its customers. These efforts of Vodafone have brought down the felling of large number of trees which are felled to make paper bills. The company being a leading international players is also encouraging other mobile companies to opt for ebills instead of paper bills. Thus, the efforts of Vodafone in true sense is reflecting the values of the company.
Coca Cola in the same way is training women to grow crops usisng sustainable methods and earn their own living. This shows that the company is working towards empowering women. Coca Cola is encouraging and support rain water harvesting and water recycling plants in markets like Africa (Karnani, 2014). Coca Cola is promoting purchasing of Fair Trade products. These efforts of the company are also bringing about economic development among the local communities. The company is encouraging its customers to recycle the packages in order to reduce wastage of resources and further damage of environment. The company sells a large portion of its products in glass bottles which can be recycled. This analysis clearly shows that Coca Cola addresses its SDGs to a large extent.
Conclusion:
We formed a group of four members and studied the SDGs of the Vodafone and Coke and presented our findings. The social efforts by Vodafone and Coca Cola truly reflect their respective mission and vision. Although, these two companies create serious issues due to their nature of operations, they are also taking up projects to minimise the harm they cause while operation. It can be pointed out in another perspective that these two global giants must impose their social goals on their suppliers and channels as well. I can point out that the two companies cannot tortally prevent the issues by they are the outcomes of their normal business operations. For example, Vodafone cannot function without towers which exchange data using radioactive waves. similarly, Coca Cola requires huge water reserves to make enough product volume to serve its global consumer base. However, these two companies have taken sufficient steps to minimise their harmful effects. This would attribute higher level of their SDGs and strengthen their goodwill. It can also be pointed out that considering the global positions of these companies that they are not only meeting their sustainability goals and encouraging hundreds of other companies to opt for sustainable operations.
References:
aph.gov.au (2018). Retrieved from https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Environment_and_Communications/Completed_inquiries/1996-99/telstra/report/c07a
ccamatil.com. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.ccamatil.com/-/media/Cca/Corporate/Files/Annual-Reports/2018/Sustainability-Report-2017.ashx
coca-cola.com.au (2018). Retrieved from https://www.coca-cola.com.au/en/home/
coca-colacompany.com. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.coca-colacompany.com/investors/investors-info-reports-and-financial-information/archives-annual-other-reportsb
environment.gov.au. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.environment.gov.au/resource/local-government-and-australian-environment-law
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Morgan, L.L., Miller, A.B., Sasco, A. and Davis, D.L., (2015). Mobile phone radiation causes brain tumors and should be classified as a probable human carcinogen (2A). International journal of oncology, 46(5), pp.1865-1871.
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