Realizing a Decarbonized Society

The increasing intensity of harmful weather events in recent years has been attributed to rising greenhouse gas emissions. River flooding and landslides caused by heavy rains have impacted livelihoods and taken lives, and economic losses continue to rise around the world. There is now a growing crisis awareness, not only in international political arenas such as the United Nations, but also in the business world, and in the financial sector in particular.

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were established as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit, and the Paris Agreement was adopted at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21). The objective of the Paris Agreement is to keep a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve that goal, the agreement set out the target of net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by the second half of this century.

Moreover, in October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, which is based on scientific knowledge and stresses that many of the impacts of climate change could be avoided by limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels instead of 2°C. In addition, the Working Group I Report component of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report released in August 2021 states, “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.”

In this way, international awareness has evolved from “global warming” to “climate change,” and now to “climate crisis.” Based on this heightened understanding, Casio has revised its social mission from “helping to achieve a low-carbon society” to “helping to build a decarbonized society,” making this its long-term target in accordance with the Paris Agreement long-term climate goal.

In April 2021, based on the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD),^*1 Casio strengthened its governance relating to climate change, formulated strategies based on climate-change risk and opportunity analysis, and disclosed climate-related financial risk information. In 2022, Casio conducted a scenario analysis to identify risks and opportunities and assess the impacts.

Information Disclosure Based on TCFD Recommendations

*1 TCFD: Established by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international body that monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system, this initiative aims to help companies understand and disclose the financial impact of their climate change risks and opportunities.

Greenhouse gas emissions related to the Casio Group include direct emissions from the entire Group (Scope 1) and indirect emissions associated with the Group’s overall energy use (Scope 2), as well as emissions from the value chain such as procurement and manufacturing of raw materials, logistics, sales, and product disposal (Scope 3). Scope 3 accounted for 95.6% of total emissions in fiscal 2023.

Based on this, Casio has set targets for Scope 3 in addition to Scope 1 and 2, and is implementing measures to contribute to a decarbonized society.

In 2020, in order to gain a more detailed understanding of its greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to a decarbonized society based on objective indicators, Casio revised its criteria for calculating greenhouse gas emissions and its medium- to long-term targets to bring them into line with scientific knowledge.

Casio then requested the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi),*2 an international initiative, to validate its revised calculation criteria and medium-term targets. In April 2021, the SBTi recognized that Casio’s approach is in line with Well-Below 2°C and validated that Casio’s criteria and targets are based on scientific evidence.Moreover, in December 2021, Casio joined RE100,^*3 an international initiative that promotes the use of 100% electricity from renewable energy sources in business activities, and has been making various efforts to reach this target.

*2 SBTi
An initiative promoted by several international NGOs (CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute [WRI] and the World Wide Fund for Nature [WWF]) to encourage private companies and other organizations to set science-based targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction and help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The SBTi provides validation of science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets that comply with the Paris Agreement.
*3 RE100
RE100 is an international initiative operated by The Climate Group, an international environmental NGO, in partnership with the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). It is composed of companies that are working toward using 100% electricity from renewable energy sources in their business activities.