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Sumitomo Chemical Implemented a Group-Wide Sustainability Promotion Project, "Global Project 2020 For A Sustainable Future: JIRI-RITA"
Apr. 22, 2021
The Sumitomo Chemical Group has carried out its “Global Project 2020 For a Sustainable Future: JIRI-RITA,” a sustainability promotion effort involving all officers and employees, launched on November 2, 2020, and completed on March 31, 2021.
The Sumitomo Chemical Group is committed to contributing to building a sustainable society through its business and to delivering sustained growth, based on Sumitomo’s business principles, which are embodied in a Japanese phrase, “Jiri-Rita Koushi-Ichinyo.” * In advancing its sustainability efforts, the Company follows the principle of “T-S-P,” with “T” for top management’s commitment, “S” for solutions, and “P” for participation by all, and the Global Project has been at the core of the Company’s endeavors to engage all officers and employees. This project provides everyone in the Group with an opportunity to have fun learning about global trends shaping a sustainable future as well as the Group’s sustainability efforts through quizzes and case studies on the Company’s intranet-based social network. It also invites all officers and employees to post their ideas and pledges, as an individual or as a team, on the dedicated website, encouraging each of them to take on pressing global sustainability challenges as “my own issues.”
For fiscal 2020, the Company adopted “Build Back Better by JIRI-RITA” as a project slogan to demonstrate the Sumitomo Chemical Group’s commitment to joining forces to build a better world, even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sumitomo Chemical’s Chairman, President, and Group officers took the lead in posting messages, and then were joined by employees in sharing good practices and ideas for actions to promote sustainability. The total number of posts reached 18,764 by the end of the project. Words of encouragement and positive feedback from officers to employees created a virtuous cycle, with even more people from across the Group expressing their thoughts and showing support for each other.
By building on the achievements of the Global Project, with its solidarity and determination enhanced through this initiative, the Sumitomo Chemical Group will continue to work as one to create new value and help resolve major social issues with its creativity and the power of chemistry.
* “Jiri-Rita Koushi-Ichinyo,” is a phrase in Japanese passed down through generations, which represents Sumitomo’s business principle that our businesses must benefit the nation and society at large, not just our own interests, and to advocate an idea that one should do business in keeping with the public interest.
Reference
Sumitomo Chemical Group Global Project
Post by Sumitomo Chemical Representative Director and President Keiichi Iwata
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a wake-up call, bringing home to us the urgency of such major global challenges as climate change, energy, food supply, and the control of infectious diseases, and we see various measures and movements emerging around the world to deal with them. At the Sumitomo Chemical Group, we have taken these changes in society as opportunities for our business, and have been making efforts that lead to concrete action through innovation and our power on the front lines. I believe that putting “Jiri-Rita Koushi-Ichinyo” and sustainability into action to achieve both our growth and society’s prosperity is a source of pride and an extremely rewarding mission to everyone working in the Sumitomo Chemical Group.
“Build Back Better by JIRI-RITA.”
Let’s work together to accelerate progress on our efforts so that we can feel each of us is contributing to society through our business.
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