Implements Sustainability Policies and Practices †MyAssignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Implements Sustainability Policies and Practices. Answer: Introduction In todays business world, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is considered as a major pillar for the success of the businesses. CSR refers to a particular business approach that has major coronation of towards sustainable development of the companies by delivering social, economic and environmental benefits to the stakeholders (Schwartz 2017). In recent years, it has been seen that the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CAB) has been involved in the violation of different CSR principles with their business activities. This report takes an honest attempt to analyse and evaluate various aspects of CSR activities of CBA. CAB is regarded as one of the major banks of Australia providing different types of financial services to the Australians. It needs to be mentioned that CAB follows some practices and financial strategies to make financial decision making that have some connection with various CSR activities of the bank. For the identification of the relation of practices and financial decagons with the CSR activities, it is required to shed on them (commbank.com.au 2018). Three main categories can be seen in the practices of CAB; they are Governance practices, Social Practices and Environmental Practices. The policy of governance of CAB ensures professionalism, honesty, commonsense and fairness in the banking practices. The main objective of CAB is to implement the highest practice of corporate governance. Moreover, CAB always ensures the correct payment of their taxes (commbank.com.au 2018). In addition, CAB has various practices to fight with bribery, corruption, money laundering, fraud and others. The social practice of CAB ensures human rights, financial inclusion, diversity, responsible procurement and others. Apart from these, CAB has also developed strategies to fight with different environment factors like environmental management, climate change, responsible investing and others (commbank.com.au 2018). As a part of the financial strategies, the main aim of CAB is to provide the Australians with the required financial services like banking, fund management, insurance and others. Over the years, there has not been any change in the financial strategies of the bank (commbank.com.au 2018). The board of CAB has taken the decision of reviewing the remuneration strategy, framework and governance in order to provide transparency and accountability. Apart from this, CAB also taken the decision of strengthening the business of CommInsure and other business segments. These are the major financial decisions of CAB (commbank.com.au 2018). In the areas of CSR, the main approach of CAB is to launch various CSR programs and initiatives in order to assist the customers, support the communities and to ensure minimum impact on the environment. In order to increase the value of contribution towards the society and environment, CAB does the review of the emerging social and environmental issues for the development of effective CSR strategies. As a part of the CSR strategies, CAB has implemented different CSR strategies like carbon reporting, climate disclosure, respecting human rights and many others (commbank.com.au 2018). The above discussion indicates towards the presence of a positive connection between the practice and CSR principles of CAB. It can be said that the CSR principles of CAB is a large part of the practices of the bank. In the part of social and environmental practices, CAB has implemented different strategies by complying with the principles of CSR. However, the above discussion also indicates towards the absence of any connection between the CSR practices and financial decisions of CAB. It can be observed that CAB has taken the financial decisions by not considering any principles of CAB as the focus is to increase the business of the bank. Importance of Sustainability and Social Responsible Outcome for CBA In Australia, CBA is well regarded for their sustainability strategies and social activities. From the analysis of the sustainability report of CBA, it can be observed that sustainability, social responsibility is the daily focus area of CBA, and the development of various sustainability approaches can be seen for over the years (canstar.com.au 2018). Moreover, CBA considers their social responsibilities as one of the major parts of their business. As CBA is a major financial institute, it plays an integral part in the social development of various aspects like job creation, growth of the people of Australia, innovation and others. Thus, for CBA, the different sustainability and social responsibility related decisions they make have direct impact on the core business of them (canstar.com.au 2018). As a part of the diversity and inclusion strategy, CBA has achieved 35 percent women in the role of senior management; and the target is to reach 40 percent by 2020. Moreover, CBA has developed a framework for the integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) towards contributing more towards the sustainability and social responsibilities. It can be observed that CBA uses to provide industry-leading disclosures for carbon emission arising from the business-lending portfolio of CBA (commbank.com.au 2018). It needs to be mentioned that the company has been developing strategies for the continuous improvements of various areas like waste management, carbon emission, energy, water and others. Apart from this, CBA puts major emphasis on the engagement of their staffs and employees with these sustainability strategies and goals so that they can be effectively achieved. Thus, from the above discussion it can be seen that sustainability and social responsibilities have great prio rity to CBA as the outcome of them determines the success of the organization to a large extent. Identification of Ethical Principle Breached by CBA In the recent years, CBA has been facing major ethical issues due to their different unethical business actions. The major allegation on CBA is related with the case of money laundering. According to the statement of money-laundering watch AUSTRAC, there is a vats effect of the crime of money laundering of CBA on the common people of Australia as they have been exposed to major financial risks (abc.net.au, 2018). Apart from this, there has been many instances of unethical actions from the side of CBA like the misuse of medical reports of CommInsure, deleting the important files and many others. It needs to be mentioned that all these actions of CBA have breached some major ethical principles (wsj.com 2018). By manipulating the medical reports, files and others, CBA has violated the principles of honesty and integrity. It is required for the management of CBA to be honest and they should maintain the aspect of integrity. Apart from this, with the actions of money laundering, CBA has a lso violated the principle of loyalty and trustworthiness. People keep money in the banks in the presence of loyalty and trustworthiness (Crane and Matten 2016). The money laundering activities of CBA breached these two ethical principles. Most importantly, it can be observed that CBA has failed to continue their business operations in the fair manner and thus they have breached the principle of fairness. When analysing all these issues, the involvement of the senior management of CBA has been found (Weiss 2014). From this particular aspect, it can be found said that the management team of CBA has violated the ethical principle related with the leadership. Thus, based on the above discussion, it can be seen that CBA has breached some major ethical principles. Discussion of Ethical Violation with Ethical Theories It needs to be mentioned that there are different types of ethical theories that can be related with violation of the ethical principles of CBA. In this context, the ethical theory of egoism needs to be mention. The theory of egoism refers to act in someones own interest. In case of CBA, the involvement of the senior management of the bank can be seen in various unethical cases. Thus, the egoism theory indicates that the management of CBA has their own interest behind all these manipulations (Broad 2014). Apart from this, in this situation, the theory of utilitarianism can be mentioned. This particular theory states that being ethical is to do greatest good things for a great number or people. In case of CBA, it can be seen that the management of the bank has failed to do good things for the people of Australia due to the effect of different non-ethical activities like money laundering, manipulation in the medical reports and many others (Mill 2016). Apart from this two, there are ma ny other ethical theories that can be presented in the unethical case of CBA like virtue ethics theory, contract theory and others. Conclusion The above discussion analyses various aspects of CSR activities of CBA. From the above discussion, it can be seen that there is a positive relation between the practices and CSR activities of CBA where the lack of connection can be seen between CSR activities and financial decisions. The above discussion also states the CSR outcomes matter for CBA, as they are major success factor of the company. From the above discussion, it can be seen that CBA has violated some major ethical principles like honesty, integrity, trustworthiness and others. Some major ethical theories in this context are egoism theory, utilitarianism theory and others. References ABC News. (2017).Will CBA senior management at last be held to account?. [online] Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-03/commonwealth-bank-latest-scandal-might-be-the-one-that-hurts/8772390 [Accessed 30 Mar. 2018]. Broad, C.D., 2014.Five types of ethical theory(Vol. 2). Routledge. Canstar.com.au. (2018).Commonwealth Bank Focus on Sustainable Business Practices. 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[online] Available at: https://www.commbank.com.au/about-us/opportunity-initiatives/policies-and-practices.html [Accessed 30 Mar. 2018]. Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016.Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press. Mill, J.S., 2016. Utilitarianism. InSeven Masterpieces of Philosophy(pp. 337-383). Routledge. Schwartz, M.S., 2017.Corporate social responsibility. Routledge. Stewart, R. (2018).Commonwealth Bank Faces Ethics Check. [online] WSJ. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/commonwealth-bank-faces-ethics-check-1503945230 [Accessed 30 Mar. 2018]. Weiss, J.W., 2014.Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.