News Releases
Konica Minolta Awarded RobecoSAM Gold Class
For its Focus on the Six Issues of Materiality in CSR Activities
Tokyo (February 5, 2018) – Konica Minolta, Inc. (Konica Minolta) was awarded Gold Class by RobecoSAM, which is headquartered in Switzerland and the world’s leading research and rating company in the ESG investment field. Among Japanese companies, only 5 companies received this prestigious title.
Specifically, Konica Minolta earned the highest evaluation in the Computers & Peripherals and Office Electronics sector in 11 categories including Materiality, Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Innovation Management, and Privacy Protection in the economic dimension; Environmental Reporting, Operational Eco-Efficiency, and Hazardous Substances in the environmental dimension; and Social Reporting, Labor Practice Indicators, and Human Capital Development in the social dimension. Konica Minolta ranked highest in this sector in the combined evaluation of all the indicators. Furthermore, Konica Minolta is the only company in this sector that was awarded Gold Class. This result reflects the fact that Konica Minolta has been successfully addressing the six issues of materiality in its CSR activities, as indicated in the Industry Group Leader Report compiled by RobecoSAM.
Six Issues of Materiality Identified by Konica Minolta
Konica Minolta has identified the following six issues of materiality that need to be given priority in its CSR activities.
- Environment
- Social innovation
- Customer satisfaction and product safety
- Responsible supply chain
- Human capital
- Diversity
Report on a CSR initiative: Promoting Diversity to Create Innovation
Konica Minolta places special focus on innovation in its business plan to achieve its vision to become a digital company with insight into implicit challenges. Creating innovation requires all members of the company, whether engaging in product development, business planning, or indirect operations, to change their conventional way of working. With this recognition, Konica Minolta is accelerating its efforts to facilitate workstyle reforms and create a corporate culture that enables human resources of various backgrounds to make their maximum contribution to innovation.
One of the strengths of Konica Minolta as a global company is its human resources with diverse attributes, such as nationality, race, ideology, culture, language, gender, age, and specialty, who are working around the world. Konica Minolta is eager to accept human resources from overseas to increase the diversity, experience, and knowledge of its members. On December 1, 2017, Konica Minolta launched a policy to permit its members to take on a second job or work concurrently for the purpose of facilitating innovation, and introduced the Job Return System with a view to helping its members acquire a diverse range of skills through external work experience.
Under the brand proposition “Giving Shape to Ideas,” Konica Minolta aims to become a sustainable global company vital to society and will contribute to solving social challenges by creating values to enhance the quality of society through its business activities.
RobecoSAM
RobecoSAM is the world’s leading ESG research and rating company headquartered in Switzerland. RobecoSAM invites more than 3,500 of the largest companies around the world to participate in its Corporate Sustainability Assessment and analyzes the results in economic, environmental and social terms with a focus on long-term value creation.
In 2018, 269 companies (including 23 Japanese companies) were ranked in its Gold, Silver and Bronze Classes.
Reference: External evaluation
Konica Minolta has received high evaluation in various ESG-related global indexes and rankings.
| Dow Jones Sustainability Index (USA, Switzerland) | Included in the World Index (DJSI World) each year since 2012 and in the Asia Pacific Index (DJSI Asia Pacific) each year since 2009 |
|---|---|
| FTSE4Good Index (UK) | Included in the FTSE4Good Index each year since 2003 |
| FTSE Blossom Japan Index (UK) | Included in the index that was launched in 2017 |
| MSCI ESG Leaders Indexes (USA) | Included in the index in consecutive years since 2010 *No information is available as to whether or not the company was included in the indexes prior to 2010. *The index is renamed from MSCI Global SRI in 2017. |
| MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index (USA) | Included in the index that was launched in 2017 |
| MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (USA) | Included in the index that was launched in 2017 |
| Morningstar Socially Responsible Investment Index (Japan) | Included in the Morningstar Socially Responsible Investment Index each year since 2003 |
| RobecoSAM (Switzerland) | Awarded Gold Class (February 2018) |
| oekom research AG (Germany) | Maintained the highest Prime Status since 2011 |
| Ethibel (Belgium) | Selected for the investment universe of Ethibel Pioneer and Ethibel Excellence (January 2018) |
| CDP (UK) | Included on the Climate A List for two consecutive years since 2016 |