Sustainable Management
BALANCING SOCIAL VALUE WITH ECONOMIC VALUE
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 socioenvironmental 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 socioeconomic issues.
Material Issues and Performance
See Goals and Results: Strategic Theme 2.
Seeds of social value sown: Visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments
By 2030, we aim to have all of our new and existing businesses contributing to the solution of socioeconomic issues. To that end, the fourth medium-term plan commits us to raising the number of visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments we produce. In line with this goal, we will commit 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 socioeconomic issues. We will disseminate a logic model to give a clearer idea of how employees create, in their jobs, social value as well as economic value.
Over the three years of the fourth medium-term plan, we will take actions to achieve the following two goals: to produce 30 visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments and to have 100% of employees creating positive social impacts through their job. In 2024, we took a step into new territory by pre-releasing Pandoor, a support service for people working multiple jobs. Pandoor matches employees who want opportunities to work outside their usual job with companies that need help with challenging tasks such as developing a new business and formulating and implementing business and function strategies. We will keep rolling out new initiatives. In 2025, for instance, we plan to launch a digital service to support junior-high and high school students and a service to support organizational growth in workplaces.
Actions
KOKUYO Marketing University and KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School
We developed these educational programs to help meet our goal of at least 30 visionary idea (Mirai Yokoku) experiments. KOKUYO Marketing University gives younger employees a chance to learn customer-oriented problem-solving skills. KOKUYO Marketing Graduate School gives older (or mid-ranking) employees a chance to develop their long-term strategic thinking skills. Attendees, by honing their practical marketing skills, finish the course with the ability to lead new business projects that will be the seeds of our future success. More than 320 employees have graduated from one of the two programs. Since graduating, they have taken on fresh challenges, driving our growth as an organization.
Education for Sustainability
We invest heavily in sustainability education with a view to achieving our 2027 goal to have 100% of employees creating positive social impacts through their job. We have a sustainability education program called Sustainable Academia. This program conveys foundational sustainability knowledge and information about our sustainability initiatives through media most appropriate to the content in question, with examples including email newsletters, signage, and events.
In fiscal 2025, the first year of the fourth medium-term plan, Sustainable Academia conveyed foundational knowledge about what sustainable management is and what sustainability initiatives we are undertaking for each material issue. It also included case studies illustrating best practices for creating social value through business activities. To put theory into practice, we have established the Sustainable Lab. Through Sustainable Lab, employees identify sustainability issues in their business unit or organizational unit and take the initiative in experimenting with solutions.