-MATERIAL ISSUE 2- TRANSITION TO A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM THAT CREATES SOCIAL VALUE
KOKUYO Materiality Expand Business Fields through the Forest-Like Management Model
Basic policy
Over the years, we’ve offered solutions for new ways of working, learning, and living through a process of first-hand experimentation in which we design experiences for customers through products and services. Amid the plethora of socio-environmental issues, we want to transform management systems and lead the way to a sustainable future with the support of all employees and businesses. As more partners and customers engage with us, the circle of empathy will expand, sparking more innovation and solving more social issues.
| 2023 result | 2024 target | 2030 challenge goals | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments (bringing the cumulative total since 2022 to 22) |
At least 8 visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments (bringing the cumulative total since 2022 to at least 30) |
Our new and existing businesses address the problems society faces. 100% of sales have balanced social value and economic value. |
Organization-wide collaboration contributes positively to the environment and society, increasing organizational empathy and leading the way in addressing social issues. |
| 50.4% participation in sustainability initiatives (compared to 27% in the previous year) Questionnaire survey conducted among employees directly employed in domestic consolidated group companies |
100% of staff engaging in sustainability efforts | Our employees make the world a better place in many ways. 100% of employees are addressing social issues |
By 2030, we aim to have all of our new and existing businesses contributing to the solution of socio-environmental issues. To that end, we set a 2024 goal to raise the number of visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments we produce. In line with this goal, we are committing resources in a sustained manner toward new experiments and entrepreneurship that will resonate with an increasing number of stakeholders and lead the way in tackling socio-environmental issues. By 2030, we want our employees to be playing a positive role in every corner of society. We will therefore integrate everyday work into sustainability initiatives developed by members of taskforces of the Sustainability Committee. We will also organize awareness-raising events for employees and external stakeholders to foster across society a culture of passion and commitment for sustainability.
Actions to achieve goals
Our goal for 2024 is to have produced 30 visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments and for 100% of employees to be addressing social issues.
In an example of nurturing businesses ideas targeting new needs, we launched a business in the self-driven learning sector in 2023. The business is called Hello! Family—a new brand that supports communication in modern families and is tailored to diversified workstyles and lifestyles. Combining a smartphone app and four IoT devices, Hello! Family provides a fun way for users to check where their family members are and what they are doing. The number of visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments increases year by year. Ideas in the pipeline in 2024 include a solution that helps people work multiple jobs and an idea related to learning spaces for secondary school students. We hope to turn these ideas into businesses.
A Mirai Yokoku experiment: The Campus Flats Togoshi
With the advent of the 100-year life, people are increasingly spending their disposable time on pursuits related to self-actualization, such as side jobs, adult learning, and communitarian activities, making work life increasingly inseparable from private (or home) life. Against this backdrop, we channeled our abilities in designing office and retail spaces along with our expertise in making work easier and transformed a company dormitory (built in 1990) in Togoshi, Tokyo, into the Campus Flats Togoshi. We celebrated the opening in September 2023. The Campus Flats Togoshi is a multi-purpose facility. As well as having 39 apartment units, it has a study where tenants can have a go at something they have always wanted to do. It also has a food stand open to the public. The facility was designed around the concept of prototyping lifestyles. It provides a space that tenants, as part of their everyday home life, can casually drop into and use to try out something they’ve always wanted to try, as well as providing valuable time for plotting out one’s next life stage.
voice
Message from a project member
The diversification of workstyles and lifestyles has hugely increased the range of options for how to live one’s life.
The inspiration behind this project was a desire to offer people new lifestyle ideas, drawing on our forte in designing experiences. With a space open to the public and innovative content generation, the facility is designed as a place where tenants can casually try out new things and a place outside the company where employees feel connected with the community and their inner selves. In this way, I hope that the Campus Flats Togoshi will contribute to community building and community interaction.
Corporate Planning Division
Innovation Center
Head of Lifestyle Exploration Unit
Ms. Arakawa
Initiative for encouraging engagement in socio-environmental issues: Tsunage Loopa
In October 2023, we launched Tsunage Loopa, an environmental education program that brings together three parties to think about how to protect the planet: 1) schoolkids across Japan, who use stationery, 2) Kokuyo, which produces notebooks, and 3) members of the public who engage in recycling. In the program, the schoolkids actively collect used notebooks and participate in the process whereby the collected notebooks are turned into parts of new products. Through this experience, participants will start thinking about how society can shift to a circular economy and create a sustainable future. In FY2023, Tsunage Loopa reached 86 schools, with a total of 21.5 thousand children participating and with some 15,000 disused notebooks (2 tons) being collected. In March 2024, we launched an edition of the Campus notebooks (“Campus notebook Tsunage Loopa”) featuring a front cover made from recycled notebooks that were collected at elementary schools in Japan as part of the Tsunage Loopa program. We will continue to encourage employees to take such self-driven initiatives.
Front cover of Tsunage Loopa themed notebook (“Campus notebook Tsunage Loopa”)
