Sustainability

For the Takara Group, whose business activities are based on the variety of natural bounty - crops, water, and microorganisms - preserving a rich natural environment is the primary prerequisite to continue our business. The Takara Group has formulated the Takara Group Environmental Policy as one of our key management issues for ensuring harmony between environmental conservation and business activities. In the Takara Group Environmental Policy, we position “Promoting and supporting activities related to the conservation and preservation of biodiversity and ecosystems” as a key initiative. In accordance with this Policy, the Takara Group works to preserve a rich natural environment while liaising with external groups even as we strive to preserve biodiversity in a range of aspects within our business.

In 1979, Takara Shuzo supported the Come Back Salmon Campaign to help salmon recover, as they had been affected by the environmental impact of the postwar high economic growth period. With this as our starting point, we have worked to protect nature around the country.

In 1985, our 60th anniversary, we formulated our Corporate Philosophy, which aimed for harmony between nature, society, and humanity. This was a way to put focus on the raison d'être of the Takara Group, which is based on respect for nature.

Moreover, in 1998 we issued the first edition of our environmental report, “Green Ink Accounting Report,”* which was responsible for the same role as our current Sustainability Report, and published the results of our environmental activities externally using the uniform ECO index. The following year, we declared that we would strive to contribute to society’s environmental conservation activities, and formulated our basic principles for environmental activities. Starting with that, and continuing to the present day, we have been continuing a large number of activities for conserving biodiversity, working to solve social issues through our business.

Come Back Salmon Campaign poster

The Takara Group provides support to external groups and individuals, and also offers hands-on learning for children, as a way to help conserve biodiversity. We also develop products with an eye to the natural environment. Here are some of our initiatives.

Takara Holdings set up the Takara Harmonist Fund, a charitable trust, on the occasion of our 60th anniversary in 1985. Every year since then, we have been carrying out activities and research to maintain our rich natural environments, such as conserving biodiversity. Over the Fund’s 39-year history, it has supported a total of 422 cases.
Helping protect the natural environments of the forests, plains, and waterside areas of Japan, research to protect the plants and animals that live there, and assisting nature preservation groups around the country are ways in which we are broadening the breadth of our grant recipients, contributing to promoting conservation of biodiversity.

In addition, we visit our grant recipients after providing their grant, and help spread awareness by presenting what they are doing and their results on our website.

At Takara Shuzo, we have been holding “Farm School,” the Takara Shuzo environmental education program, since 2004. This program is aimed at passing on to the children who will be responsible for the next generation the importance of protecting the natural environment and biodiversity, and to be grateful for nature’s bounty. Targeted at elementary school children and their families, we visit rice paddies in Nantan City, Kyoto Prefecture, three times a year to give them a chance to experience rice growing and to observe nature.
In our natural observation classes, the children can see plants and animals around the paddies and in the hills that they do not normally get a chance to see. By experiencing the richness of nature in these paddies and hills, they can understand the importance of life and the value of nature.

In raising Yamada Nishiki rice to create “Nend,” our farm in Nishiwaki is working to reduce methane gas emissions, a major contributor to the greenhouse effect, and reduce the use of pesticides to help maintain the natural ecosystem. Rice grows in harmony with a range of other living things, and how to maintain this harmony is the issue.

Takara CRAFT KYO LEMON CHU-HI is a bottled chu-hi that uses the peel of Kyoto-grown lemons as a way to effectively use lemons being grown on abandoned fields in Kyoto by a consortium of producers, processors, and sellers. By reusing abandoned fields and developing habitats for biological resources, we can help protect biodiversity in that region. In addition, part of the sales are donated, and employees volunteer their time to harvest the lemons. This helps support the stability and expansion of cultivation, contributing to preserving the sustainable richness of nature.