Wesfarmers Limited is one famous Australian conglomerate, the headquarter of which is situated in Western Australia dealing in chemicals, retail, coal mining, safety products and fertilizers. It is the largest Australian company in terms of the revenue that has overtaken all. It is also the largest private employer having almost 2,20,000 employees. The company was founded in the year 1914 as the cooperative for providing the services and the merchandise to the farmers of Western Australia (Wesfarmers.com.au 2020). It was also listed on the Australian securities exchange and the organization serves India, Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom and New Zealand.
The sustainability is about the ability of maintaining different systems in the processes socially, environmentally, and economically over the period of time. The sustainability started with the economics of natural resources but it has now gained huge currency regarding the sustainable development along with the social equality (Mhurchu et al. 2016). The corporate social responsibility actually refers to the commitment of a company for practicing the environmental and social sustainability becoming good protectors of the environment and the society where they operate. There are few companies who reject the concept of CSR due to the fact that it implies an obligation to the society along with the future generations. However, maximum companies are now embracing the notion of CSR according to the views of Christensen et al. (2019). The approaches of CSR might vary and there are few companies who invest in the CSR for the reputation management for sustaining the company profitability. On the other hand some companies invest in CSR because of the sense of moral obligation to the society where they operate. These are the resources which concentrate on the sustainability and the CSR in terms of the moral obligation having offered the insight into the concepts of ethics related to the economic sustainability, the social equality and environmental sustainability.
Wesfarmers manages the corporate social responsibility reporting in a proper manner and according to the reports it is found that the company has focused on four primary dimensions of the CSR activities such as the people’s development, the water and the waste use, the human rights and ethical sourcing and the climate change resilient. These are the four factors which have been the major aspects of the reporting for Wesfarmers. One major concern of the organization is to ensure the employee safety (Chepulis et al. 2018). In this regard the company makes use of the total recorded injury frequency against the last time injury frequency rate. The company has also reported regarding the audit programs of ethical sourcing. It is also reported regarding the various activities for fighting with the challenge of climate change. The CSR report of Wesfarmers is aimed at creating proper value for the shareholders, the customers, the employees along with the communities with the support of different CSR and the sustainability initiatives. The company considers net value creation that is possible through serving the people of the environment and the community. The company is found to be aimed at operating the business according to the community along with environmental impact principles related to the five areas of sourcing, people, environment, community and the governance.
They have maintained relentless concentration on the providing of safe places having provided scope for the employees so that they can enhance the performance and develop the careers (Montiel et al. 2018). They are also committed to the respectful and strong connections with the suppliers and strive for sourcing the products in a responsible way during working with the suppliers for improving the social along with the environmental practices (Kim and Ji 2017). They make positive contribution in the communities where they operate. They also strive for reducing the emission intensity of the business having improved the resilience to the climate change. Robust corporate governance policies are maintained in all of the businesses.
The primary objective of waste farmers is found to be providing satisfactory returns to the shareholders and it is possible to achieve through anticipating the requirements of the customers and delivering the competitive services and goods. There are so many strengths of the CSR and sustainability approaches of Wesfarmers (Cowan and Guzman 2018). They are always looking after the team members for providing a fulfilling and safe working environment having been guest friendly with the suppliers. The company also supports the communities that they operate in having taken care of the environment. It acts with proper integrity and honesty in all of the dealings.
Wesfarmers as a company is undoubtedly aimed at the maintenance of the CSR goals and the sustainability. However there are still some gaps in the approaches of the policies, the frameworks the company follows that has resulted in employee attrition (Ceda.com.au 2020). Wesfarmers has disclosed the intention of providing the healthy and safe working for the staff and provide them proper training and the development scope so that they can prosper in their career. According to latest report from the guardian.com, it is found that almost 6,000 recent and the former staffs of industrial division of Wesfarmers are underpaid estimating the amount of $15 million. It is found that employees are primarily as the stakeholders regarding the economic well-being. The employees also share common concerns about how much and how often they are paid by the organization. The management decision leaves huge impact on the employee concerns and important specifically for the employees as the stakeholders (Theguardian.com 2020). These kinds of errors are unexpected from such a large conglomerate like Wesfarmers and against the payroll system rules. This might leave impact on the employee morally who are currently working in the organization. An organization is built with the internal and external stakeholders and employees play a significant role in the organizational development of a company along with the fulfillment of the goals in the future. The low model of the employees can increase the possibility of errors in the work and incur huge attrition rates leaving the company nowhere (Mhurchu et al. 2016). Therefore, every company should take care of the employee’s satisfaction the employee requirements and the basic needs for which they work in an organization.
It is found that in spite of the economic growth of the organizations and the Nation’s along with the developing levels of the philanthropic and the CSR activities there is a widening gap between the rich and poor. There is a developing disparity among the Nations and also within the Nations. Amidst all the corporate volunteerism social responsibility practices face the constants of scalability and have faced short success in terms of bridging the gaps of social economic (Camilleri 2016). The shared value approach is one such approach that is extremely new in the innovative business idea that is helpful in redefining the nature of capitalism (Glauner 2019). Shared value approach marks a proper transition from the other methods about the integration of social and environmental issues in the core of the business model instead of aligning those into the business only. It is helpful in redefining the nature of capitalism in three proper ways. Firstly the principal consists of the redefining of the products along with the services that are offered in congruence with the social and environmental needs that are undeserved having exploited the scopes and addressing the social challenges (Kramer and Pfitzer 2016). Secondly the principle consists of the optimization of the value chain having addressed the environmental and social issues leading to the cost efficiency, the better quality higher productivity and the stakeholder satisfaction Sustainability (wesfarmers.com.au 2020). The third principle consists of the enabling of the local cluster development that is around the social and environmental issues that is transitioning from the comparative orientation towards the inclusive collaborative outward and participative orientation.
With the help of the shared value approach Wesfarmers as a company can develop holistic social, economic and the environmental transformation of the communities faster. It can also be used for increasing the awareness having used the success models such as information system. This success model can be helpful for the identification, description and the explanation of relationships among the different dimensions of success with the information system that are evaluated commonly (Font, Guix and Bonilla-Priego 2016). Through this approach the inclusiveness can become properly realized with completeness along with relative advantage of the shared value approach. It can be useful for designing the product and the services that are offered along with configuring the value chain (Jarvis and Williams 2017). This is helpful in shaping the business model innovation that extends the landscape of opportunity. The shared value is well driven by the orientation of the stakeholders and concentrates on the long-term social economic influences having created an inclusive business model.
The organizational leaders are traditionally found to be concerned with the bottom lines or the economic profits the businesses actually made. The leaders have started thinking sustainably and the triple bottom line theory is the traditional accounting Framework for including the performance areas such as the environmental, the social impacts of the company. These are the three bottom lines which are referred often as the three P’s or the people, planet and profit. The people considered the labor and the employees who are involved in a company’s work along with the wider community in which the organization operates (Grimmer 2018). Triple bottom line Organization pays proper wages and takes necessary steps for ensuring the human working conditions and the supplier factories. The triple bottom line organizations make proper effort for giving back to the community. As far as the planet is concerned the 2016 Gallup poll shows that almost 70% of the Americans are concerned about the Global Warming. It is also found that the organizations which harm the environment should bear all of the expenses of damage which will make the organization bound to notice the damage they are causing to the environment (Gallup 2020).
The planet part of the triple bottom line symbolizes that a company should try to reduce the ecological footprints as much as possible which can consist of the waste management, renewable energy investment, the natural resource managing and the logistics improvement. Taken for example, Apple has significantly invested on the environmental sustainability. In the year 2016, the company has declared that almost 95% of the energy comes from the renewable and these are the actions which have made the other tech giants such as Google and Facebook to use more renewable energy for powering facilities. Regarding the profit can be said that in every business process the economic profitability and the businesses should be part of the business plan (Islam, Jain and Haque 2016). The sustainable organizations further identify that the profit is not opposed diametrically to planet or people. Taken for example, IKEA that is a Swedish furniture giant has reported the sale of 38 billion Dollar in the year 2016. The company in the same way has turned the profit through recycling the waste into some of the best products. It is aimed at less waste and more value switching on some of the sustainable light (IKEA 2020). The goal has been to save more water and promote a healthy living. The company has inspired the change with the recycled plastic bottles, the taps which save water and the electricity.
Conclusion
Therefore, on a concluding note it can be said that the company should follow the triple bottom line approach and focus on the people part so that they can retain their employees with proper wages and strengthen their motivation for staying in the organization for long.
References
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