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As we enter the fiscal year 2024, our Sustainability Division celebrates its third year since its establishment. This year marks a crucial phase for our group as we initiate new endeavors aimed at achieving Taisei Vision 2030, our medium- to long-term goals. We are committed to learning from the unmet performance targets of our previous medium-term business plan and issues that surfaced last year and leveraging these lessons for future growth.
Reflecting on the societal circumstances of the past two years, we have witnessed a search for post-COVID societal norms, the emergence of new geopolitical risks, the ferocity of natural disasters including the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake, the depreciation of the yen alongside inflation, and the astonishing evolution of AI technologies like ChatGPT. All of these factors have intertwined in a complex manner, driving change at a pace far beyond what anyone imagined.
With regard to sustainability, the significance of various challenges, including climate change, biodiversity, poverty, and human rights, has been globally recognized, increasing the demand for companies to contribute to solving these issues. It has become increasingly important to craft a value creation story for achieving sustainability transformation (SX), and it is not an exaggeration to say that how we engage with these efforts now defines the sustainability of each company.
Under these circumstances, our group aims to achieve sustainable growth together with society by helping resolve issues that our customers and society face through our business activities. We are committed to our mission of “contributing to the development of a resilient society where people can live affluent and cultural lives,” as outlined in Taisei Vision 2030, which guides our steadfast progress toward addressing sustainability challenges.
Specifically, we have revised our environmental policy to clarify our group's responsibilities and contributions through business activities to achieve three types of societies: the “Decarbonized Society,” the “Recycling-Oriented Society,” and the “Nature Co-Existing Society,” along with addressing the two individual issues: “Forest Resources & Forest Environment” and “Water Resources & Water Environment.” We are proactively working on priority actions toward our long-term goals for 2050 and the milestones set for 2030. Achievements include Renewal ZEB of our group-owned buildings and their use as showrooms, the commencement of construction of the Group new next-generation technology research institute that will be a zero-carbon building, and acquiring renewable energy sources to supply our groupʼs power consumption. Furthermore, for two consecutive years in 2022 and 2023, we have intensified our efforts to disseminate information by participating in the Japan Pavilion event at the COP (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
With regard to human rights, alongside the launch of our division, we started our human rights due diligence efforts, which have evolved through continuous improvement. We value dialogue with all stakeholders, including our employees, specialized contractors and suppliers, foreign technical intern trainees working at our sites, and NGOs. By leveraging the insights gained from these interactions, we are advancing efforts to minimize the adverse impact on human rights caused by our group's business activities.
However, as previously mentioned, the world is changing at an incredible pace, and companies are increasingly expected to contribute to solving a wide range of sustainability issues. To enhance our initiatives in response to such changes, we reorganized our division on April 1st of this year, establishing the Carbon Neutral Technology Business Promotion Department and the Regional Cooperation Business Promotion Department. With these changes, we aim to strengthen our efforts in carbon-neutral construction and related business areas and focus more on co-creating business ventures that address regional issues through collaboration with local governments and businesses.
Additionally, with this organizational change, we have also established the Human Rights Promotion Section to specifically address human rights issues, accelerating our efforts in this area. Particularly in the construction industry, regulations limiting overtime work go into effect in April this year, making it crucial to address the problem of long working hours and ensuring adequate holidays. This issue affects not just our group's executives and employees, but the entire construction industry, including our supply chain, making it vital for us to pool our internal and external resources to find solutions. As the Chief Sustainability Officer of our group, I am committed to tirelessly working toward solving these issues from the perspective of building a sustainable society where no one is left behind.
Furthermore, in today's world where businesses are increasingly expected to address environmental and social issues, the role of materiality is also evolving. In March of last year, we established a working group to review the materiality and reaffirm the sustainability issues critical to our group, and after extensive discussions both internally and externally, we are soon planning to disclose the results along with our new medium-term business plan. We are also revisiting our sustainability measures to achieve Taisei Vision 2030, with plans to disclose the results.
Since 1990, our group has been guided by our group philosophy, which is “to create a vibrant environment for all members of society.” Before the term “sustainability” entered the common lexicon in Japan, we have been engaging in business practices that value the intersection of people and the environment. Based on this philosophy, I view my mission as looking even further ahead to address sustainability challenges, striving to fulfill Taisei Vision 2030, and thus enhancing our group's future corporate value. Moving forward, I will continue to spearhead these efforts, fostering ongoing dialogue with all our stakeholders.
Please look forward to the initiatives our group will undertake toward solving sustainability challenges.
April 1, 2024
Executive Vice President,
Chief of the Sustainability Division (Integrated)
CSuO
Jiro TANIYAMA