Sustainable Enterprise and Dimensions

Background of the enterprise

Wesfarmers Ltd. is an Australian enterprise. The head quarter of this enterprise is at Perth, Western Australia. Wesfarmers was established in the year of 1914. This retailing store has the specialisation in the production of chemicals, fertilisers and the coal mining products. In 2016, Wesfarmers has announced to restructure the Department storesto operate the business independently. Wesfarmers also operated Kmart, which is famous for the automobile services. On the other hand, it can be mentioned that target is the departmental store retailer of Wesfarmers.

According to Ciegis, Ramanauskiene & Martinkus (2015), it can be mentioned that Wesfarmers has expanded it’s business in the field of chemicals, energy and fertilisers manufacturing.Total profitability earning of Wesfarmers in the year of 2015 was A$ 2.44 billion. Total number of employees of the organisation was 205,000. This volume of the employees inferred that the business of Wesfarmers is comparatively larger compared to the other organisations.          

In the points of Dessein, De Krom & Soini (2013), it can be mentioned that the organisation has aimed to satisfy the necessity of the consumers. On the other hand, Wesfarmers also focused to the satisfaction level of the employees. In this respect, the organisation tried to provide greater working environment to the employees. Wesfarmers also organised award program for the employees, this would in turn motivate the subordinated to improve their performance. As a result, the productivity of the organisation would be improved.

Sustainability dimensions          

As opined by Gunaydin & Oraz (2015), it can be mentioned that there are three types of sustainability dimensions such as social, environment and economic dimension.

From the above figure it can be observed that the combination of these three important dimensions can make a business sustainable.In the words of Redclift & Springett (2015), it can be mentioned that the social dimension is helpful to manufacture only those products, which can improve the lives of the consumers. This would in turn increase the welfare of the consumers. On the other hand, it can be stated that social dimension also want to improve the consumer’s lifestyle. On the other hand, Seuring (2013) opined that based on the social dimension, an organisation requires to maintain the quality of the working culture. Therefore, it can be inferred that by implementing the social dimension by Wesfarmers, the organisation can improve the organisational culture. The employees will be highly satisfied with the functioning of this dimension. This will in turn improve the socio-economic well being of the consumers by charging affordable prices of the products.          

On the other hand, environmental dimension is benefitted to minimise the indirect impact of the manufacturing goods on the users. According to Strezov, Evans & Evans (2016), as per the environmental dimension, the enterprises require to obey all of the business rules and regulations in their production. The management of the organisation also require to utilise the resources optimally. Moreover, it can be stated that an organisation requires to operate efficiently and also needs to maintain safety in the production process. Henceforth, it can be stated that the business of an enterprise would be successful. Wesfarmers uses the resources efficiently during the production process. This will significantly increase the economic efficiency and will maximise the utility. It involves the evaluation of distribution of the scarce resources between the producers of the organisation. It also allocates the scarce goods and service towards the consumers.          

In the words of Wheeler & Beatley  (2014), it can be stated that economic dimension is useful for increasing the profitability statement of the enterprise.In addition, it can be added that with the help of this type of dimension, an enterprise can control the cost structure of the products. Moreover, it can be mentioned that an enterprise can encourage the communities by purchasing the local goods and services. In addition, it can be inferred that the enterprise requires to pay taxes and also needs to participate in the local functioning. Therefore, with the help of this economic sustainability, Wesfarmers will be able to support the level of economic production. In addition, Wesfarmers will be able to provide a large amount to the country’s GDP. In order to maintain a steady growth, Wesfarmers needs to pay minimum 2 percent of the overall country’s GDP.

As per the Dunphy model, it can be mentioned that there are six stages such as rejection, non-responsiveness, compliance, efficiency, strategic sustainability or proactivity and the sustaining corporation. This model is helpful to identify the health of Wesfarmers. As per the concept of rejection, an organisation can maximise the profitability statement. Non responsiveness is helpful to identify the lack of awareness rather than the active opposition. With the help of compliance, an organisation can mitigate the risks factors to enhance the organisational performance. On the other hand, efficiency is helpful to highlight the growing awareness within an organisation. The strategic sustainability can effectively move the organisational performance by implementing new business strategies. Lastly, the sustaining corporation is benefitted to internalise the ideology of working. This study has highlighted that Wesfarmers is at Compliancephase. As a result, it can be mentioned that the financial and the technological factors would focus to dominate the organisational strategies, whereas the senior management is willing to follow the environmental laws in order to minimise the business liabilities. Therefore, it can be mentioned that, these liabilities have a greater impact on the environment.

The aim of the organisation is to improve the performance of their business. Instead of the improvement of environmental sustainable dimensions, it can be mentioned that the organisation also requires to maintain a good and stronger relationship with the stakeholders. With the help of the business model canvas, it can be stated that the strategic management can develop existing business models. This model is helpful to describe the value proposition. In this point, it can be predicted that Wesfarmers will be at proactivity stage. As per this stage, it can be mentioned that the organisation would have the capacity in order to control the nature of the stakeholders. The business model canvas can create the values for the consumers. The sustainability of the business would be increased. The satisfaction level of the employees and the consumers will be improved. Moreover, the organisation will provide high level interpersonal training to increase their individual performance.Therefore, the overall performance of Wesfarmers will be improved.

Indicators

In order to improve quality of life, Wesfarmers has chosen environmental dimensionamong the three sustainable dimensions. As opined by Xenias & Whitmarsh (2013), it can be mentioned that environmental dimension consists of two other dimensions, which can be represented diagrammatically in the following:

In the opinion of Ciegis, Ramanauskiene & Martinkus (2015), environmental dimension mainly aims to increase the quality life of the consumers and also to the employees of the organisation.In addition, this can improve the social welfare of the organisation. Environmental sustainability is required to follow in order to maintain the ecological policy. As a result, it can be inferred that the government of the country would give permission to the organisation to expand the business.

On the other hand, it can be cited that the air pollution would be reduced. Dessein, De Krom & Soini (2013) put that Wesfarmers requires to implement corporate social responsibility, which can reduce the air pollution. The organisation can reduce the sustainable waste disposal. On the contrary, Strezov, Evans & Evans (2016) argued that if Wesfarmers implement and follow the economical sustainability dimension, then the organisation can set more appropriate pricing structure of the products. Although this lower price of the products would increase the price war between the other retailers. They also want to set out lowest price in order to enhance their popularity to the consumers.          

On the other hand, as per this environmental sustainability dimension, it can be mentioned that for the renewable resources, the harvest rate do not require to exceed the regeneration rate. In case of non renewable resources, the depletion of the non-renewable resources needs comparable development in terms of renewable substitutes. This situation can be identified as sustainable yield (Redclift& Springett,2015). Furthermore, it can be mentioned that environmental sustainability can be expressed as the communication with the environment. Therefore, the degradation of natural resources can be avoided and the long term environmental quality would be improved.

With the help of some important indicators such as PSR model, ISO standards and GRI can measure how the performance of the environment sustainability reflects Wesfarmers.As per the PSR model, it can be mentioned that Wesfarmers aimed to the three stages such as human activities, natural resources and the environment, the environmental and the economic agents. These environmental determinants are connected with the quality of the environment and the natural resources. Moreover, the pressure, state and the response stage is helpful for the continuous improvement of the performance of the organisation. Moreover, the PSR model can identify three stages of the production of Wesfarmers. It depends upon three major principles such as Pressure, state and response. Therefore, the quality and the quantity of natural resources of Wesfarmers can also be estimated with the help of this model. On the other hand, ISO standards are benefitted to survive the organisation in the competitive market. ISO standards will be able to measure the carbon footprint of Wesfarmers, which have been increasing with the passage of time. It will make negative impact on the environment and the ecological balance will be declined.In addition, Wesfarmers can also satisfy the consumers by achieving the desired quality with the help of this specific indicator. Employees can also face organisational challenges and can improve the individual performance. Lastly, Global Reporting Initiative is helpful to understand the effect of the organisational issues like climatic change and human rights on the organisational performance and also on the environmental sustainability dimension. Lastly, in order to improve the individual performance of the employees, Wesfarmers can provide necessary training program to their subordinates, so that they can increase their skills and knowledge. Therefore, they can survive with the changing environment of the retailing industry.

Development plan

According to Strezov, Evans & Evans (2016), it can be mentioned that to reduce the air pollution, Wesfarmers has followed the corporate social responsibility. In this purpose, the organisation has used solar energy to reduce the emission of smoke. In addition, it can be stated that the organisation required to protect livelihoods and the productive assets. In this relation, it can be opined that the output produced by Wesfarmers would be increased. The entire operation of sustainability of Wesfarmers will be completed by 3 months.

From the above flow chart, it can be noticed that Wesfarmers used solar energy for the production process. After that the organisation has used corporate social responsibility program and the also followed environmental sustainable dimension to improve the quality of life.

In this connection, it can be stated that the employees and the consumers are also satisfied with the function of environmental sustainable dimension (Xenias & Whitmarsh, 2013). As a result, the well being of the people would be improved. This would in turn increase the performance of Wesfarmers Limited. Therefore, the productivity of the organisation would also increase. The smoke emission by the organisation would be reduced.

Conclusion:

After analysing the study, it can be mentioned that this study has described the necessity of sustainable dimensions in case of the production processof Wesfarmers. This study has provided the background of the enterprise. Wesfarmers has specialisation in the production of chemical, fertilisers and the coal mining products. In addition, it can be noticed that the number of employees of the enterprise is 205000; this proves that the employees are highly satisfied with the activities of Wesfarmers Ltd.

On the other hand, this study has highlighted the functioning of three types of sustainable dimensions. In this connection, the activities of economical, environmental and the social dimensions has been described. The main function of these three dimensions is to improve the quality of life. As a result, the employees and the consumers would be improved. Lastly, this study has provided a development plan, which has followed by Wesfarmers Ltd. This would in turn reduce the pollution of air.

Recommendation

After analysing the study, it can be recommended that Wesfarmers requires to follow the environmental sustainable dimension. It is the combination of other two sustainable dimensions. In this purpose, it can be mentioned that sustainable dimension can improve the well being of the economy. On the other hand, the quality of life would be improved. Therefore, it can be inferred that implementing of environmental sustainability dimension can improve the performance of the organisation.

References

Chardine-Baumann, E., & Botta-Genoulaz, V. (2014). A framework for sustainable performance assessment of supply chain management practices. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 76, 138-147.

Ciegis, R., Ramanauskiene, J., & Martinkus, B. (2015). The concept of sustainable development and its use for sustainability scenarios. Engineering Economics, 62(2).

Dessein, J., De Krom, M., & Soini, K. (2013). Rural sociological approaches to sustainable agriculture: A systematic literature review. In 25th European Society of Rural Sociology (ESRS) Congress: Rural resilience and vulnerability: the rural as locus of solidarity and conflict in time of crisis (pp. 154-155). European Society of Rural Sociology (ESRS).

Gunaydin, H. M., & Oraz, G. T. (2015). Sustainable Project Development Process and Total Quality Management. Contemporary Trends in the Regenerative and Sustainable Built Environment: Technical and Managerial Aspects, 147.

Najam, A. (2015). The human dimensions of environmental insecurity: some insights from South Asia. Environmental change and security project report, (9), 59-73.

Redclift, M., & Springett, D. (Eds.). (2015). Routledge International Handbook of Sustainable Development. Routledge.

Seuring, S. (2013). A review of modeling approaches for sustainable supply chain management. Decision support systems, 54(4), 1513-1520.

Strezov, V., Evans, A., & Evans, T. J. (2016). Assessment of the Economic, Social and Environmental Dimensions of the Indicators for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development.

Wheeler, S. M., & Beatley, T. (2014). Sustainable Urban Development Reader. Routledge.

Xenias, D., & Whitmarsh, L. (2013). Dimensions and determinants of expert and public attitudes to sustainable transport policies and technologies. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 48, 75-85.

Xu, P., & Chan, E. H. (2013). ANP model for sustainable Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit (BEER) using Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) for hotel buildings in China. Habitat International, 37, 104-112.