Business Sustainability
PART A:
The report starts with the message from the CEO. The contribution of the company to the society has been measured. The approach of the company, its governance, product stewardship and the measures of safety, Health and Environment has been discussed. The role of the company to the people and the community along with the Global Reporting initiatives has also been shown. The appearance of the report is attractive and required information can be extracted easily from this report.
Structure
The Sustainability report covers all the areas very elaborately. The achievements of the organization have been reported in the form of case studies. The Global Reporting Initiative Index is a brief elaboration and a summary of the organizational performance.
Usefulness
This report is useful in highlighting the societal issues and the methods which the organization has adopted to deal with those issues.
PART B:
Orica’s sustainability report is a depiction of its performance. The report has been reviewed by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) organization. It confirms that the company falls in the B category (GRI, 2011).
The organization intends to balance the representation of the organizations economic, environmental and social performance.
The application of the framework has not been done appropriately. Orica has failed to report a lot of aspects in the sustainability report which are essential components of the GRI framework. Considering the business of the organization the level of the company must have been higher. This shows lack of compliance measure and following of regulations by the government (ORICA, 2011; GRI 2013).
PART C:
Independent assurance of the sustainability report is essential because it increases the robustness, accuracy and the trustworthiness of the provided information. This is essential as it increases the credibility of the report and it reduces the risk of the increased value. Assuring the report also improves the board level argument and it strengthens the internal reporting. This also aids the communication with the stake holders.
Orica has mandated for the internal audit committee to review and recommend improvement for controls and the internal functions. Besides this the financials of the company is subject to regular audits. Services of professional auditors are sought for semi annual review.
The SH&E procedures are followed by the company. All the sites and businesses have to prepare a letter of assurance which is mandatory. The level of compliance is measured from this practice. These measures are reliable but compliance has not been done effectively which reduces the credibility of this report (ORICA, 2011; GRI 2013).
PART D:
The Kooragang Island has been mentioned in the sustainability report. The reasons for occurring of the events have been discussed elaborately in the report in the many places. The problems and the measures which the company is planning to take for the hazards which are occurring have also been discussed. This social measure of this issue has been discussed in the process safety section of this report. Energy consumption and the green house gas emission section also cover the details of this island. Spills emissions and the community engagement due to the spills have been highlighted. All the appropriate reasoning for the current incidents and its impact on the company has been elaborately discussed in this report.
The adverse response of the regulating and government bodies in this regard was very rigorous. This is because the company was lagging in compliance and following the prescribed procedures. The law clearly suggests that the community must be informed about such events at the earliest. The government agencies were informed about this problem after 24 hours which was against the government laws.
List of References
GRI. (2011). Statement – GRI application level check. Available from https://www.google.com.pk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.orica.com%2FArticleDocuments%2F311%2F2011_Orica_GRI_Statement.pdf.aspx&ei=qhlIUr2iH82FhQeA4YGIDg&usg=AFQjCNGM08PbCNvX9yT4i1-9x845YATQUw&sig2=uL6nRgBqLe0z3cn7u2MeEA&bvm=bv.53217764,d.ZG4 [Accessed 27 September 2013]
GRI. (2013). The external assurance of sustainability reporting. Available from https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/GRI-Assurance.pdf [Accessed 27 September 2013]
ORICA. (2011). ORICA sustainability report 2011. Available from https://www.google.com.pk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDEQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.orica.com%2FArticleDocuments%2F311%2F2011-Orica-Sustainability-Report.pdf.aspx&ei=DRlIUtjzKImnhAeEq4GYBg&usg=AFQjCNFY6imvjJ2_Opc5i04VtfOnOgVrzQ&sig2=al_gkX3byicWccqzLiJeXw&bvm=bv.53217764,d.ZG4 [Accessed 27 September 2013]
