Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility
Introduction
Trend towards triple bottom line reporting is undisputed. Especially for many public corporates, there is always a separate sustainability reporting when releasing the annual reports. For small and medium businesses, there is also information about social and environmental effects in annual reports, provided to stakeholders. But there are still many challenges, which impede businesses addressing triple bottom line reporting. This essay will briefly discuss the major challenges of triple bottom line implementation in agribusiness sector. Non-alignment between triple bottom line reporting and business strategy and objectives As well known, the strategic direction of a business and the need for competitive advantage from being transparent in reporting TBL performance indicators are the major factors, which drive the preparation and publishing of triple bottom line report. The information released in triple bottom line reporting should comply with the business strategy and objectives of a company, which could ensure the value of triple bottom line reporting and its longevity. However, such alignment between triple bottom line reporting and business strategy and objectives could be more easily achieved in big business. For example, in triple bottom line reporting of Wesfarmers, there is detailed information about the efficiency of energy saving and target of energy saving in certain period (Wesfarmers, 2014). In other words, there are specific introductions about how much the energy savings by Wesfarmers could contribute to the overall profits of the company and what the energy savings target of Wesfarmers in the following period. The major reason that big business could easily achieve such alignment is that big business has enough funds to support technology innovation to save resources, which not only protects the environment but also improves the business efficiency or market reputation (Gettler, 2007). Meanwhile, in long term, the value of business
Trend towards triple bottom line reporting is undisputed. Especially for many public corporates, there is always a separate sustainability reporting when releasing the annual reports. For small and medium businesses, there is also information about social and environmental effects in annual reports, provided to stakeholders. But there are still many challenges, which impede businesses addressing triple bottom line reporting. This essay will briefly discuss the major challenges of triple bottom line implementation in agribusiness sector. Non-alignment between triple bottom line reporting and business strategy and objectives As well known, the strategic direction of a business and the need for competitive advantage from being transparent in reporting TBL performance indicators are the major factors, which drive the preparation and publishing of triple bottom line report. The information released in triple bottom line reporting should comply with the business strategy and objectives of a company, which could ensure the value of triple bottom line reporting and its longevity. However, such alignment between triple bottom line reporting and business strategy and objectives could be more easily achieved in big business. For example, in triple bottom line reporting of Wesfarmers, there is detailed information about the efficiency of energy saving and target of energy saving in certain period (Wesfarmers, 2014). In other words, there are specific introductions about how much the energy savings by Wesfarmers could contribute to the overall profits of the company and what the energy savings target of Wesfarmers in the following period. The major reason that big business could easily achieve such alignment is that big business has enough funds to support technology innovation to save resources, which not only protects the environment but also improves the business efficiency or market reputation (Gettler, 2007). Meanwhile, in long term, the value of business