External Evaluation
Independent Opinion on the Sustainability Report 2020

The opinion presented here was written based on the content of this report, interviews with Casio personnel responsible for procurement, human resources, environmental and CSR initiatives.
Casio uses management cycles for its CSR initiatives, with a focus on reducing the company’s environmental impact and ensuring socially responsible procurement. Casio is now at a stage where we can expect that these efforts will expand into company-wide initiatives that include top management and human resource departments.

Commendable efforts by Casio

• Regarding CSR initiatives at its suppliers, Casio revised the response options on its questionnaire on CSR implementation in the supply chain to a five-point scale in order to ascertain more accurately how suppliers are reducing their environmental impact and protecting the human rights of workers. The company received responses from all 496 suppliers in Japan, China and Thailand and provided feedback based on the overall results. It also visited 12 companies in China and Thailand based on the results of the previous year’s responses. These 12 companies account for 74% of the total monetary value of transactions in China and 58% in Thailand. Casio has continued to ascertain the situation and make it transparent, while providing awards and presenting case studies at meetings to explain its material procurement policy to suppliers. The revision of the scale of response choices on its questionnaire is especially commendable as it represents a level that could become the industry’s de facto standard. In the future, I hope that Casio will provide more opportunities and offer better methods for suppliers to learn best practices from one another, so that feedback can be utilized with even higher accuracy, matched to the level of supplier CSR initiatives.
• Casio has established a Basic Policy on Respect for Human Rights and has its own tool for checking the status of human rights, and it continues to provide feedback to group companies concerning the overall survey results. It has expanded its whistleblower hotlines to give access to suppliers and discloses the number of reports to these hotlines. In order to make the policies, tools and systems more effective on the frontlines in the future, I again recommend that they be incorporated into goals for managers and evaluation criteria, and also that they be linked with the Sustainability Leader system. I look forward to seeing the company build a compliance promotion system integrated daily management.

Points for improvement while commending progress to date

• Looking at the group-wide Sustainability Implementation System structure, it is admirable that Casio established high material goals and KPIs and is managing progress. Going forward, I recommend that the scope of discussions by the Sustainability Committee be expanded based on the updated Medium-Term Management Plan. In addition, in order to encourage value creation for the near-term future with a view to the SDGs and to encourage initiatives on the front lines by Sustainability Leaders, I would like to repeat my recommendation that messages from top management be translated into multiple languages and delivered to workplaces around the world. This will increase opportunities for diverse front-line employees to get a more immediate and deeper understanding of CSR trends at the head office and at sites in various countries.
• With regard to its medium- to long-term environmental management policy and environmental management promotion system, Casio has specified the long-term goals of a 38% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by fiscal 2031 and zero emissions by fiscal 2051, as well as a 30% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by fiscal 2031, all compared to fiscal 2019. While the efforts to obtain science-based target (SBT) certification and join the RE100 (Renewable Energy 100%) and TCFD initiatives and to develop and market the label writer Lateco, which avoids single-use cartridges, are commendable, I strongly urge Casio to create a long-term GHG reduction roadmap. In particular, I recommend that Casio devise scenarios that would help raise sustainability both for the environment and Casio’s own businesses, in order to dramatically reduce GHG emissions over the entire product life cycle, including creating new value. I also hope that these medium and long-term measures will be achieved with the support of customers, including improvement of the recycling rate at the time of product disposal.
• I again applaud Casio for introducing more watches based on collaboration with NGOs to preserve biodiversity, and for continuing to expand preservation activities based on surveys conducted at major sites in Japan and participation in river cleanup activities. I have high expectations that, going forward, Casio will continue to release models that will help conserve nature and biodiversity worldwide. At the same time, I hope the company will advance efforts to procure paper with an emphasis on sustainability while reducing plastic waste, which has a substantial impact on rivers and marine ecosystems.
• In terms of making workplaces more supportive, it is commendable that Casio has a 100% rate of return by employees who took childcare leave and that the percentage of employees of Casio Computer Co., Ltd., who utilize leaves of absence or the shorter working hours system for childcare or nursing care has reached 7.36%. I would also like to give Casio credit for improving the rate of employees who follow up on health risks identified during regular checkups, for setting up a nursing concierge desk, and for the health insurance association’s resumption of a subsidy system for employees going through smoking cessation treatment. At the same time, I recommend setting KPIs for initiatives related to lifestyle-related diseases, smoking, and mental health, and sharing with employees and workplaces the progress made against them, as well as working to advance analytical and management approaches so that the diverse work styles that were promoted due to COVID-19 measures can be tied to higher productivity and value creation.

Points for improvement

• In the area of increasing and making the most of employee diversity across the entire Casio Group, I find it commendable that Casio has begun preparations to build a human resource database, but I have continued concerns that policies, targets, plans, and persons responsible have not been established, no global HR meetings have been held, and KPIs continue to be no more than defensive indicators. Going forward, I recommend concrete planning for portfolio-based global human resources management that crosses departmental and company boundaries, to be achieved during the 2030s. Casio needs an integrated system to promote the development, exchange and evaluation of human resources recruited worldwide, and to expand its human resource database including information on staff hired in each country. I hope that Casio will develop strategies and systems for the proactive utilization of human resource diversity.
• I am concerned that Casio continued not to meet Japan’s legally mandated rate of employment for persons with disabilities in 2019. Along with regular interviews of employees every quarter, I hope the company will continue to build communities for each type of disability and occupation, while promoting even more supportive workplaces.
• Regarding the environmental impact reduction data in this report, it is commendable that details are provided on the principal sites in and outside Japan including group companies. My hope, however, would be that Casio do more than just explain its programs. It should continue to increase the level of accuracy of group reporting, by proactively disclosing not only environmental data, but also governance, personnel and procurement initiatives and data.

Inclusion in Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Indices

Sustainability Management

• Sustainability Implementation System
• History of Sustainability Management
• Stakeholder Engagement
• External Evaluation