Sustainability---Wesfarmers
1. Introduction
Sustainability reporting is an annual report of a company which indicates non-financial information including environment, economy and society to the public and shareholders. Companies increasingly put more emphasis on sustainability reporting at present and face the problem of how to make effective reports of sustainability. Then in order to find and solve the problem of companies’ sustainability reporting, several standards such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are used to check the quality of the report for sustainability. This report illustrates the reasons why companies make reporting for sustainability, how to make the report to be well-written and finally appraises 2011 sustainability reporting of Wesfarmers, a food processing company.
2. Reasons for company to make reporting for sustainability 3.1 Improvement of companies’ non-financial performance and the sense of social responsibility
The reports of sustainability can urge companies to make effort to be sustainable. It means that companies will improve the non-financial performance and the sense of social responsibility by sustainable reporting. After analyzing the data, the companies which make sustainability reporting improve their ranking of social responsibility by 8％ more than the companies which lack of sustainability reporting (Blanding 2011, p.5).
3.2 Benefits to environment, economy and society
Sustainability reporting highlights what a company does to keep environment， economy and society balance. Hence adding non-financial information in a company’s annual report makes sure the company to do right thing to benefit all the three aspects. For example, because of sustainability reporting, company will take climate change into consideration instead of considering the profits only (Steidl 2010, p.39). In additional, an effective sustainability reporting can help companies to achieve high reputation in the society and then create more shareholders’
Sustainability reporting is an annual report of a company which indicates non-financial information including environment, economy and society to the public and shareholders. Companies increasingly put more emphasis on sustainability reporting at present and face the problem of how to make effective reports of sustainability. Then in order to find and solve the problem of companies’ sustainability reporting, several standards such as Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are used to check the quality of the report for sustainability. This report illustrates the reasons why companies make reporting for sustainability, how to make the report to be well-written and finally appraises 2011 sustainability reporting of Wesfarmers, a food processing company.
2. Reasons for company to make reporting for sustainability 3.1 Improvement of companies’ non-financial performance and the sense of social responsibility
The reports of sustainability can urge companies to make effort to be sustainable. It means that companies will improve the non-financial performance and the sense of social responsibility by sustainable reporting. After analyzing the data, the companies which make sustainability reporting improve their ranking of social responsibility by 8％ more than the companies which lack of sustainability reporting (Blanding 2011, p.5).
3.2 Benefits to environment, economy and society
Sustainability reporting highlights what a company does to keep environment， economy and society balance. Hence adding non-financial information in a company’s annual report makes sure the company to do right thing to benefit all the three aspects. For example, because of sustainability reporting, company will take climate change into consideration instead of considering the profits only (Steidl 2010, p.39). In additional, an effective sustainability reporting can help companies to achieve high reputation in the society and then create more shareholders’