students are required to meet as a group to choose two Australian companies that participate in either the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or Integrated Reporting (IR). Using the companies...

INTRODUCTION
“Businesses need to go beyond of the interests of their companies to the communities they serve” – Ratan Tata, Philanthropist and former Chairman of TATA group
The significance of corporate sustainability is increasing and contributes not only to corporate wealth but also to accountability. The lack of transparency of business activities and no or little responsibility for its effects have necessitated the idea of sustainable reporting. Businesses incorporating sustainable practices helps not only in long-term value creation for shareholders but also increase the investment prospects for investors. This creates confidence in the economy.
In essence, sustainability means doing the right thing and encouraging ethical practices at the workplace and creating a safe environment.
This report encompasses the sustainable practices by Woolworths Group and Coles Group. It focuses on the application of the GRI principles by both the companies and, also covers the ethical and unethical practices from utilitarian and deontological perspectives.
WOOLWORTHS GROUP vs COLES GROUP
The Woolworths group and Coles group are two well-established Australian food retailers having a chain of supermarket, liquor stores and other retail industries throughout the land. However, Woolworths is focused mainly on businesses like take away liquor stores, supermarkets and luxury hotels and poker houses. On the other hand, Coles group is focused on the business of supply of food and groceries through general stores. On the basis of revenue, Woolworths is the largest retail chain in Australia and Coles group is standing on the second place in this list.
As per the materiality index of both the companies, climate change risk is a significant concern for stakeholders which has a great business impact. In the wake of bushfires and drought in February 2020, both the companies have showed resilience by undertaking scenario analysis per Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations. Woolworths group’s carbon dioxide emission is 2.4m tonnes (CO2e) due to refrigeration which is a scope 1 emission and its electricity usage is 1.96m tonnes (CO2e) which is a scope 2 emission. These values are comparatively higher than Coles group. That is, the scope 1 & 2 emissions combined is 1,596,102 tonnes (CO2e) in FY20, which is lower than that of the usage of Woolworths group.
Scope 3 emissions include waste disposals and energy-related emissions. For Woolworths, there are solar panels at place to reduce these emissions, however the entity doesn’t possess any data of sufficient quality to track the progress. Whereas, there was a 9% decrease in scope 3 emissions from FY19 in Coles group. Also, it has entered into 10-year power purchase agreement to buy power through solar plants, however it is not yet operational and expected to go live fin FY21.
Woolworths and Coles are also committed towards ethical resourcing and human rights. Woolworths has materially progressed in Responsible resource program in place which safeguards the human rights of workers in supply chain. The company has improved governance by enhancing its risk mitigation procedures and shifted the focus to bushfire crisis and COVID-19 pandemic as it operates on the principle that crisis increases risk and make weaker sections of the society more vulnerable, thus upholding human rights. Also, it enhanced the supplier engagement and its grievance mechanisms. Similarly, Coles group has an Ethical Sourcing Program at place which targets supply chains with high slavery and human rights issues. They enhanced the program by hiring skilled social-compliance auditor and updated its whistleblower policy this year in line with current legislation. It also conducted 442 ethical audits which is less than 474 audits conducted and reviewed in Woolsworths.
To focus on the efforts and to reduce the impact on the environment while engaging in business activities, every industry is provided with some guidelines to maintain sustainability. This analysis will help a business entity to build a better relationship with the stakeholders and also to generate better focus on their working strategy. It also helps an entity to assess the risk and opportunities in an industry. In addition to that, it will give an insight to the management of people, supply and other environmental changes. Woolworths and Coles group are moving to circular economy and has taken some initiatives to reduce plastic waste and also to improve environmental well-being. Woolworths has introduced a new plant-based food range to reduce the use of animal-based protein. It can also be identified as a step towards sustainability. To reduce non-recyclable plastic waste in the environment, this company has also removed plastic stemmed ear buds and cutleries from their stores. Additionally, the entity has upgraded its refrigerators to reduce refrigerant leakage which resulted in 26% lower leakage in 2020 than 2015 level. In contrast, refrigeration management in Coles group will take place through investment in transcritical CO2 refrigerants which will be trialled in FY21 in liquor stores. Coles group has also taken some other interesting initiatives to make the environment better. As a part of this, they have recycled 1 billion flexible plastic pieces to reuse in the production and distribution activities. They have also participated in waste management by using their biodegradable waste for landfills and similar procedures.
As a part of the responsibility towards...