What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2019-2020 Annual and Sustainability Report DevelopmentWA identified a range of material issues, such as economic prosperity, community engagement, ethical and accountable decision making, environmental asset protection and enhancement. Among these, promoting sustainability across its supply chain stands out as a key material issue for DevelopmentWA.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards              

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups DevelopmentWA engages with:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Government (Federal, State and Local Government)	·      Committees, taskforces, Memorandums of Understanding or partnership agreements ·      Strategic and project oriented meetings and events
Customers	·      Community engagement programme ·       Purchasing process
Private sector (development industry, builders, peak bodies and the mining and resource sector)	·      Engagement through initiatives such as Expressions of Interest, tenders and joint venture partnerships for the delivery of specific projects ·      Strategic and project oriented meetings and industry forums ·      Memberships with key industry and business associations, with staff represented on several industry committees
Suppliers (consultants, contractors, architects, selling agents)	·      Procurement and contract management processes ·      Meetings and industry forums
Communities (local community)	·      Community consultation and engagement tailored to the local community ·      Community development programmes, including events and initiatives that respond to community needs ·      Media releases and promotional information about projects
Universities and research institutes	·      Working together on research, pilots, trials and initiatives to address common industry and community challenges
Employees	·      Quarterly briefings for all staff to share knowledge and organisational milestones ·      A culture group of staff representatives who seek to improve workplace culture ·      Regular update and online opportunity for conversations with the CEO ·      Internal surveys to understand staff views
Tenants (Elizabeth Quay and Yagan Square)	·      Lease management agreements/processes ·      Place activation, meetings and site visits

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics DevelopmentWA conducted an online quantitative survey completed by approximately 100 stakeholders across all its stakeholder groups.

What actions were taken by DevelopmentWA to promote sustainability across its supply chain?

In its 2019-2020 Annual and Sustainability Report DevelopmentWA reports that it took the following actions for promoting sustainability across its supply chain:

• Pre-screening suppliers
• To manage its supply chain, DevelopmentWA regularly pre-screens its suppliers by establishing preferred supplier panels and registers using a rigorous public market process. Pre-screening is based on expertise, accreditations in quality, safety, environment and aboriginal engagement. DevelopmentWA seeks to mitigate potential negative labour, social and environmental impacts by procuring from its panels and registers. To achieve balanced environmental, social and economic outcomes, DevelopmentWA relies on its network of diverse and multidisciplinary suppliers. DevelopmentWA’s suppliers are required to identify and respond to the relevant sustainable development opportunities through their engagements. When delivering DevelopmentWA’s projects, suppliers are required to deliver cost effective and balanced outcomes across all elements of sustainable development. In 2019-20, over 49 per cent of DevelopmentWA’s procurement (based on contracts) occurred through DevelopmentWA preferred supplier panel agreements. DevelopmentWA also engages Independent Probity Advisors for high value, complex, unusual or highly contentious tenders to provide oversight for the tendering and evaluation processes ensuring probity and compliance.

• Combating modern slavery
• DevelopmentWA submitted its first Modern Slavery statement in January 2020 and is committed to acting ethically and with integrity in all its business dealings and relationships, and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls to make sure Modern Slavery is not taking place in its own business or in any of its supply chains. DevelopmentWA has a zero-tolerance approach and prohibits all forms of Modern Slavery within its business and supply chain. DevelopmentWA employees, contractors, subcontractors, vendors, suppliers, partners, representatives, agents and others through whom DevelopmentWA conducts business must not engage in any practice that constitutes any form of Modern Slavery. DevelopmentWA’s Board is committed to the Policy and is diligently putting measures in place that are designed to prevent and detect Modern Slavery in its business and supply chain. DevelopmentWA’s approach includes the following elements:
  • A Policy was developed and endorsed by the Board in 2019 articulating DevelopmentWA’s commitment to prevent violations of the Modern Slavery Act and the Modern Slavery offences within the Criminal Code 1995 (Cth) within its operations and supply chain.
  • Communication of the Policy and all relevant elements of the approach has been provided to employees throughout DevelopmentWA and to DevelopmentWA’s business partners.
  • Ongoing assessment of Modern Slavery risks within DevelopmentWA’s operations and its supply chain and the development of effective, efficient and transparent controls to reduce exposure to those risks.
  • The adoption of anti-slavery requirement clauses has been embedded in tendering documents and standard and general condition contracts.
  • Ongoing due diligence on business partners, agents, contractors, consultants, subcontractors and suppliers has been coupled with a requirement that they implement procedures which incorporate the principles of the Modern Slavery Act.
  • Training of all relevant individuals at all levels throughout DevelopmentWA. Training to ensure compliance with the Policy, and allow individuals to recognise and avoid Modern Slavery practices.
• DevelopmentWA is committed to ensuring there is transparency in its business operations and in its approach to tackling Modern Slavery throughout its supply chains, consistent with its disclosure obligations under the Modern Slavery Act. In addition, DevelopmentWA provides safe and fair working conditions for all its employees and ensures that no child labour is employed, in line with minimum age laws. DevelopmentWA expects the same standards from all of its contractors, suppliers and other business partners and as part of its contracting processes, includes specific prohibitions against the use of forced, compulsory or trafficked labour or anyone held in slavery or servitude, whether adults or children and expects that its suppliers will hold their own suppliers to the same standards.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria

Disclosure 414-1 New suppliers that were screened using social criteria corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality
• Targets: 5.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.8
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
• Targets: 16.1

 

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References:

1) This case study is based on published information by DevelopmentWA, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original, please revert to the original on the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Disclosure Database at the link:

http://database.globalreporting.org/

2) https://www.globalreporting.org/standards/gri-standards-download-center/

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