Johannesburg, 22 Sep 2022
With only five years to achieve the UN sustainable development goals for 2030, environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives are featuring more prominently in boardrooms across the world. But for some organisations, recovery from economic downturns and the impacts of the pandemic are more of a priority than ESG initiatives.
This should not be the case. ESG is a crucial component of business growth and future success, and it cannot be treated as a ‘check-box’ exercise in isolation from the rest of the organisation’s activities.
At Canon, our decades-long commitment to sustainability has borne fruit for every area of the business – in terms of revenue growth, brand perception and employee satisfaction, on top of achieving our key goals of being responsible corporate citizens. We have been globally recognised with an EcoVadis gold rating for six consecutive years, which places Canon within the top 3% of companies globally, and our business partners are increasingly looking to partner with us on sustainability programmes.
We are on track to achieve our goal of net-zero CO2 emissions for entire product life cycles by 2050, consistently exceeding our target of an average annual improvement of 3% for the index of life cycle CO2 emissions per product unit. We have achieved a cumulative improvement of 42% in the life cycle of products from development to recycling through energy and resource conservation and streamlining of distribution, aiming for a 50% improvement in CO2 emissions by 2030 compared to 2008. Since 1988, we have been striving to uphold our corporate philosophy of Kyosei (living and working together for the common good), which has driven us to reinvent our R&D, processes, supply chains and our move away from a linear to a circular economy.
Overcoming hurdles
These successes do not happen overnight and can only be achieved if sustainability is driven from the top. At Canon, sustainability and Kyosei are ingrained in our corporate culture and championed by our top leadership. With stringent protocols in place around procurement and operations throughout the organisation, every business unit in every region of the world must align.
For organisations still embarking on ESG transformation, adding sustainability checks and balances at every step of operations could seem daunting and costly. Supply chains must be scrutinised to ensure they are compliant, which could initially slow procurement. Every component – from packaging to spares and consumables – should be sustainably sourced, which could mean paying more. And every unavoidable use of CO2, such as travel for training, must be carefully calculated and offset. In the initial phases, operating sustainably may seem more expensive and resource intensive.
But when top management is already convinced, it doesn’t take much to get buy in and budget. When everyone in the organisation knows the vision and corporate philosophy, sustainability teams feel valued and supported, and they in turn help all business units to operate more sustainably.
The ESG wins
In the long term, operating sustainably is the only way forward. It’s the right and responsible thing to do. But there are also business benefits – as a leader in this space, we enjoy global respect and now see business and channel partners looking to join Canon’s social and environmental initiatives. We also see growing numbers of customers asking for our ESG credentials and seeking our advice on ways to reduce their CO2 footprints and energy consumption.
There are clear wins for the communities where Canon is located; for example, through our Young People Programme. The Young People Programme uses UN Sustainable Development Goals as a framework. Through this programme, we are educating and equipping young creative minds to tell the stories behind the global issues most important to them. In South Africa, the programme has empowered over 5 500 children and teens to date.
Finally, there are wins for employees and overall company culture when the organisation they work for is committed to ethical, sustainable business. At Canon, we are proud to work for a company so genuinely committed to working for the common good. Seeing the positive impacts we have on society and the environment generate company loyalty and job satisfaction.
Canon is proving that sustainability drives success, enabling the company to ‘enable abundant lifestyles while protecting the environment, by harnessing the power of technology and innovation to provide greater value while using fewer resources'.
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