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- Subject Code : MBA402
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- Subject Name : Management
Governance, Ethics and Sustainability
Overview of GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
The purpose of this assignment is to do sustainability reporting of a fictional industry named Tramalway. Most of the companies are today adopting sustainability practices to engage more and more consumers towards the product but it is necessary to check what practices they are undertaking and whether these practices are globally accepted and are in GRI disclosures or not. This report will discuss the challenges and measures taken by Tramalway in social, economic, and environmental aspects.
Contents
Introduction.
Background.
Methodology.
Economic sustainability.
Environmental sustainability.
Social sustainability.
Conclusion.
References.
Introduction to GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
Background of GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
Companies all across the world are embracing sustainability policies in their business to create a long term value by finding out how a company operates in the social, ecological, and economic environment. Consumer environmental awareness and changing behaviour towards products are also focusing on companies to integrate sustainability principles into the organization. World business leaders need to understand the three pillars that drive sustainability include cost, talent, and reputation. The company can increase its savings by using renewable sources of energy, it can hire talent employee who is willing to work for a greater good and can increase the reputation of the company (James 2017). Corporate sustainability can help achieve a livable future, build resilience, and use nature for designing products. The companies must create sustainable reporting so that they can find out the sustainability issues and help them to become transparent for the risks and opportunities experienced. In this report, we are going to highlight the 2016 GRI standards for Tramalway industry to specifically address economic, social, and environmental sustainability issues experienced by the company.
Methodology of GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
It is due to these reasons global sustainable reporting board was created to globally accept the sustainability reporting standards. Global sustainability initiative is an international organization that has created a common language for stakeholders and the organization by which they can measure the companies social, economic, and environmental impacts. GRI standards are based on a flexible and full proof structure (Bilbao-Terol et al. 2017). It has three universal standards and 33 topic-specific standards. A company can use these standards according to the subject in which they are referring. It is required for creating a report following the standards. GRI standards also help the company to know its positive and negative contribution to sustainable development.
Here are the three pillars of sustainability. These include economic, social, and environmental sustainability. All of these are discussed in detail below:
Economic Sustainability
Economic sustainability can be defined as a way by which an economy operates in the world market. The practices were undertaken by the organizations under this category to support long term economic growth. It also means to safeguard, use, and sustain resources to create an optimal economy by using, recovering, and recycling (Schaltegger and Wagner 2017). In other words, it can also be defined as a process by which the company conserve the finite resources available in nature and make use of the renewable sources of energy so that future generations can also see, use and take benefit of them as per their needs.
Economic sustainability issues and management approaches
Economic sustainability cannot be gained by using our current practices. Every organization to ensure economic sustainability has to change its practices and adopt a new way of conducting business with the use of renewable sources of energy. Various economic sustainability challenges are experienced by the company. These include unexplored renewable energy options, overconsumption, delaying in commissioning power plants, overpopulation, wastage of energy, poor infrastructure, and poor distribution system(Jones and Comfort 2020). It is very important to tackle all these root causes by adopting some measures. The company can reduce the consumption of finite resources by using alternative sources of energy that are renewable ones. The company can start investing money in solar panels and can change a bulb with eco-friendly LEDs. It should decrease the wastage of energy and invest in building sustainable infrastructure. The companies must take measures to improve its distribution system
Management approach to the issues experienced by Tramalway
|
Material Topic |
Description |
Management Approach took by Tramalway |
|
Disclosure 201-4 Financial assistance received from the government |
It will report the following information about the company that is whether the company has gained financial assistance from any of the government bodies and also reveals whether the government is present in the shareholding structure or not. |
The federal government of Australia awarded the organization with $15 million as a grant for research and development. The company stated that it will use some of the money for conducting biotechnological research. |
|
Disclosure 203-1 Infrastructure investments and services supplied |
This discourse will help in reporting organization's infrastructure investments and services supported. It further reports about the impact of the investment on local economies and communities(da Costa Tavares and Rodrigues 2018). At last, it also reports whether the investment done is commercial or pro bono engagements. |
The company has invested $10 billion in health and welfare projects in Dolan Bay, South Africa. |
|
Disclosure 204-1 Proportion of spending on local suppliers |
It reports the companies definition of local and also emphasizes its procurement budget for local suppliers that is the percentage of the products and services purchased from a local supplier instead of an international one. |
Tarmalay was initially purchasing products from Golden Goods Bangladesh but that supplier was practising child labour. The moment it came on the news channel the company cut the suppliers from Bangladesh and started searching for a new one. They found another supplier in the country itself. The company raised its total procurement budget by 75 percent. |
Environmental Sustainability
Environmental sustainability can be defined as responsible interaction with that of the environment to keep it clean and pollution-free (Boiral and Henri 2017). In other words, it can also be said regulated use of the forest resources for meeting the needs of the current generation while preserving the resources for the future generation is known as environmental sustainability.
Here are some environmental sustainability issues experienced by the company:
- Depletion of nonrenewable sources of energy
The continuous extraction of renewable sources of energy for running machines in factories and utilizing the resources of other similar purposes is resulting in the depletion of the resources.
- Increase in Carbon dioxide emissions
One of the biggest issues experienced by the organizations is the increase in carbon emission rates in the environment (Bhargava and Bhargava 2018).
- Extinction of species and ecological structure
The air pollution caused by the industry by releasing harmful gages in the environment is another issue.
- Spilling disasters
It is seen that in some cases the gas leak or oil spills in the region destroy the entire resources of the area and degrade the land making it barren for cultivating crops.
- Manmade global warming
The company also has to bear the consequences of the things done in the past like extreme weather condition, water shortage, and polluted air.
- Deforestation
Companies instead of using barren lands are found to be using forest and agricultural land for building plants.
The companies can find measures for all the above-mentioned issues. Like to reduce Carbon emission by the company itself introduces carbon tax so that all the departments of the company try to reduce carbon emission released by them in the surrounding. In case if the company faces a situation of spills. It must find a measure by which the land or the river water can be utilized again. They can spray the entire affected area by something which generates bacteria that eat the soil and remediate it (Sarkis and Zhu 2018). The companies by adopting green strategies can decrease the global warming which is affecting our eco-system and is the cause of species extinction from the environment. The companies can use reduce, use, and recycle strategies to eliminate the waste generated that is released in the environment.
Management approach to the issues experienced by Tramalway
|
Material Topic |
Description |
Management Approach took byTramalway |
|
Disclosure 301-1 Materials used by weight or volume |
It reports the weight of the product that is produced and packaged in the organization by using renewable and non-renewable materials. |
The company has decreased the total weight of non-renewable materials to 55 tonnes and increased the weight of renewable material of up to 45 tonnes. |
|
Disclosure 301- 6 Recycled materials used |
It reports the percentage of the recycled material used by the organization (da Costa Tavares and Rodrigues 2018). |
Tramalway has increased the total weight of the recycled materials for up to 25 tonnes. |
|
Disclosure 306- 3 Significant spills |
It reports the number of times and total volume of the significant spill in the region. It will also report the material of the spill and the location where the incident happened. It will also address the impact caused by the environment. |
It was identified that at the company’s warehouse there was a significant fuel spill in Chemora, Queensland. It was observed that fuel was dispersed up to 8 kilometers due to rapture in the fuel tank. The spill was soaked into the ground. To overcome this disaster the company sprayed hydrocarbon eating bacteria to remediate the soil so that it can be used for cultivation purposes. |
Social Sustainability
Social sustainability can be defined as a framework which helps in improving the condition of people in the organization while also maintaining the needs of the future generations and that of the community people (Eizenberg and Jabareen 2017). This form of reporting occurs when both the structure and the relationship support the capacity of current and future generations. In simple words, it can be described as the process to promote the wellbeing of the people.
Here is a list of social sustainability issues experienced by the people:
- Diversity
The company understands the importance of having a diverse workforce but despite that employees within the organization are not able to bridge the gap of culture, thoughts, and style of working as a result employees feel isolated and in some conditions even depressed.
- Cohesion
It is also observed that team members of the organization lack in making a connection with one another. They lack the team norms and therefore the company has to experience conflicts between the people.
All the employees in the organization are not treated equally. People at the higher position abuse the lower ones and make it difficult for them to work in such environment
- Quality of life
It is observed that companies generate revenues force the employees to work even after the completion of the factory or office hours. It is due to this reason people are unable to maintain a balance between their professional and personal life.
These are the few issues which by taking appropriate measures by the organization can be improved (Belkhir et al. 2017). Like the managers in the organization must not force for extra work, they must create a peaceful and fun-loving environment for the employees and make sure to treat everyone as equal.
Management approach to the issues experienced by Tramalway
|
Material Topic |
Description |
Management Approach took Tramalway |
|
Disclosure 408-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of child labour |
It reports a significant risk in incidents of child labour. |
The company turned off its trade with Golden goods when it was found that the company was indulged in child labour practice. |
|
Disclosure 412- 2 Employee training on human rights policies or procedures |
It reports whether the organization conduct employee training or not (da Costa Tavares and Rodrigues 2018). |
It launched a hundred hours of employee training to make them understand human rights. |
|
Disclosure 417-3 Incidents of non-compliance concerning marketing communications |
It checks and then reports the non- compliance of marketing. |
It was identified that the company was indulged in misleading conduct. The company soon updated its policies, paid to find to the marketing companies, and ensure future compliance with the Australian marketing and communication laws. |
Conclusion on GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
At last, it can be concluded that Tramalway had to experience economic, social, and environmental issues. From the economic perspective, the company was stable as it was investing in infrastructure and has also got a $10 million grant for research and development and was also investing in local suppliers. According to the environmental perspective, the company took good measures to curb the carbon emission in the environment and start recycling the non-degradable materials. The polices taken by the organization were indicating that the company was trying to protect its environment but despite all the measures one of its warehouses there was a leak in the rapture of the fuel tank spilling fuel for 8 kilometres and destroying the land. However, the company found a solution to remediate soil by spraying hydrocarbon bacteria. In terms of social sustainability, the company turned off its trade with Golden goods when it was identified that the company was practising child labour. It also created policies to help the employees by providing them with training. All these facts prove that the company is working hard on its sustainability reporting. It is utilizing all the GRI standards to check at every aspect of the subject and be transparent to the world in the business market.
References for GRI Standards for Tramalway Industry
Belkhir, L., Bernard, S. and Abdelgadir, S. 2017. Does GRI reporting impact environmental sustainability? A cross-industry analysis of CO2 emissions performance between GRI-reporting and non-reporting companies. Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal.
Bhargava, A. and Bhargava, S. 2018. Environmental Sustainabilty–Global Need of the Day. J BiodiversBiopros Dev, 5, p.e111.
Bilbao-Terol, A., Arenas-Parra, M., Cañal-Fernández, V. and Obam-Eyang, P.N. 2017. Multi-criteria analysis of the GRI sustainability reports: an application to Socially Responsible Investment. Journal of the Operational Research Society, pp.1-26.
Boiral, O. and Henri, J. F. 2017. Is sustainability performance comparable? A study of GRI reports of mining organizations. Business & Society, 56(2), pp.283-317.
da Costa Tavares, M. D. C. and Rodrigues, L. L. 2018. Strategic Responses of Public Sector Entities to GRI Sustainability Reports. In Handbook of Research on Modernization and Accountability in Public Sector Management (pp. 159-188). IGI Global.
Eizenberg, E. and Jabareen, Y. 2017. Social sustainability: A new conceptual framework. Sustainability, 9(1), p.68.
James, M. L. 2017. Priorities in sustainability reporting. In Allied Academies International Conference. Academy of Accounting and Financial Studies. Proceedings (Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 47-51). Jordan Whitney Enterprises, Inc.
Jones, P. and Comfort, D. 2020. Sustainability in retail supply chains. International Journal of Sales, Retailing and Marketing.
Sarkis, J. and Zhu, Q. 2018. Environmental sustainability and production: taking the road less travelled. International Journal of Production Research, 56(1-2), pp.743-759.
Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M. eds. 2017. Managing the business case for sustainability: The integration of social, environmental and economic performance. Routledge.
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