Sustainable Business Planning and Strategy-Samples for Students

Question: Is the current wayWestpacreports on sustainability an example of best practice?What, if any, changes do you recommend? Answer: Introduction: Sustainability planning takes of the future uncertainties. Thus, it is a complete process, which an organisation undertakes on in a span of over several months (Baumgartner 2014). The current assignment aims to identify as well as evaluate the most considerable recent or expected developments in sustainability reporting in Australia. After such evaluation, the sustainability strategies at Westpac have been assessed to find out whether the bank has adopted such identified developments to improve its overall sustainability reporting. The final segment of the assignment sheds light on suggesting some sustainability strategies for the bank that would help in improving its overall business performance in the eyes of its stakeholders in future (Neugebauer, Figge and Hahn 2016). Most significant current or expected developments in sustainability reporting: There are numerous existing or expected developments in the global including Australian sustainability reporting strategy, out of which two of the most significant strategies are discussed as follows: Sustainability data exchange: The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has published the upcoming era of corporate disclosure in the form of responsible, interactive and digital disclosures through a digital publication. This depicts an overview of the future sustainability reporting and disclosure (Iasplus.com 2017). As per GRI, the future would take into account new formats with the firms, as they are needed to shift from annual reports to sustainability data exchange. The concentration would be to focus on the primary challenges like human rights and climate change. It has been observed that GRI is involved in producing articles, videos and analysis papers throughout 2015 by interviewing with the business executives and other professionals belonging to different fields and industries and this reporting format is expected to be initiated by the end of 2025 (Lozano 2015). During this period, the organisations and the investors would include the critical sustainability information into the utmost core of their processes of decision-making and definition of strategy. Moreover, the organisations are needed to make additional disclosures about the impact on society and the global natural resources. The stakeholders would find the access to the information about business performance from diverse sources (Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths 2014). Thus, this existing development would be of immense value for the stakeholders, as they could dissect the value creation of the organisations in a more effective and broader manner. Advancement of corporate reporting on sustainable development goals: The collaboration of the GRI and the United Nations Global Compact has initiated SDG Leadership through Reporting. This has been a new initiative in advancing and promoting the corporate reporting on sustainable development goals. The two organisations would work in partnership for creating a list of disclosures in order to track business contributions to the SDGs and a publication would be released on the reporting pertaining to SDG (Orsato et al. 2015). Both the organisations would penetrate into their respective networks for developing multi-stakeholder working groups that take into account leading businesses, reporting experts and data users that would work to modify corporate reporting on SDGs. In addition, these organisations would form partnership with Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) for enhancing the value of disclosures related to corporate sustainability (Neugebauer, Figge and Hahn 2016). Sustainability strategies at Westpac: According to the sustainability strategy evaluated from the annual report of Westpac, the bank has created a five-year sustainability strategy with three measurable objectives across three broad priority areas (annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au 2017). These objectives take into account the following: Improving the lifestyle of the society and the people: In order to make this strategy a success, Westpac has been involved in partnership with Career Seekers for facilitating paid internships for the refugees and asylum-seekers like mid-career professionals or students. In addition, it has developed a new technique of enabling the culturally diverse customers to gain an insight of the products and services through a statement of product disclosure using more images and diagrams. This matches with the expected development of sustainability data exchange, as Westpac has developed new formats to make additional disclosures to the customers about its products (Christ, Burritt and Varsei 2017). Figure 1: Contribution of Westpac to the society and individuals (Source: 2016annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au 2017) Environmental solutions: Westpac has managed to raise $500 million through the Westpac Climate Bond Issue. The funds accumulated have been distributed to five carbon commercial properties and seven wind energy facilities in compliance with the Climate Bonds Standard (v1). Moreover, the bank has participated to support transition of a clean energy future (Dasgupta and Vaghela 2015). For instance, it has raised the percentage of renewable energy financing from 45% to 59% in the portfolio of overall electricity generation since 2011. Furthermore, it has formed a new program of energy efficiency for its business customers. Verdia, a well-known energy specialist in Australia, has provided assistance to the bank in this program as well. The intention is to provide the business customers with an overview of identifying, funding and installing equipment for enhancing the energy efficiency of their businesses (Epstein and Buhovac 2014). These initiatives match with the sustainability data exchange related to climate change, as Westpac is involved in financing businesses to adopt environmental-friendly solutions. Figure 2: Contribution of Westpac to the environmental concerns (Source: 2016annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au 2017) Better financial future: Westpac has initiated Wealth Review for BT Financial Group in order to help them in obtaining an insight of its financial position and the necessities to accomplish the financial objectives. Moreover, it has launched CashNav, an application for the Kiwi customers in managing spending by automatic categorisation of banking transactions into needs and notifying customers about their spending (Dumay 2016). Furthermore, it has released Financial Inclusion Action Plan in 2016 for enhancing financial access and resilience to fund the individuals going through financial hardship. Thus, it has created additional disclosures in its sustainability performance report about the advancement of corporate reporting on sustainable development goals. However, it has not involved the data users to involve in corporate reporting and thus, this advancement has only been partially achieved (Klettner, Clarke and Boersma 2014). Figure 3: Contribution of Westpac to enhance financial future (Source: 2016annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au 2017) Recommended Sustainability Strategies at Westpac: This segment of the assignment sheds light on suggesting some sustainability strategies for the bank that would help in improving its overall business performance in the eyes of its stakeholders in future. Such recommendations are explained below: Maintaining societal change through analysing the future requirements of aging and culturally diverse consumers is one of the effective sustainability strategies of Westpac Bank. Considering such strategy, the bank focuses on developing services and financial products that supports financial wellbeing increase. The bank should also focus on analysing the physical, market along with regulatory effects of climate change. Effective financial futures strategies are to be developed by Westpac bank in order to offer solutions that can facilitate consumers for adapting with environmental challenges. Considering such strategy the company will consider launching important services or products that can facilitate to respond to several pressures arising from the environmental challenges. Environmental solutions are also recommended for Westpac bank that is focussed on decreasing environmental footprint. The bank must consider offering a range of advice related solutions based on the ways in which consumers might prefer advancing by the banks advice along with private bank businesses. In order to attain sustenance financial futures serves as a different challenge for Westpac bank. Geography and poor infrastructure of the region along with maintaining sustenance livelihoods is resulting in difficult financial inclusion of people. For such reasons, strategy of Westpac Company must be focused on offering access to affordable and basic banking to all its target consumers among which 50% will be women. Moreover, the banks strategy must be maintaining a combination of basic choice account, in-store banking along with developing a new model of financial literacy model. Conclusion: The current assignment intended to identify as well as evaluate the most considerable recent or expected developments in sustainability reporting in Australia. After such evaluation, the sustainability strategies at Westpac have been assessed to find out whether the bank has adopted such identified developments to improve its overall sustainability reporting. It was gathered that as per GRI, the future would take into account new formats with the firms, as they are needed to shift from annual reports to sustainability data exchange. The concentration would be to focus on the primary challenges like human rights and climate change. It was also gathered that in order to make this strategy a success, Westpac has been involved in partnership with Career Seekers for facilitating paid internships for the refugees and asylum-seekers like mid-career professionals or students. In addition, it has developed a new technique of enabling the culturally diverse customers to gain an insight of the products and services through a statement of product disclosure using more images and diagrams. This matches with the expected development of sustainability data exchange, as Westpac has developed new formats to make additional disclosures to the customers about its products. References: Annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au. (2017). [online] Available at: https://2016annualreport.westpacgroup.com.au/ [Accessed 28 Aug. 2017]. Baumgartner, R.J., 2014. 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