Sustainability comprises three major aspects: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. Achieving sustainability requires the interconnectedness of these three aspects. It often involves the government, businesses, civil society organizations and individuals to address challenges such as climate change, poverty, inequality and other issues. Larger businesses end up playing a huge role in this situation as they are a prime source of economic capital while simultaneously also causing environmental distress. Thus, it becomes important for them to take steps towards sustainability.
In this article, we shall discuss one such business that is Epson and how they have planned out their contribution towards sustainability.
Who is Epson? What do they do?
Epson is a well-known multinational corporation that specializes in imaging and printing technology. It was founded in 1942 in Japan as a watch manufacturing company which later developed into a printers and imaging industry. It produces a wide variety of printers, projectors, scanners, and other electronic equipment for both commercial and personal use. Epson is recognized for its high-quality printing solutions, innovative technology, and eco-friendly initiatives. It is also well-known for its social responsibility initiatives including environmental conservation efforts and community engagement programs.
Epson is committed to environmental sustainability and has implemented various initiatives to reduce its environmental footprint. This includes developing energy-efficient products, recycling programs for used products and cartridges, and reducing carbon emissions in its operations.
Epson and Sustainability Management
In the 2021 fiscal year, Epson had selected 12 sustainability themes to address four newly identified priority issues. Epson has incorporated these topics in its mid-range action plans and is driving initiatives to address societal issues and contribute to the SDGs.
Decarbonisation
Decarbonisation Initiatives
- By 2050, become carbon-negative by pursuing carbon-free logistics and using energy-saving equipment and facilities, removing greenhouse gases, and engaging suppliers.
- Using renewable electricity to achieve RE100
Closed resource loop initiatives
- Becoming underground resource2 free by 2050
- Using resources efficiently by reducing size and weight, using recycled materials, etc.
- Establishing closed-loop production systems that minimise production losses
Customer environmental impact mitigation
- Maximizing avoided emissions with products and services that have a lower environmental impact
Environmental technology development
- Eliminating virgin plastics and closing resource loops by using Dry Fiber Technology to produce recycled materials and natural materials: Packaging materials and Housing materials
- Establishing high-added-value recycling technology for used metal
Advance the Frontier of Industry
Improving productivity through digitization and automation
- Leading the digitization of commercial and industrial printing with inkjet technology and diverse solutions, to create clean, space-efficient workplaces, reduce environmental impact, and improve productivity
Improving the working environment and educational environment
- Reducing environmental impact and improving productivity with inkjet technology and open solutions, to lead the evolution of home study and distributed office printing
- Eliminating labor shortages through automation using robots
- Providing a fair, natural, and comfortable communication environment without boundaries, combining the real and remote, with both a sense of presence and information content
- Creating homogeneous learning opportunities through smart, portable displays that enable large-screen communication in a compact form, to mitigate learning disparities stemming from differences in regional and social conditions
Improve the Quality of Life
Proposing diverse lifestyles
- Enriching the diverse lifestyles of people through lifestyle-related disease prevention and helping people improve their sports performance by providing personalised value in an easy-to-understand visual manner using proprietary sensing technology and algorithms
Realising an abundant and colorful life
- Providing attractive and high-quality products with our efficient, compact, and precision technologies and our artisanal skills, to enrich the diverse lifestyles of our customers
Increasing stakeholder engagement
- Responding to needs and social demands by strengthening dialogue with stakeholders
Realising responsible supply chains
- Reinforcing supply chain BCM
- Realising responsible supply chains
- Realising responsible sourcing of minerals
Respecting human rights and promoting diversity
- Creating a free and open organisational culture
- Respect for human rights through dissemination of the new “Human Rights Policy” within the Group
- Utilising human resources in a way that respects diversity
Fulfil our Social Responsibility
- Reinforcement of compliance management platform
- Enhancement of Group compliance level
- Maintenance and strengthening of governance structure to realise transparent, fair, prompt and decisive decision making
- Strengthening information security
These are the initiatives taken up by the business with regarded to SDG. They analysed the 12 sustainability topics and the 17 sustainable development goals. Thus, the initiatives and practices they took up align with the topics and goals, thereby achieving sustainability and enriching communities.
Over the years Epson has continuously implemented environmental initiatives and always set and worked towards achieving the goals they set. Thus, in the sustainability report of 2023, they identified four material issues that could help with larger societal issues and they mapped up a plan to work on these four issues with regard to materiality in brief. With reference to their environmental vision, they have successfully advanced towards decarbonisation, aiming to switch to renewable electricity.
In April 2022, they revised our Human Rights Policy. They continue to fulfil their duty to uphold human rights in cooperation with local communities and suppliers while working to strengthen the foundation of all corporate activities around the world. The corporate purpose that they established in September defines the role that the Epson Group serves in society. Their reason for being is “to create sustainable value by using our efficient, compact and precision technologies to enrich people and our planet,” and they are evolving toward sustainable management that solves societal issues and drives corporate growth.
Epson places significant emphasis on sustainability across its operations, products, and supply chain. They take up great initiatives to make sure that a company as large and important as theirs is also responsible towards the environment, society and economy. They are great advocates for environmental sustainability, resource conservation and energy efficiency through these comprehensive sustainability efforts, Epson demonstrates its commitment to creating value for society while minimizing environmental impact and fostering sustainable development for future generations. The larger idea here is that larger companies like Epson should take up initiatives to support sustainability goals and themes because they are one of the biggest producers and consumers of what affects the environment.