Brother's CSR management and Global Charter
The goal of Brother Group is to carry out management that will create social value through business activities based on the "At your side." spirit. We can achieve this when we create products that address our customers' needs through the united efforts of all Brother Group associates, and in turn we can take pride in knowing that we achieved this.
To develop the management foundation stated in the Brother Group Global Charter (Global Charter), we plan to build long-term trust relationships with stakeholders that put their customers first. We will continue to evolve Brother's CSR management by disseminating this sense of value, stated in the Global Charter, to all associates of the Group.
As society has changed, so the business environment surrounding the Brother Group has also altered, and Brother has always transformed itself according to the changes in the times and the environment in order to continuously provide value that meets customer needs. Going forward, we must adopt the "At your side." spirit and engage in new businesses that will become needed in the near future. New challenges are invariably accompanied by failures; however, since its establishment the Brother Group has embraced a culture of recognizing failures as positive experiences and learning from them. Using the technologies and sales networks we have cultivated through diverse businesses, we will continue to embark on various challenges, respond rapidly to customer needs, and achieve sustainable growth.
One of the strengths of the Brother Group is our Brother Value Chain Management (BVCM). This unique management system positions customer feedback at the core of all business activities—including product planning, development, design, manufacturing, sales, and aftersales service—and seeks to respond swiftly to any feedback received. By implementing this value chain swiftly and globally, we are able to deliver superior value to our customers at the earliest opportunity.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, adopted by the United Nations in 2015, has set seventeen goals to realize a sustainable world and has requested corporations to take some actions as well. Moreover, many stakeholders have also requested corporations to conduct business focusing on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.
Since its foundation, the Brother Group has sought to use its business activities to resolve the issues faced both by its customers and by society as a whole. Based on this approach of contributing to society through business, we respond to social issues with the goal of establishing a society capable of sustainable growth.
In particular, we must position climate change as our greatest priority issue. In addition to global moves toward the realization of carbon neutrality by 2050, natural disasters are occurring with increasing frequency around the world. In order to further promote responses to climate change, in February 2020 we expressed our support for the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), carried out scenario analyses of the opportunities and risks climate change offers and the risks it poses to our business, and disclosed all relevant information. We have also revised our initial CO2 reduction targets from our "Brother Group Environmental Vision 2050," which we drew up in 2018. Our goal now is to achieve carbon neutrality in our business operations and minimize CO2 emissions across our entire value chain by FY2050.
The Brother Group will also endeavor to fulfill its social responsibilities with regard to its supply chain. Through conformity to the Responsible Business Alliance Code of Conduct and carrying out socially responsible procurement, we will work to ensure that the human rights of our employees are respected—including workers at Group factories—and to provide safe working environments.
It is our Group employees who embody the "At your side." spirit. As customer needs continue to diversify, it is vital that we also respect the diversity and uniqueness of our employees, and engage in personnel development and establish working environments that emphasize individual growth. At the Brother Group, in addition to nurturing global personnel and digital personnel, we are also strengthening initiatives aimed at encouraging women's participation in the workplace; in this way, our goal is to create workplaces in which diversity is respected, and in which every one of our employees has the opportunity to shine.
It is important, too, that we recognize how both social problems and customer needs are changing, and grasp this change as a business opportunity. Let us increase our sensitivity to various social issues, understand what demands must be met, and become a company that is capable of contributing to the resolution of these social issues and improving its corporate value at the same time.
Formulating our new vision: "At your side 2030"
Until now, the Brother Group has focused on priority management issues and carried out the relevant reforms under the CSB2021 medium-term business strategy in accordance with the Global Vision 21, our medium- to long-term vision. In order to fulfill the expectations of our stakeholders and continue growing in a sustainable manner, it is imperative that we shape a long-term vision regarding what sort of value we intend to provide to our customers and to society, and to link this vision to our business strategies. Based on this thinking, we formulated a new vision "At your side 2030" which will begin in FY2022 and which outlines our raison d'être (Our Purpose), and how we intend to provide value to society (Our Approach). We will establish and execute our new medium-term business strategy, which is also set to begin in FY2022, by backcasting* from this new vision.
In order to realize "At your side 2030," we must visualize what actions we need to carry out today. In other words, we must decide on the medium-term goals and strategies we have to achieve if we want to succeed in realizing our vision, and then execute them with a sense of urgency. The new medium-term business strategy currently being formulated will show the way forward to achieve our new vision, and we hope it will meet your expectations.
The Brother Group will continue to leverage its strengths and transform itself in order to meet the expectations of all its stakeholders and contribute to a sustainable society by creating new social value through its business. We very much hope for your continued support.
Ichiro Sasaki
Representative Director & President
Brother Industries, Ltd.
October 2021
*A way of thinking that envisions what the future should look like and considers what needs to be done now and how to move forward into the future in order to achieve that vision.
