Global CSR Report: Epson is Meticulous About Corporate Citizenship

Epson has been helping to solve various social issues by delivering unique value through innovative and creative products and solutions. Epson is primarily engaged in developing, manufacturing, selling, and providing services for products in the printing solutions, visual communications, wearable and industrial products, and the other business.

The company is organized into operations divisions that come under global consolidated management. The majority of advanced R&D and product development is conducted in Japan while manufacturing and sales activities are conducted around the world by Epson Group manufacturing and sales companies, both in Japan and abroad.

1. CSR at Epson

Epson’s mission is to build stakeholder trust as we grow and prosper with communities and to help create a better world. The team considers any action designed to realize Epson’s Management Philosophy to be a CSR activity.

In addition to ensuring compliance, observing corporate ethics, and fulfilling responsibilities at a level that exceeds what society requires, they demonstrate their creativity in CSR by creating value through the products they develop and manufacture.

1.1. Key CSR themes

In 2017, Epson developed a materiality matrix that identifies key CSR themes, such as environmental issues, respect for human rights, human resources development, and governance. They prioritized the key themes in the Key CSR Themes matrix. They use this matrix to guide and strengthen their CSR activities and to help make the world a better place as they seek to become an indispensable company.

To help ensure that their activities are effective, they specified action items and targets (KPI) for each key CSR theme. The company periodically revises the key CSR themes and action items based on feedback from stakeholders, and promises to systematically drive continuous improvements.

1.2. Principles of Corporate Behaviour

Established in 2005 and applying to the entire Epson Group, Principles of Corporate Behaviour spells out principles of conduct for realizing the goals of Epson’s Management Philosophy. In 2017, they updated Principles of Corporate Behaviour in response to the latest societal requirements. The principles are based on “trust-based management,” a concept that underlies Epson’s Management Philosophy.

The general principles of corporate governance at Epson are as follows:

1. Respect the rights of shareholders, and secure equality.

2. Keeping the interests of shareholders, customers, communities, business partners, employees and other stakeholders in mind, work in an appropriately cooperative manner with them.

3. Disclose company information as appropriate and ensure transparency.

4. Directors, Executive Officers, and Special Audit & Supervisory Officers shall be aware of their fiduciary responsibilities and shall fulfill the roles and responsibilities expected of them.

5. Epson shall engage in constructive dialogue with shareholders.

1.3. CSR organisation

Epson’s Sustainability Promotion Office has a direct reporting line to the company president. The director of the office is a member of Seiko Epson’s board of directors. He has overall responsibility and authority for the Epson Group’s CSR activities. The CSR Management Office was renamed the Sustainability Promotion Office in April 2020, and CSR and CSV activities are consolidated under it to accelerate the achievement of social sustainability while also achieving business growth by solving social issues.

Epson’s CSR Executive Council, which is made up of board members, serves as an advisory body to the president and steers the CSR activities of the global Epson Group. The council also reviews CSR activities and deliberates action plans for the most important challenges. The CSR Executive Council has set up a CSR Management Committee to discuss and study CSR-specific issues.

The CSR Management Committee, which is made up of general managers from functional supervisory departments, reports and appeals its findings to the CSR Executive Council. Sustainability Promotion Office serves as the secretariat for the CSR Executive Council and the CSR management committee. Under the control of the CSV/CSR Director, the Sustainability Promotion Office and the CSR Management Committee are responsible for the execution of business related to CSR activities.

2. Participating in Sustainability Initiatives

Epson seeks to contribute to the achievement of a sustainable society through its business activities and thereby become an indispensable company. For this reason, they endorse and take part in numerous sustainability initiatives.

2.1. United Nations Global Compact

Epson officially joined the United Nations Global Compact on July 16, 2004, when a Letter of Commitment signed by the president of Seiko Epson was sent to and accepted by the Secretary-General of the UN. The letter expressed Seiko Epson’s commitment to the Global Compact in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption.

Seiko Epson has reiterated its commitment to the United Nations Global Compact by signing the Statement from Business Leaders for Renewed Global Cooperation. The Statement from Business Leaders for Renewed Global Cooperation was announced as a new policy of the UN in September, and was issued to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations and the 20th anniversary of the United Nations Global Compact. Signatories commit to operating in a spirit of global cooperation, accountability, corporate ethics and transparency.

2.2. Responsible Business Alliance (RBA)

In April 2019, Seiko Epson Corporation joined Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), a global coalition dedicated to CSR in global supply chains, and strengthen CSR supply chain initiatives. RBA is a nonprofit comprised of companies committed to supporting the rights and wellbeing of workers and communities worldwide affected by the global supply chain. As a Regular Member, Epson commits to fully supporting the vision and goals of the RBA.

2.3. Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI)

Epson joined the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) on April 2019. The company is promoting responsible sourcing minerals, and fostering cooperation to promote the use of conflict mineral surveys in the supply chain.

2.4. Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures

The Financial Stability Board created the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to promote disclosures on climate-related risks and opportunities. In June 2017, the TCFD published its recommendations.

Epson indicated its support for the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) in October 2019. The corporation has enhanced its disclosures (on governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets) based on the TCFD framework so as to enable good communication with shareholders, investors, and a broad spectrum of other stakeholders.

They conducted a scenario analysis based on the TCFD framework to assess the financial impact of climate-related risks and opportunities on the company’s strategy. They found that in a 2℃ scenario in which rapid progress on decarbonization is achieved, there is transition risk of higher operating costs than in a 4℃ scenario due to the imposition of policies and legal regulations. However, Epson’s strength lies in products and services that have a lower environmental impact (e.g., consume less power and produce less waste). These products and services match the materialities that Epson has identified to advance the frontiers of industry and achieve sustainability in a circular economy, providing opportunities for business expansion. This expansion will help customers reduce their environmental impacts and contribute to the containment of climate change.

Based on the results of these assessments, the global corporation will continue to try to maximize its opportunities while addressing recognized risks so as to achieve the decarbonization of the Paris Agreement. On the other hand, even in a 4℃ scenario in which global warming has advanced because the world failed to take measures beyond what are currently being taken, they found that the impact of physical risks on their domestic and overseas sites due to weather extremes would be small.

3. Education

Epson’s contributions go beyond financial support. The company emphasizes CSR contributions involving the technologies and knowledge that underpin its business as a way to give something back to society.

3.1. Educational Assistance for Children in India

Epson India Pvt. Ltd. (EPIL) believes in the importance of future childhood education and has an assistance programme that focuses on underprivileged children. Over the past several years, EPIL has been distributing books, notebooks, and backpacks to public schools that serve underprivileged children primarily in the states of Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The number of recipient schools has been increasing by the year. The children were happy with their new gear that helped with their studies. In 2019-20, they cooperated in and supported a project to increase the literacy rate in India by providing and installing projectors and computers in classrooms. These materials increase the quality of education and increase the students’ motivation to learn.

3.2. Cikarang Japanese School in Indonesia

Indonesia Epson Industry (IEI) helped to establish a Japanese school in the Cikarang region in the eastern part of the Jakarta metropolitan area. Many Japanese companies operate in the industrial parks around the Cikarang region, but the only Japanese school in Jakarta was the Jakarta Japanese School (JJS). Employees and their accompanying family members lived in central Jakarta out of necessity because the area is close to the Japanese school. It is, however, far from the Epson Indonesia plant. Therefore, in 2017, a community of Japanese industrial leaders established the Japanese School Establishment Committee, chaired by IEI President Eiichi Abe.

The Cikarang Japanese School (CJS) was opened in short order, in April 2019, and a ceremony was held in November. Masafumi Ishii, the Japanese Ambassador to Indonesia, joined the people involved in the school’s founding, the faculty, and the students and their guardians to celebrate the opening of a school that Japanese children in the Cikarang area can attend. IEI President Abe served as the Vice Chairman of the JJS Maintenance Association, which is responsible for the CJS, until March 2020, and since April has been a member of the CJS steering committee.

3.3. Watch Assembly Class

Seiko Epson traces its roots to Daiwa Kogyo, a watch factory. Over the decades, they have developed world-class watch manufacturing technology and have master watchmakers. Every year, they conduct 15 hands-on watch assembly workshops for sixth-graders in Suwa, the city in Nagano prefecture where Seiko Epson’s Head Office is located. The workshops allow the children to experience the fun of producing a product.

In 2019, a total of 428 students participated in the workshops. Skilled watchmakers from Seiko Epson taught the children how to assemble part of a watch movement, mount the hour, minute, and second hands, and complete a watch so that it actually starts running. The children enjoyed assembling their own one-of-a-kind watch by drawing their own dial pattern with their favourite colours, which gave them a sense of accomplishment and deepened their knowledge about local industry.

3.4. ‘New Horizons’ Training Programme across Europe

In 2019, Epson Europe B.V. launched a programme called New Horizons to support the education of 10,000 young people in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. This programme leverages the company’s storehouse of technology and expertise to draw out the creative potential of youngsters and elevate their understanding of environmental issues and sustainability.

In Germany, they conducted environmental education that touches on paper recycling and energy conservation for 1,700 elementary students. The students learned how to make recycled paper from old newspapers and learned about the history of energy generation by using steam-powered and solar-powered toys.

Epson also used the company’s printing and projection technologies to teach 400 preschoolers and elementary students in Spain about the conservation of biodiversity around their school. In England, the company had a long-term partnership with an educational institution where they leveraged their latest printing and scanning technologies to provide support to the fashion, jewellery, and fabric design classes of 1,250 students.

3.5. Environmental Lectures for University Students

Seiko Epson provides lecturers and accepts student trainees when asked to by schools and communities in Japan. In February 2020, they hosted practicum students of Shinshu University for a course called the Eco-Mind Program: Experience-Based Training for Environmental Competence.

This course is designed to give students a chance to learn directly from real-world practitioners about issues and initiatives in the environmental field. The head of Seiko Epson’s environmental affairs organization gave a lecture and took questions from the students and listened to their ideas. After the lecture, the students were given a tour of Epson’s Manufacturing Museum and a demonstration of how their PaperLab dry process office papermaking system recycles and produces paper.

The students were also given a tour of Epson Mizube Corporation, a subsidiary that sorts and processes used ink cartridges. They deepened their understanding about a variety of actions that the company is taking to address social issues.

3.6. Environmental Education in China

In October 2019, Tianjin Epson Co., Ltd. collaborated with the Tianjin Society for the Promotion of Ecological Ethics and Tianjin Nankai Ecology and Environment Bureau to educate 360 first-year middle school students about everyday garbage separation and recycling. Employee volunteers introduced them to the PaperLab A-8000, a dry process office papermaking system that recycles used paper into new paper. They also shared the know-how on garbage separation and recycling that Epson has accumulated over many years with the children to raise awareness about environmental preservation.

3.7. Epson International Scholarship Foundation

The Epson International Scholarship Foundation provides funding for exceptional students from abroad who wish to study in Japan and to students from Japan who wish to study abroad. In August 2019, 15 scholarship students visited the Seiko Epson Head Office and the Toyoshina Plant. With a tour through the Manufacturing Museum and lectures on products such as the company’s projectors and smart glasses, they deepened their understanding.

3.8. Epson Information Science Vocational School

Our society is increasingly built around information. To meet the needs of changing times, the company established the Epson Information Science Vocational School in 1989. Its purpose is to develop technical personnel who are trusted by the community and can make wide-ranging contributions to society. The school had 2,760 graduates as of March 2020. Most of the instructors are engineers and developers who have corporate experience. Classes are designed to ensure that students acquire technical skills they can put to practical use on the job.

As a result of the school’s efforts, at least 95% of the students in each graduating class over the 30 last years have received informal employment offers before graduation. Students have their choice of three disciplines: Information Systems, Information and Electronic Systems, and Information Business. The school is accredited by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Moreover, MEXT recognizes all three disciplines as Professional Post-Secondary Courses.

A special class has also been set up to enable the top students to join Epson on school recommendation after graduation. In February 2020, the company received the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, an award granted to the highest achieving companies and schools in Japan in a Digital Technology Certification test.

4. Environmental Conservation

The company believes that preserving biodiversity is also vital to maintaining its business activities and employees’ lifestyles. Basically, the brand looks to preserve biodiversity and to raise employee awareness of its importance.

4.1. Conservation of Wildlife Resources in Taiwan

The Pinglin district, the famous tea-growing region in the north of Taiwan, is the natural habitat of the Taiwan blue magpie, a unique bird of Taiwan. The district is part of the Feitsui Dam water preserve, but in recent years, large-scale tea cultivators in this region have become over-reliant on agrochemicals. These agrochemicals are contaminating the land and water and are threatening the survival of local wildlife. To protect the Taiwan blue magpie, which is registered as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, some local tea growers have been focusing on organic cultivation. However, these organic growers, who cannot use any agrochemicals and who have to pick the leaves entirely by hand, have seen their harvests cut nearly in half.

Only about 10% of the tea gardens in Pinglin are organic. From 2017 to 2019, Epson Taiwan Technology & Trading Ltd. (ETT), along with a number of major companies, participated as a corporate sponsor in a programme to help preserve wildlife in the Feitsui watershed. During those three years, a total of about 100 ETT employees and family members dress up in the traditional costumes of tea leave pickers and go out to organic tea gardens two or three times a year to help harvest the leaves, which must be picked entirely by hand. The organic tea gardens are home to butterflies and other insects, but the participants were most excited by the discovery of several Taiwan blue magpies. ETT will support biodiversity conservation activities as it looks to raise employee awareness of environmental issues.

4.2. Activities in Protected Area

Epson Telford Ltd. (ETL) is a core production site for manufacturing ink cartridges for European market and textile ink. It was the first site within the Epson group to achieve ISO14001 and participates in many environmental preservation activities such as recycling of wastes and energy-saving. With an area of 220,000 m², the site includes a nature reserve that many rabbits have made their home. ETL has not only reduced its production-based environmental impact but also protects and supports its local environment by creating special areas to preserve the habitat of the crested newt and great burnet, which have been specified as rare species; planting trees to offset company car emissions.

4.3. Preserving the Ocean

Epson France S.A.S. (EFS) began providing support for the operations of The SeaCleaners, an association that will use the Manta, a catamaran powered by renewable energy, to collect, sort, and compact up to 250 tonnes of oceanic plastic waste before returning to land, where the plastic will be processed in waste treatment or recycling facilities. Since 2018, EFS has provided the association with hardware support, including printers and projectors, for event and communication operations.

4.4. Coral Reef Transplant Project

PT. Epson Batam (PEB) has been helping to back a coral transplant project on Abang Island since 2015 to preserve biodiversity. The project, which involves people from Indonesia’s fishing and tourist industries as well as government and NGOs, is growing coral reefs (coral gardens) by transplanting about 500 coral fragments every year over a gradually larger area. Residents of Abang Island are hopeful that the transplanted coral can improve the environment for fish and increase their numbers. PEB’s environmental conservation programmes have earned community recognition for excellence and have garnered environmental awards sponsored by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry for 10 consecutive years since 2010 (in 2019 it won the Green Proper Prize).

5. Art & Culture

5.1. Special “Midsummer Night Media Facade” Exhibit

From July to October 2019, Epson Korea Co., Ltd. (EKL) leveraged the value of Epson laser projectors and large format inkjet printers in support of a special exhibit of works of art on an endangered species motif. At this exhibition, EKL contributed technology that made possible new productions and expressions that conveyed a message surrounding the co-existence of humans and nature through works such as paintings, photographs, objects, images, and 3D animation. The powerful images of living organisms suffering from marine plastic waste gave many visitors that came to the exhibition a strong incentive to think about the environment.

5.2. Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival

Seiko Epson has been a special corporate sponsor of the annual Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival since its inception in 1992. The festival, which runs from August through early September in Matsumoto, Japan, was organized to promote music and the arts among the nation’s youth. In addition to regular concerts during the festival’s run, there were special concert events, including symphonic tales, geared towards sixth-graders and seventh-graders.

In 2019, these events were attended by a total of 12,610 students from 211 schools in Nagano prefecture. This educational programme was designed to further the education and development of youth. Performed by young musicians, they are a valuable opportunity for the youth to hear live orchestra music, thus serving as a catalyst for interest in classical music.

6. Corporate volunteering

6.1. 290 Days of Social Commitment

Epson Deutschland GmbH (EDG) has been running its ‘190 Days of Social Commitment’ programme since 2008. The programme began when 190 EDG employees each took one day of paid leave at their own convenience to serve the community by volunteering their time at social welfare facilities or schools in the area around the Meerbusch office. EDG changed the name of this programme to 290 Days of Social Commitment in 2017 because the number of employees had increased to 290. As a part of this activity, EDG provided an opportunity to learn about recycling by making new paper from old newspapers at a local kindergarten. It also helped nursing homes with gardening, repairing, painting benches and cleaning up.

6.2. Flood Disaster Relief Volunteer Effort

A typhoon caused widespread flooding in Japan in October 2019. Seiko Epson’s management and labour union jointly sponsored two groups of 113 employee volunteers to help with the cleanup effort in the Chikuma river area of Nagano Prefecture, where a failed levee resulted in massive flooding. Volunteers were divided into teams of several people each to help restore homes and buildings, both inside and out, by removing mud and cleaning residents’ belongings. They also worked in apple orchards to clear away the heavy clay-like mud that had accumulated at the base of the trees to save next season’s harvest.

7. Awards and recognition

Seiko Epson was selected for inclusion in the FTSE Blossom Japan index for the fourth consecutive year. This index is one of the ESG indexes selected by the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) in July 2017. The company has been identified as a global leader for engaging with its suppliers on climate change, being awarded a position on the Supplier Engagement Leaderboard by global environmental impact non-profit CDP. It has been awarded a Gold rating for overall sustainability by independent platform EcoVadis (France) for the third consecutive year. Epson was placed in top 2% in manufacture of computers and peripheral equipment industry.

The company was selected by Sompo Asset Management Co., Ltd. (Japan), as a constituent of one of the Sompo Sustainability Index for the ninth consecutive year. The index is used in SRI (socially responsible investment) fund for pension funds or institutional investors to invest widely in companies with the high ESG evaluation ratings. Epson Mizube Corporation, a special subsidiary of the company, received certification as an ‘Employer of Persons with Disabilities’ in recognition of its initiatives to expand employment opportunities for persons with mental disorders and intellectual disabilities and to promote the active participation in society and independence of persons with physical disabilities.

Epson Korea Co., Ltd. won the Environmental Preservation Prize for the second consecutive year at the Chosun Corporate Social Responsibility Awards. These prestigious awards are operated by Chosun Media and sponsored by multiple ministries within the Korean government. Akita Epson Corporation received the METI Minister’s Prize at the eighth Monodzukuri Grand Awards for its role in helping to develop, in partnership with the Akita University Graduate School of Medicine, Akita University Hospital, and the Akita Industrial Technology Center, the world’s first rapid cancer diagnosis support system using AC electric field mixing.

In conclusion

Epson and its subsidiaries look at CSR from every angle, from the community initiatives and employee volunteering to the Supply Chain and the products they manufacture. The multi-layered structure of CSR planning and implementation goes to show its commitment to corporate citizenship.

Disclaimer: This report describes the sustainability efforts of Seiko Epson Corporation and 85 Group companies. It has been compiled from comprehensive information about Epson’s CSR activities available in the Epson Group Sustainability Report 2020.