Sustainability Management
Sustainability Management
Material Issues and
Sustainability Management
Sustainability Management
Sustainability Management
Promoting Our Sustainability Strategy
President and COO
In line with Shiseido’s mission of BEAUTY INNOVATIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD, we are committed to realizing a sustainable world where everyone can enjoy a lifetime of happiness through the power of beauty toward 2030. Last year, we marked an incredible milestone and celebrated the 150th anniversary of our founding. We believe driving business by setting social value at the core of value creation to keep exceeding the expectations of our consumers from now on.
We view sustainability as encompassing environment, society, economy, and corporate entities like us. In 2022, we incorporated functions to create and promote Shiseido Group’s overall approach to sustainability into our Corporate Strategy department. We also established new sustainability functions within our major departments, working to create social value and address social issues through our core business.
For society, we will further strengthen diversity and inclusion. As one of Japan's leading companies in women’s empowerment, we will encourage a further increase in the ratio of women in management positions, especially in Japan. In addition, we will continue to solve social issues through the power of beauty and fostering diverse talent globally.
For environment, we are accelerating the actions to reduce environmental impact, including CO₂ emissions reduction, and driving innovation of sustainable products. We are also engaging consumers to help us reduce CO₂ emissions and plastic waste by encouraging refillable and replaceable packaging. At the same time, we established the new recycling model in collaboration with companies from other industries that have expertise in this area.
Sustainability is becoming increasingly important for corporate management, which we also see as a growth opportunity. Together with our diverse stakeholders both internal and external, we endeavor to maintain a high level of transparency and work to create social value through our business.
Shiseido’s Strategic Actions Toward Sustainability
Shiseido has established six strategic actions based on different material issues, three each in the areas of environment and society, in order to realize a sustainable world where everyone can enjoy a lifetime of happiness through the power of beauty.
Our actions for society focus on addressing social issues, primarily through our diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives. These three strategic actions are: “Advancing Gender Equality”, which we will implement by leveraging our strengths as a beauty company; “Empowering people with the power of beauty”, which will help people shine in their own ways; and “Promoting respect for human rights”, which underlies all our activities.
Our actions for the environment are based on the idea of banbutsu shisei the phrase from which our company name “Shiseido” originates. We are working to develop technologies and business models that can reduce environmental impact and realize a circular economy. To do so, we are taking the following three strategic actions throughout the entire value chain: “Reducing our environmental footprint”, “Developing sustainable products, and “Promoting sustainable and responsible procurement”.
Material Issues
At Shiseido, we are committed to creating a sustainable world and enhancing people’s sense of happiness and fulfillment through value creation, as we have done since our founding. To select social and environmental issues to be addressed through our business, we compiled a list of sustainability issues based on interviews, surveys, and discussions with stakeholders. We first examined the importance of these issues to Shiseido’s business and to all of our stakeholders, from employees and consumers to business partners, shareholders, and society, and the earth. We then categorized and prioritized the issues along two axes and defined 18 material issues.
How We Formulated Our Material Issues
The following process was implemented to define material issues.
Identify social and environmental issues in consideration of all stakeholders based on their expectations and demands along with various perspectives collected from:
- Experts in environmental and social fields globally
- Consumer feedback (from company surveys conducted in five countries)
- External surveys, reports from major international organizations (GRI, SASB, SDGs etc.), and investor feedback
- Executive officer and employee feedback
Shortlist the identified issues based on their relevance to our businesses and make a more informed analysis
- Issues are narrowed down to those highly relevant to our businesses through discussions with executive officers and various internal divisions.
- Issues are then selected by scoring them based on the two axes of importance to our businesses and importance to the entire company’s stakeholders (employees, consumers, business partners, shareholders, society, and the earth).
- The questions and strategic actions surrounding these issues are then confirmed by the executive officers.
Submit the finalized list of material issues to the Sustainability Committee for approval
Strategic Actions & Corresponding SDGs
Shiseido has established six strategic actions based on different material issues, three each in the areas of environment and society. To implement these initiatives, we are distributing management resources on a priority basis in each department across the entire company.
A System for Promoting Sustainability
At Shiseido, we work to promote sustainability across the entire company through our brands and regional businesses. In 2022, the Sustainability Committee met regularly to ensure timely management decisions related to sustainability and their implementation. The committee decides on Group-wide sustainability strategies and policies, discusses specific topics such as TCFD reporting and human rights actions, and monitors the progress of medium-to-long-term goals. The committee consists of the representative directors and executive officers in charge of Corporate Strategy, R&D, Supply Network, Corporate Communications, and our brands, as well as other executive officers from different fields, allowing us to discuss a range of issues from different perspectives. In addition, the Global Strategy Committee and the Board of Directors are specifically consulted when a decision is needed on important matters related to business execution. We also publish an annual sustainability report for our global stakeholders in which we disclose the medium-to-long-term targets we have for actions we can take toward sustainability in our core business, as well as the progress toward those goals. Shiseido also promotes sustainable initiatives through long-term incentive-type remuneration for internal directors and executive officers by utilizing multiple internal and external targets concerning Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets, including CO₂ emissions and women’s empowerment.
