Third-Party Opinions
Third-Party Opinion from David St. Maur Sheil, TrendSustain
Once again I would like to congratulate Canon on a comprehensive report. Canon has developed significant strength over the last decade in environmental management and green product innovation, which since 2008 has been driven by their “Action for Green” Environmental Vision. Now, with the establishment of the Canon Group CSR Activity Policy, with responsibility to co-ordinate their groupwide sustainability initiatives, there is an exciting opportunity for Canon to co-ordinate and drive their wider CSR in a much more integrated and determined manner. Evidence of this new determination emerged during the consultation process on this year's report and I look forward to see further benefits from this initiative in the future.
Canon's ongoing stakeholder engagement process has helped them focus on several key materiality issues. It would be valuable to see more information on what specific issues were raised by stakeholders. A number of other issues caught my attention. Stakeholders must be interested in data management and security for Canon products and services. The exponential growth in demand for data storage and the long-term security and usability of data, such as pictures, film and documents, is a growing concern for individuals and businesses. Further specific information on how Canon plans to respond to and help their customers manage this issue over the longer term would be useful. Carbon management and reduction is another key materiality issue. A clear groupwide goal-oriented program with clear carbon reduction targets, combined with integrated carbon management systems is a good driver for carbon management and it would be good to understand more clearly how Canon is managing this process across their whole group and all the 277 consolidated subsidiaries as well as their wider value chain in terms of both carbon risk and also carbon opportunity.
In terms of staff management, the information in the report was more comprehensive than in previous years. The information on Canon's Work-Life Balance program was particularly notable, as was the detail on Canon's staff management at their manufacturing plant in Vietnam. It would be interesting to see more specific information on Canon's local hiring program. For instance, does local hiring specifically mean hiring workers who live with their families within daily commuting distance of their plants and what other initiatives does Canon take to strengthen their relationships with communities around their operational sites. Finally, it was clear that Canon's operations as well as staff were directly impacted by the Great East Japan Earthquake and also the major floods in Thailand last year, and that Canon both contributed very generously to disaster relief as well as strengthened their disaster management systems. It would be beneficial to explain in more detail how they manage and assess the impact of their disaster relief program over the longer term in order to strengthen the long-term value of their efforts to the communities they are supporting. Overall I congratulate Canon once again on the marked improvement in the quality of the report this year.
Third-Party Opinion from Dr. Justus von Geibler, Wuppertal Institute
Sustainability reporting is a key driver for more sustainable business practices, promoting transparency and accountability as basic conditions for sustainable development. Canon's Sustainability Report 2012 presents important achievements towards this goal. In my view, Canon has managed once again to further improve the quality of its sustainability report. Again this year, I highly welcome various meaningful changes.
This year's report of Canon is addressing important issues relevant for the Company and stakeholders: Besides the six materiality themes identified through a stakeholder survey, the seven elements of the ISO 26000 Social Responsibility Guidelines are addressed as a further basis for its reporting. For many of the themes, very interesting contextual information is given, for example under the heading of “Basic approach and policies” within the materiality section. I would appreciate if the six materiality themes could be more integrated with the seven “ISO themes” in future reports. Generally, considering the ISO guidelines appear to be a promising and innovative approach, enabling a link with various stakeholder expectations identified in important international processes.
For effectively supporting internal management processes, enhancing external communication and opening up business opportunities, the content of a sustainability report should reflect the organization's significant social, economic and environmental impacts. One specific theme, which has improved in this regard, is the description of materiality theme on “Reducing environmental impact throughout the entire product lifecycle.” Especially the descriptions of the “ECO settings function” and “Making environmental impact visible” illustrate promising approaches for consumer-oriented environmental life cycle management. It would be great to keep and deepen this focus in future reports, maybe even with insights on the real impacts of these new developments. With respect to the other individual themes, especially to the social issues, the descriptions might be further improved by additional measurable indicators showing more clearly whether objectives set have been achieved or not.
Canon can build on wide experience from its continuous CSR efforts and is ready to advance its accountability. The new CSR Activity Policy, which was formulated on January 1 of this year for the entire Canon Group, as well as the new structure for its implementation, the CSR Division, will play a key role in the coming years. I look forward to this progress in the future.
About the Third-Party Opinions
Canon has received third-party opinions*1 from two commentators every year since 2003—Mr. David St. Maur Sheil of TrendSustain and a prominent expert from the Wuppertal Institute (Dr. Justus von Geibler, from 2008). As a result, the commentators are able to offer opinions from a medium- to long-term perspective on how well this report*2 meets their expectations regarding the information included in the report, the quality of performance it conveys, and its usefulness for substantial engagement.
We held dialogue sessions both at the planning stage of this report and at the preparatory stage of third-party opinions to ensure a meaningful exchange of views with the commentators and reflected the commentators' suggestions in the report to the greatest extent possible. (See the table at the right for details.)
These third-party opinion pages include the main items discussed with the commentators, particularly the items worthy of praise and the key issues to be addressed over the long term. Based on the issues raised by the commentators and opinions from other stakeholders, Canon is stepping up its CSR activities and striving for more complete information disclosure through this report and other media. For more information on the third-party opinion process and the main points brought up in the dialogues with the commentators, see the Canon website.
- *1These third-party comments are the personal views of the authors and not verification of the report contents or data. They do not imply any endorsement from their organizations.
- *2Canon Sustainability Report 2012 has been issued in a PDF format and through our website (URL: http://www.canon.com/csr/index.html).
| Main Suggestions | Main Reflections (New Content in the 2012 Report) | Pages Posted in the PDF | Location in the Website |
|---|---|---|---|
| Please further develop efforts involving stakeholders, and strengthen the relevance of the content of the Sustainability Report to items of concern to Canon's main stakeholders. | Canon has communicated with stakeholders such as investor relations, corporate philanthropy, and charity, but we recognize that we are expected to engage with various stakeholders in a more systematic manner. | ― | ― |
| The explanation of the relationship between Report on ISO 26000 Core Subjects and the Materiality Themes, as well as of their respective roles, is insufficient. | The content of both the Materiality Themes and the Report on ISO 26000 Core Subjects have been determined based upon the stakeholder survey, with the process described on p. 10. | P10 | |
| There should be information concerning the benefits of cartridge recycling, ECO settings function, making the use-phase impact visible, etc. We would like to know the actual benefits as well as potential rebound effects. | Canon recognizes that it is important to assess the use-phase environmental impacts of Canon's environmentally conscious products. Currently the Company is at the introductory stage for use-phase impact “visibility” and so on, and we will look into how to report on the benefits of these initiatives in the future. | P18-19 | |
| With regard to Materiality Theme 4 (post-disaster support), to what extent does Canon monitor aid recipients so as to determine the effects of that aid? Does Canon take a long-term perspective in aid activities to ensure their effectiveness? | Canon receives reports from aid recipients so as to confirm that the donations are being used effectively. The long-term perspective is always considered when making decisions about providing aid. Our approach in this regard is described in Materiality Theme 4. | P21 | |
| Please include more information about the extent to which human resource management and employee benefit efforts have been undertaken at manufacturing sites in Asia. Also, please describe local hiring policies. | The HTML version includes topics such as human resource cultivation and employee benefits at Canon Vietnam and other manufacturing companies in Asia. We will further collect information regarding the local employment situation so as to provide detailed information about it. | ― | |
| The section of the report entitled Report on ISO 26000 Core Subjects contains a great deal of information on the themes Canon addresses, but measurable indicators are frequently lacking. | We are taking a step forward in this report by including for the first time tables showing 2011 efforts and future plans for a categories other than “Global Environment.” We will work to make improvements regarding more solid indicators. | P29-34 |
