Wesfarmers Case Study: Significance Of SGD 9 In Australia

Question

Task:
Prepare a Wesfarmers case study critically exploring the various aspects of SGD 9 to ensure resilient infrastructure, advanced innovation, and industrial growth in Australia

Answer

Executive Summary
The research on Wesfarmers case study aims to investigate the significance of SDG 9 that enunciates the Industry, Innovation, and infrastructure within MNCs in regards to Wesfarmers in this context. In this project, it has been discussed about the ways Wesfarmers is adopting the goals of sustainable development at the time of performing, discussed the importance of sustainable development goal 9 in Wesfarmers which facilitates in building the infrastructure and development related to the retail industry. All the data has been collected through the secondary data collection method. In addition to this, suggestions for Wesfarmers have been put forth like inclusion of modern innovation dynamics in its business operations to make the product and service portfolio more eco-conscious and environment-friendly as well as ensuring higher value to the prospective stakeholders. This would also foster growth and development across the respective operating markets.

1. Introduction
1.1 Background to the report
The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9 aims at refurbishing the present infrastructure to reduce environmental footprints on the communities and environment along with the utilisation of the resources judiciously, accentuating the efficacies for proficient research and development as well as fostering the new technological capabilities for the industry. Moreover, SDG goal that also propagates or offering affordable credit to the small business to assist them to bloom forth has been crucially integrated by Australia for its country’s sustainability. The Australian government has committed itself to collectively lend a hand in developing universal global endeavours in alignment with the UN SDGs to eradicate poverty, promotes sustainability, ensure peace, and foster prosperity of the communities all over the globe. Furthermore, Australia has been putting considerable and consistent long-standing efforts across a plethora of sector of education, health, agriculture, environment, water, gender equality, and economy. In addition to this, to adhere to the SDG goal 9, Australia has been emphasising the issues of resource mobilisation, investment in the infrastructure and public services, bringing in advanced innovation and digital adopting, and empowering businesses of all size to stimulate economic growth, diversity development and prosperity (sustainabledevelopment, 2018). Therefore, the purpose of the report is to examine how the major organisational entities have been assisting the efforts of the Australian government in accomplishing SDG goal 9 through sustainable commercial strategies, measures, and functionalities. This is because the fulfilment of SDG 9 calls for collaborative, cohesive, and integrated efforts across all levels.

1.2 Problem Statement
In the context, therefore, the report would be placed wherein it would examine whether a major business organisation have been facilitating efficient and contingent sustainable solutions for encouraging resilient and quality infrastructure, technological innovation, and fair business opportunities in the market in sync with the SDG goal 9 (sdgtransformingaustralia, 2021). Therefore, a major organisation Wesfarmer, has been considered to explore and investigate how it adheres to the SDS goal 9 and fosters the required sustainability and the areas of its strengths and shortcomings that could be addressed. This is because Wesfarmer headquartered in Western Australia has an unwavering and dominant presence in Australia with its variegated business operations. Wesfarmer offers a diverse product and service portfolio ranging from home décor, general merchandise, energy and fertilizers, chemicals, industrial products and so on. Therefore, it is essential to ascertain whether the company has been perpetuating its commercial services or products in alignment with SDG goal 9 as the organisation serves over a shareholder base of over 484,000.Hence the research project would be exploring how Wesfarmer is delivering its corporate strategies and abiding by the goals of SDG 9 through its commercial endeavours However, the study won’t take into account the other major business organisations operating in Australia.

1.3 Aims and Research objectives
The aim of the research study is to investigate the significance of SDG 9 that enunciates the Industry, Innovation, and infrastructure within MNCs in regards to Wesfarmers in this context.

Based on this aim the objectives of the project have been formulated which are enumerated below:

• To investigate the strategic aspects of SDG 9 that is being presently implemented by Wesfarmers for sustainable development.
• To assess the long-term impacts of the SDG 9 industry-based operations on Wesfarmers.
• To recognise the strategic solutions to be accomplished by Wesfarmers through the implementation of SDG 9 broadly within the business operations.

2. Literature review
2.1 Ways SDGs help a firm to build a rigid and prudent infrastructure
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can immensely help firms to map a better future for both the employer and employee. Alternatively, it can be stated that sustainable development helps to achieve the destination for a better future. It can be environment-oriented when the firm is doing its best for saving and utilizing the environmental resources properly. As opined by Matzembacher & Meira (2019), as a positive consequence of environment-friendly activities the responses from the environment will also be positive. Goal 9 or SDG 9 is one of the 17 SDGs which positively impact every business when it is followed by the businesses. Industry, Innovation, Infrastructure, combined builds up SDG 9 and in this particular context Goal 9 will be implemented in a renowned Australian firm and this study will reveal the benefit of SDGs in order to flourish and grow infinitely. As discussed earlier it is clear that SDG 9 is a combination of Industry, Innovation and infrastructure. A well-established industry will lead to resilient infrastructure and as a consequence of the good establishment and high-tech infrastructure the company will walk in the way of innovation (Visser, 2017).

2.2 Importance of business sustainability
Sustainability itself is a too wide word to be described in all the sectors where business is deeply involved. Business organisations mainly deal with profit-making and revenue-generating processes where an inherent quality is also considered and it is the main concept of sustainability in businesses. The SDG 9 is one of the most important 17 SDGs set by the United Nations and has its own glory and importance. It seeks to build resilient infrastructure along with an Innovation and industry-oriented approach. When the Innovation segment of SDG takes place then the environment protection issues decreases and the green movement gets support. It is a form of environmental sustainability and also a social responsibility (Biermann et al., 2017). The infrastructure segment is very important in order to sustain and retain employees and grow the future prospects of businesses. The innovative and infrastructure oriented businesses will certainly be industry-oriented also. The sustainability-related to general practices of business gives a proper backbone to the entire business operations (Lozano & von Haartman, 2018).

2.3 Activities need to perform in order to achieve sustainability
In order to achieve the SDG 9 goal and implement it in a particular business, it is necessary to take three important business and managerial steps which are too important to be considered. As per the study conducted by Ones & Dilchert (2012), the steps are supporting the development and sustainable infrastructure, support global industries and their inclusiveness and innovation and lastly creating innovative forces for sustainable development is also necessary.

In order to develop sustainable infrastructure businesses should collaborate with public and private enterprises. Businesses should deploy an efficient task force to build up a high technology equipped infrastructure. Valuing industrial and global relations are also a part of SDG 9 and its building brick. Industry oriented professionalism gives the organisation morale and a firm guideline for business operations. In order to achieve sustainability in business practices, business ethics must be developed and maintained properly (Sonnemann et al.,2015).

3. Methodology
3.1 Data collection method
The secondary data collection has been followed in the research project that has helped in accessing the existing secondary databases and navigates across the vast array of researched data along with integrating and collating the data (Ghauri et al., 2020). However, to ensure relevance and contextualisation of the information and data extracted only pertinent information has been used. For this, reports, websites, and scholarly articles that have key discussions centred on the present research premise of industrial and infrastructural growth along with innovation as well as focus on the company-specific information and Australia-oriented data are being mainly accessed.

3.2 Rationale for choosing the secondary data collection method
This secondary data collection method has been chosen it has helped in drawing an extensive amount of theoretical and empirical data from the existing credible and authentic sources that offered the scope to reliably answer the research questions. Moreover, the secondary data collections that facilitate the thematic analysis of the collected data further opened up the opportunity before the researcher to recognise the recurrent patterns of themes that inform and underline the collected data. This helped in garnering thematic insights into the collected data and facilitated a structured representation of the facts and information extracted from the various databases (Kumar, 2019).

4. Findings and analysis
Theme 1: Ways Wesfarmer is adopting sustainable goals while performing
As opined by Vinuesa et al. (2020), Weysfarmer supports the SDGs goals whose main agenda is to focus on the need and to fight against inequality. The ways Wesfarmer adopts the different SDG goals include ending poverty by contributing within the community to make the economic status strong. This enables the company in achieving the sustainable goals 1 developed by the UN (Sachs et al., 2019). Furthermore, by giving an opportunity to women and girls to work as a supplier and creates development in the society is again a strategy that the company has adopted. In order to achieve Goal 7, the company ensures access to sustainable, affordable, and reliable techniques and equipment to be used to conserve modern energy (Salvia et al. 2019). However, the company ensures and provides healthy lives to all their staff and employees to lead a better life and this strategy has been achieved by the company and met in goal 3. As per the research that has been conducted by Bebbington and Unerman (2018), Weysfarmer promotes and sustains inclusive and sustainable economic growth by providing productive employment and a decent work environment for the workforce strategy that has been adopted through goal 8 which provides and allows the employees and other staff to improve themselves through training and development. However, goal 8 promotes human rights and ethical sourcing that are adopted by the company (wesfarmers, 2020).

Theme 2: Importance of SDG 9 in wesfarmer
As per the research that was conducted by Jackson (2020), SDG goal 9 or sustainable development goal 9 is one of the important goals, which has been adopted by the UN in 2015. The goal is about the industry infrastructure and the innovations industry is looking for. This goal seeks to build an irrepressible infrastructure to promote exclusive and sustainable industries to foster innovation. The important factors that are incorporated within SDG and are adopted by Wesfarmer are the sustainable development of the company and its industry, the well-built infrastructure for the betterment of the company and exclusive innovative innovation of the company. Sustainable development goal 9 is very important for Wesfarmer as it facilitates in determining and identifying the investment structure for the particular infrastructure, to maintain cooperation across the border and also Wesfarmer encourages small retail enterprises to build their infrastructure by promoting the sustainable development of industries. As per the view of Gustafsson and Ivner (2018), Wesfarmer has incorporated a high standard of transparency by ensuring different functions related to corporate that will lead to maximizing the performance by avoiding the negative impact and by assigning the responsibilities for implementing the corporate sustainability among the groups, which has been considered as one of the importance of SDGs goal9. However, the implementation of the value chain is implemented by Wesfarmer in order to map out the risk by creating opportunities and success (wesfarmers, 2019).

Theme 3: Long term impact of SDG9 on wesfarmer
It has been discussed in the above context that Wesfarmer has adopted the strategies of sustainable development goal 9, main aim of this goal is to look after industrialization and innovation of the company. As per the view of Tomaselli et al. (2019), the long term impact that has been created by SDG 9 on Wesfarmer as the infrastructure of the company provides the basic and core physical structure and system, which are essential for the company to be operated in the society or the community. Goal 9 creates an impact on Wesfarmer by driving industrialization economic growth and by creating a job opportunity for the women and girls in order to prove themselves in the society and that leads to minimizing the rate of poverty which is one of the important goals of sustainable development. As opined by Kyn?lová, Upadhyaya,& Nice (2020),however, advancement in innovation and technological capability of the industry and the company facilitates in developing new skills, which creates a long term impact of goal 9 on Wesfarmer. Indeed, Wesfarmer has adopted sustainable industrial development in order to generate the primary source of income that facilitates rapid growth of living standards, by promoting and providing the technological solutions that are essential for the environment (wesfarmers, 2020).

Theme 4: To identify the future strategies that Wesfarmers can adapt to meet the SDG 9
Future strategies are the strategic plan that is the vision by the company and need to be achieved in future. Engage with agriculture and sustainable food with the border process of sustainable development goals and raising awareness of SDGs with the implication on agriculture and food can be adopted by Wesfarmer for future in order to meet the SDG goal 9. As per the view of Pironon et al. (2019), Contentious and challenges need to be addressed and identified for the contradictory situation related to the chemical and fertilizer. Future action plans need to be developed towards the growth of sustainable agriculture and food. By building and strengthening the capacity of the company to build the infrastructure, exploring and innovating the ideas that need to be resolved by the upcoming challenges related to development, can act as future strategies that can be adopted by the company in order to meet the objectives of sustainable development goal 9 (wesfarmers, 2019).

5. Discussions
It is evident from all of the above discussions that the literature review portion of this piece and the analysis are abiding by the same flow and hence it can be alternatively stated that literature review and analysis of the four themes satisfy each other. For instance, from the analysis part, it can be noticed that the company Wesfarmers is abiding by and maintaining the sustainable development goals by performing various sustainable activities and practices. The sustainable activities of Wesfarmers can be supported through the evidence of environment protection steps taken by the company. The steps include introducing clean energy which is a creative concept; the company Wesfarmers also involves the hydrogen cell concept and its fair usage. The fertilisers produced by the Wesfarmers Company is also very eco-friendly because it has a minimum amount of toxic chemicals. Those environments friendly green initiatives are evidence that the company is following the sustainability of the environment and successfully implementing it also (wesfarmers, 2020).

Apart from the environmental concept, the Wesfarmers Company also follows sustainable development goals in employment and business practices. From this particular study, it is evident that the company has deployed an efficient task force and employment sustainability has taken place within the company and as a positive consequence, the management of the company can take a necessary prudent decision. Employee nourishment and productivity are also growing rapidly with time. From this instance, it is crystal clear that the company has also adopted employment-oriented sustainability and that is why the company can retain and sustain an efficient workforce (wesfarmers, 2020).

Apart from those two sustainability concepts, the Wesfarmers Company is also an efficient player in the field of business process sustainability. As an evident result, the company is simultaneously abiding by Corporate Social Responsibility also. Corporate Social Responsibility propagates for the adherence to the social responsibilities that transcend the profit-oriented goals of the company and encourages firm in engaging in discretionary, social, environmental, legal, and ethical activities and responsibilities for the betterment of the communities within which the company operates and offers all-encompassing welfare to all the related stakeholders (Tai & Chuang, 2014). This is a moral and ethical part of corporate. The common people coordination is also giving constant support to the company due to its responsibility towards greater goals. Apart from those examples, there are several other initiatives by the company that are glorious and responsible in nature. Some of them are woman empowerment, child education, poverty reduction and the economic healing system. The Wesfarmers Company's these initiatives and concepts comply with the standard practices of sustainability and hence it can be stated that the Wesfarmers Company is a sustainable company by nature and it can be an excellent example of sustainable development goal 9 and maintain the goal properly. The themes represented in the analysis part also reflect the clear picture of sustainability in every line (wesfarmers, 2019).

From the literature review part and finding and analysis part it has been evaluated that the activities needed in order to perform the sustainability goal by Wesfarmer and adopting the goals at the time of performing are not contradictory and the statements are matching with each other. As per the view of Ones and Dilchert (2012), the cleaning and sanitizing method should be done chemically free, so that it does not create any disorder or effect in the environment. As Wesfarmer also offers retail fertilizer and chemical industry several positive measures must be taken to protect the environment. However, on the other hand, sustainable development goal 9 is supported by Wesfarmer and there are different goals of SDGs that are adopted to perform well. As per the view of Sachs et al. (2019), Wesfarmer had adopted a goal to focus on inequality and to end poverty in society. However, on the other hand from the literature review part and finding and analysis it has been evaluated the importance and essence of business stability and importance of SDG 9 in Wesfarmer is contradictory as both the statement does not match, where the business organization deals to earn profit and the business sustainability is incorporated with the employment and environmental sustainability, which serves the society to remove poverty. It has been evaluated in the importance of SDG 9, which has been conducted by Jackson (2020), where goal 9 is mainly focused on infrastructure and innovation and also to promote sustainable development industry.

6. Conclusion and strategic recommendations
Therefore, from the preceding discussions, it could be evidentially stated that the research questions of exploring how Wesfarmers has been implementing strategies to address the SDG goal 9, and the ways in which the company has been empowered to perpetuate long-term impacts through its adherence to the SDG goal 9 for the betterment of its welfare to all kinds of the stakeholders. In addition to this, the secondary data analysis also explores and upholds ways in which Wesfarmers enhance its incorporation and implementation of SDG 9 within its diverse business operations.

Based on this, one of the strategic recommendations that have been suggested for the company which are as follows

• To proficiently include the various dynamics of modern innovation in its business operations to make the product and service portfolio more eco-conscious and environment-friendly.
• Apart from this, innovative products would also accentuate the efficiencies of the services and provides higher value to the prospective stakeholders along with fostering growth and development across the respective operating markets.

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