Role of the Chief Sustainability Officer

In my position as Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), the primary role I’m expected to fulfil is integrating sustainability into business strategies. I have joined the ranks of our internal directors — all of whom are capable of seeing the broader business picture in its entirety — as the director in charge of advancing sustainability. I feel this appointment is a manifestation of CEO Eric Johnson’s belief that sustainability will be an incredibly important part of business management in the coming years. Adding a CSO to the Board of Directors sends a clear and tangible signal of top management’s stance and philosophy on sustainability to audiences both inside and outside the company.

The focus on sustainability and resilience began with CEO Johnson. The concepts of sustainability — meaning “protection” and “preserving the status quo” — along with resilience — a positive and powerful notion — have been brought into the deliberations on the next mid-term business plan. I think the use of these two words together is very significant.

• CEO Message in the JSR Report (PDF)




To me, a resilient organization is a growing organization that is tough, yet flexible. It is an organization that can gather knowledge globally, from both inside and outside the company, and quickly execute optimal strategies for the present moment, even in uncertain times like now when unpredictable events are unfolding. To become a resilient organization, I think it’s important to improve our expertise and routinely accumulate knowledge, at both the individual level and the company level. As individuals, we need to foster the practice of always thinking on our own, recognize each other’s diversity, listen attentively to the views of others, and, finally, develop the ability to make decisions on our own. As a company, we need regular communication to mobilize these individual competencies into a unified force. Only when this attitude is maintained continually at a high level can we say that a company is truly resilient.

For the JSR Group to be sustainable into the future and valued as indispensable by society, it is important and necessary to accumulate new corporate value in addition to corporate value that stems from outstanding products and a strong financial foundation. I recognize it is my job as CSO to craft a definitive form for this determination to create new corporate value. To begin with, the JSR Group should be a company that employees take pride in. This requires a deep understanding of the relationship between yourself and the company and society. Concrete plans and actions in your everyday work are extremely important, but I believe what’s imperative in order to see the value of your work is recognizing your true connection to society by changing your mindset: that is, changing your emotional focus and transforming your thinking. Mindset changes boost individual employees’ motivation and bring about work productivity gains. Therefore, I will work to enable as many employees as possible to change their mindsets.

Outcomes of the JSR Sustainability Challenge program and our future vision

JSR has been carrying out the “JSR Sustainability Challenge” program since FY2019 to verify quantitatively our current business activities’ impact on society. With the goal of incorporating sustainability in business strategies, the JSR Group had all business segments describe their long-term prospects, including sustainability. One outcome of this was constructing a framework for key people from each business segment to come together and examine sustainability issues. The JSR Sustainability Challenge generated a real diversity of opinions, and the program was able to unearth issues we hadn’t placed much emphasis on before and issues to be reconceptualized from new reference points. I feel it is hugely significant that key people at business segments discovered on their own the existence of different perspectives and different benchmarks, even as they pursue the same business.

A planned outcome of the JSR Sustainability Challenge in terms of the next mid-term business plan, which is currently being formulated, is to have business segments express their desire for a mid-to-long-term focus not solely on business and financial aspects but also on sustainability and ESG perspectives. This is likely to happen as business segments come to realize that sustainability and ESG are not at all contrary to financial value and that they can contribute to sustainability in tandem with business results through mindset changes and business reassessments. As CSO, I want first of all to work toward having these requests implemented in the mid-term business plan.

I would also like sustainable indicators adopted in the future as one criterion for decisions on whether a business should be continued, when undertaking business restructuring or consolidating management resources. The JSR Sustainability Challenge program has deepened understanding of this concept among business segments, and I want to keep this trend going. For example, it took a considerable length of time to align business segments with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) regarding climate change. Therefore, as we review the entire company’s materiality through such operations, I want to make active use of the SDGs, TCFD recommendations, and other international initiatives as guidelines when selecting our own targets and indicators, such as deciding what priorities to set or what KPIs to establish for the whole JSR Group.

• Aligning with TCFD recommendations
• JSR Group’s contributions to the SDGs

My policy focus

As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, JSR is working on a project seeking new ways of working. This project is not limited to expanding telework and similar arrangements; it includes HR systems, personnel evaluation mechanisms, and other measures that accompany new working styles. I view this as an opportunity to revise our systems from the ground up.

People are undoubtedly at the core of turning the JSR Group into a sustainable corporation. For example, even as the times change, our commitment to the importance of our employees and the assurance of workplace safety should be constant and never influenced by the circumstances of the day. Looking just at safety, the highest priority of our company’s core priorities, we have been consistently engaging with safety activities for many years. Four years ago, the Philosophy for Occupational Health and Safety was established, and the company is working on fostering a safety culture from a long-term perspective that sets 2025 as the target year. I believe the sound completion of this plan is essential for safety.

After many countries declared a state of emergency in March and April this year, we have heard repeatedly many voices wondering what the JSR Group can do to stop the spread of COVID-19: “Are there any technologies in the R&D pipeline that can be made use of?” “Can we purchase medical equipment that is in short supply through Group companies specialized in procurement and trading?” In order to advance these activities efficiently, we need to delineate our ideas on what social contributions mean for the JSR Group. The Group’s corporate mission is “We create value through materials to enrich society, people and the environment”, and we take pride that our very calling is to contribute to society. But what social contributions do we make through business activities? Typically, philanthropic contributions are emphasized. The current situation, however, is a chance to rethink what social contributions the JSR Group can accomplish outside of our core business.

Until now, we have always generated ideas and selected options on the basis of whether there will be customers for the idea or option. Moving forward, however, I believe we cannot ignore social contributions as an entry point in many areas, such as selecting R&D themes. This is also relevant to connections between the SDGs and business.

Sustainability elevates corporate value

Another ambition of mine while serving as CSO is making the JSR Group an attractive place to work for our employees, particularly our younger employees, as well as making it an attractive destination for students who are thinking about their future career options. To this end, I want to further raise the Group’s engagement with each employee.

Regarding sustainability messaging, although JSR itself is currently providing enhanced information, I think the time has come to review what the Group as a whole should be doing. It is not feasible, of course, for Group companies and affiliates to attempt identical activities, given the site and cultural differences as well as national and regional differences. At the same time, all companies must share the JSR Group’s enduring fundamental principles and must ensure their directions are aligned. I feel this necessitates the construction of a network for sustainability communications.

It is not my intention, on assuming the CSO post, to ask people to do unusual or unprecedented things or to come up with novel initiatives. Even within our current initiatives, changing mindsets will significantly change perceptions of value. What I ask is that every employee thinks of sustainability not as a mere ideological proclamation but as something intrinsically connected to real corporate value.

Past JSR Group activities have always contained sustainable components and components that contribute to society and the environment. If we can appreciate the importance of these components just a little more than we have, we can elevate the JSR Group’s corporate value, not in theory but in fact. This is my personal belief, and I will fulfil my role as CSO in keeping with this belief.