Top Commitment

Since its founding in 1872, Shiseido has pursued unprecedented new value and worked to deliver it across society. The establishment of Japan’s first Western-style private pharmacy, the introduction of the soda fountain, and the creation of the cosmetics business are all examples of how Shiseido has incorporated Western lifestyle practices and culture into Japanese society to realize new value.

The name “Shiseido” comes from a passage in the ancient Chinese divination text Yi Jing. The passage reads, “Praise the virtues of the earth, which nurtures new life and brings forth significant value.” We have always felt that our ongoing business activities are only possible thanks to the abundance of nature and the sustainability of the environment. To that end, we firmly believe that our business activities must place importance on the creation of social value, in addition to economic value. We also believe that a sustainable society is a prerequisite for sustainable business. Guided by these beliefs, we are engaging in a broad range of activities to create a virtuous cycle for a better society.

This virtuous cycle is put into motion by our corporate mission, BEAUTY INNOVATIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD. Our sustainability strategy centers on ESCG. “ESG” stands for “environment,” “society,” and “corporate governance” and is a concept on which modern society places value, while “C” represents “culture,” a unique strength of Shiseido. Accordingly, we are working to promote the Sustainable Beauty Initiative, which aims to realize a better world, and has defined the following key areas that require our attention as a beauty company.

Striving for the ideal of a global environment that supports lives of vibrancy.

Advancing a society that embraces diversity through respect, and supports lives of beauty.

Creating new value to enrich culture by transforming beauty.

Striving to maintain and improve transparency, fairness and agility of management,
while maximizing corporate value over the medium to long term, for all stakeholders.

In regard to environmental areas, we are focusing efforts on establishing targets and timelines for reducing our environmental footprint, such as CO₂ emissions, palm oil, paper, and water resources, as we aim to achieve further sustainable growth. We are prioritizing measures to address climate change, in particular, and promptly expressed our support for the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in April 2019. In addition, we are strengthening initiatives such as reducing marine pollution through the development of eco-friendly packaging. Also, we continue to protect people’s skin and bodies from the damage of UV rays by leveraging our sunscreen technologies, which have garnered high praise.

For social areas, we are leading the way in terms of empowering women, a major issue facing Japanese society. With regard to our offices in Japan, we are currently aiming to raise the ratio of female leaders to 40% by the end of 2020. In addition, President and CEO Masahiko Uotani has been appointed as the inaugural chair of the 30% Club Japan, a chapteraiming to boost female representation on company boards. Amid the current conditions in Japan, which ranks 121st_* in gender equality, we are working together with other companies to resolve issues that impede the empowerment of women. Globally, we will expand activities unique to a beauty company to empower senior citizens and those with serious concerns about their skin and appearance, including changes in skin color caused by the side effects of cancer treatment, through the power of beauty.

In areas related to culture, where the Company boasts strengths, we will pass on our long-cultivated corporate culture and DNA to future Group employees, as we strengthen our unity through shared value and evoke our power to innovate that has enabled us to constantly transform in response to changing times. By doing so, we will explore and discover new aesthetic sensibilities and create new value through collaboration with our businesses.

As a framework for creating social value unique to a beauty company, we defined the Shiseido Group’s material issues in April 2019 based on interviews and discussions with our stakeholders.
Categorizing issues taking into consideration their impact on our stakeholders(consumers, business partners, employees, shareholders, and society and the earth) and their impact on the Company’s businesses, we established an order of priority and selected 18 material issues. In addition, we revised our definition of social value from the perspectives of the environment, society, and culture.

The details and positioning of each mapped issue are reviewed as necessary through discussions by the dedicated management board called the Sustainability Committee, etc.

The following process was implemented to define materiality.

Discussions are held with board members and various divisions to select issues highly relevant to business management. The selected issues are subjected to impact assessment based on two perspectives―importance to all stakeholders (consumers, business partners, employees, shareholders, society, and the Earth) and Shiseido’s businesses. The assessment scores are used to narrow down the list and finalize the 18 material issues. The details and strategic actions for the 18 issues are confirmed by the board members.

We promote the Sustainable Beauty Initiative and contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.