Impact of climate change on Woolworths-Free-Samples for Students

Question: Discuss about the Impact of Climate Change on Woolworths. Answer: Impact of climate change on Woolworths Environmental issue is one of the prime concerns around the world in the present scenario. Climate is changing very rapidly and it is affecting every entity in the world (Collins et al. 2013). Business organizations have contradictory relations with the climatic changes. Organizations are directly or indirectly contributing in generating pollutants which lead to the climatic change. However, this change in the climate is adversely affecting their business also. This essay will discuss about the impact of climate changes in the business from the perspective of Woolworths (Berkhout 2012). In addition, the extent to which Woolworths is contributing in the climate change will also be discussed. Their current policies to counter this issue will be discussed in this essay. Woolworths is a supermarket brand based in Australia (Woolworths Online, 2017). They along with Coles are having majority of the market share in the Australian regions. They mainly deal with grocery products along with various stationery items (Woolworths Online, 2017). Present environment of Woolworths is favorable for their operations but the future business may get affected due to rapid climatic changes. Environmental changes can affect their supply chain of fruits and vegetables. Laws and regulations in Australia are also getting stricter. Woolworths will have to comply with all these laws for their operational facilities. Carbon emission is another environmental issue for them (Allwood et al. 2012). Woolworths is working on various initiatives to check their carbon emission. Climatic changes will also impacts on their business policies. Use of fossil fuels in the transportation of their supplies will also get affected due to lack of availability of non-renewable fuels in the fut ure (Hook and tang 2013). They have taken various initiatives to deal with these probable issues. Woolworths always try to comply with the current social environment in the Australian regions. They have introduced different latest concepts to fulfill the changed taste and preference pattern of the customers and offering them a whole new shopping experience. They have also identified that, current expectation of the customers is to have availability of various products across diversified price ranges. Thus, Woolworths offers products at the lowest possible prices to match the affordability of all the customer segments. Customers are also expecting convenience during shopping. Hence, they place their shopping centers in the heart of the city. They have started online platform of their stores to match with the current trend of online shopping (Rose et al. 2012). Online shopping also adds convenience to the customers. Customer loyalty program has also started to attract more customers and already Woolworths have inducted more than 900000 subscribers (Evanschitzky et al. 2012). With t he recent trend of preferring healthy and nutritional products by the customers, they are adding more green products and groceries. Economic environment of Woolworths is fluctuating in nature. Their business had been affected due to the recent global financial crisis. Unemployment and recession is the major factors in reducing the purchasing power of the customers (Hampson and McGoldrick 2013). This affects the business of Woolworths. They are gaining fewer customers due to the reduction in their purchasing power. These global issues are contributing in the negative growth of the organization. However, the retail industry in Australia is less affected from the financial crisis than the global market. Hence, Australian market is providing the most business opportunity for Woolworths. Natural environment of Australia is also degrading as the global environment. Though, Australian government has been introduced various measures to curb the change in environment, it is not enough to withstand. With the increase in industrialization and economic development, more pressure is being created on the environment. Climate change will mostly have negative impact for Woolworths. However, there are some opportunities that can be generated from the change in climate. Due to the reason of climate change, the average temperature will increase. This will lead to the increase in the demand for the winter appliances such as, air conditioners and refrigerator (Berkhout 2012). Also the food materials for the summer seasons will see the surge in demand. More environment friendly products will be sold by them. Shortage of supply will lead them to increase the price of their products in the market. This will enable them to infuse more revenue from the market. Change in the temperature will help in generating new requirement of the customers. Woolworths can get benefited by identifying these new requirements of the customers. Climate change will also have negative impact for Woolworths as well as for the entire retail industry. Products related to the winter seasons will have lower demand from the customers. Rise in temperature will also reduce the footfall in the stores. Perishable goods will be wasted due to the rise in temperature. Supply of the seasonal products will get affected due to the change in climate. Supply chain of Woolworths will get affected because of irregularity in the production due to change in climate. Change in environment will adversely affect the growth of food items and thus will increase the price in the market. Cultivation of natural food items will be effected due to the climate change (Wheeler and Von Braun 2013). Increase in the price will negatively influence the customers to buy the particular product. Thus, retail industry will be affected from having fewer customers. Woolworth deals in the clothing and apparel sectors also. This sector will also get adversely affected by the change in climate. It is due to the reasons that, various natural raw materials are being used in production of the dress materials (Kurukulasuriya and Rosenthal 2013). Production of these natural items will be affected by the change in the temperature and thus affecting the fashion retail business of Woolworths. Woolworths is having negative impact on the environment due to their business policies. Carbon emission is one of the major issues with them regarding climate change. Woolworths is one of the leading organizations in Australia in terms of carbon emission. This issue led to the increase of pollutant in the atmosphere which in turns leads to global warming. Exploitation of natural resources such as water is also a point of concern from the environmental perspective. Scarcity of water is already been seen in different regions. Exploitation and wastage of water by them is contributing in having more scarcity. Waste materials from their stores have also negative impact for the environment. Physical waste led to air and water pollutions. Also the electricity using by them is also contributing in global warming. Woolworths is one of the prominent organizations in Australian regions who pay a huge amount of electricity bills. Using more electricity means burning of more fossil fuels. Hence, burning of fossil fuels has a negative impact on the environment. Thus, Woolworths is indirectly contributing in burning fossil fuels and influencing the global warming. Woolworth has promoted various initiatives to counter these issues related to environment. The business policies of Woolworth are complied with the Kyoto protocol which is originated by United Nations. By adhering with the Kyoto protocol, they are committed in reducing the greenhouse gas generated from their facilities. Woolworths promoted a strategy named, doing the right thing in 2007 in order to decrease the carbon emissions from their various operational facilities. The target set in this policy is to reduce the carbon emissions, Opening of new green stores which will be environment friendly. These types of stores will have technologies to curb the impact on environment. The policy also includes target to reduce the wastage of water and preservation of water. They are also offering bins in their stores for the customers to deposit their waste plastic bags. These bags are being recycled and are used in various ways. Woolworths will also invest in generation of renewable energy which will prove cost-effective in the long-run for them. They are working with their suppliers in educating them about the impact of climate change (Arli et al. 2013). As Woolworth deals with food items, thus they have promoted awareness drive for their suppliers in order to produce food items complying with the environmental issues. Woolworths is now promoting recycled packages for their product. This will help in reducing the waste generated from the packaging materials. Also, the packages are done in such a way that, they will reduce the chance of damaging the product. Thus, wastage of product can also be prevented. They have taken an initiative to gradually reduce the waste from their stores. They will work on waste management and food rescue initiatives. They has set a target of reducing the deforestation gradually and aimed to achieve zero rate of deforestation for manufacturing their own branded products (Buizer, Humphreys and de Jong 2014). They have increased their investment on renewable energy such as, solar energy. Woolworths invested more than $2.3 million to install 4000 solar panels in the rooftop of their stores. From their already installed capacity, they have generated more 1560 MW. Strength of Woolworths includes the position of market leadership with having goodwill and reputation. It will help them to penetrate more in the market and expand in the new market. Moreover, the reduction in carbon footprint and introduction of cost efficient ways of packaging will help them to reduce the operating cost in the long term. Weakness includes the external threats from the natural and economic environments. For instance, the price of the products of Woolworths is being fixed by the Australian government, which will hamper their future growth. Retail industry as a whole shows a good growth in Australia, thus it will have a favorable impact on the business of Woolworth. In addition, introduction of Omni channel marketing strategy will enable them to target more number of audiences. Threats include entry of new competitors in the market. Already they are operating in an intensely competitive market which restricts them to increase their price of the products. Also, intervention from the government is also a threat for Woolworths. Woolworth has taken various initiatives in curbing the impact on environment (Smith 2013). However, effectiveness of the above discussed policies is not full proofed. It is due to the reason that, change in the organizational policies cannot able to check the environmental impact without having holistic approach from all the stakeholders. However, it is not mandatory for all to take care of the environment. The policies may not have the desired outcome. Also, the implementation of the policies is gradual in nature and cannot have instant outcome. Thus, instant reduction of impact on the environment is not possible. The retail industry as a whole has also taken few initiatives in order to curb the environmental impact (Smith 2013). They have made compulsory for all the retailers to issue their annual sustainability report based on their environmental policies. Retail industry is trying to cope up with the climate change. Industry is working on having fixed policies for environmental issue which will be followed by all the organizations. Retail industry is committed to work towards using renewable source of energy for their use of electricity in the stores (Twidell and Weir 2015). More green energy will be in use. Using more green energy on the whole industrial basis will have a huge positive impact on the environment. Retail industry caters with billion of customers every day. Therefore, it is being initiated that they will launch awareness drive for their customers to aware them about the climate change. The policies of the retail industry are also not full proofed regarding their effectiveness. Retail industry has taken these initiatives not as a mandatory but as options for the organizations. Hence, retail o rganizations are not bound to follow the initiatives taken. Moreover, clear policies about how to generate revenue in aligning with various policies related to the environment has not been initiated (Kozluk and Zipperer). According to several organizations, following strict environmental regulations will not fetch any outcome for them rather than it will be incurred as an extra expenses. Thus, it is required for the whole retail industry to come up with a clear planning about how to align their business objectives with the environmental policies. In Australia, majority of retail sectors are organized, however, there are some percentage of unorganized retailers also comprising of small organizations and businesses. It may pose a challenge for them to comply with the environmental decisions taken by the industry. Large retail firms have the ability to implement the regulations, but small organizations will not have the enough capital and infrastructure to implement (Ryan 2012). Therefore, the motive or objective of the environmental policies taken by the retail industry cannot be achieved as a whole. Retail industry in Australia should come up with sustainable policies which will be acceptable to all the stakeholders in the industry (Bocken and Allwood 2012). Organizations should have the clear knowledge about the objectives of their policies regarding environment. Environmental policies should not be diluted with the business objectives. Otherwise, it will not fetch its desired outcome. Proper implementation of these policies on the individual organizations as well as in the entire industry will not only reduce the environmental impact on and from their industry but also, it will aware billion of customers in initiating sustainable approach. 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