Global

Sustainability

Environment(E)

Biodiversity Conservation

Progress Towards Biodiversity Conservation Targets
Efforts to Conserve Biodiversity
Relationship Map Between Business Activities and Biodiversity
Other Biodiversity-Related Activities

Brother Group Environmental Vision 2050

The vision aims to minimize the environmental impact of business operations and promote activities to restore and conserve the ecosystem beyond the impact.

GOAL

By 2050, the Brother Group will minimize the environmental impact of business operations on the ecosystem and promote activities to restore and conserve the ecosystem beyond the impact.
Main efforts: Biodiversity conservation activities, partnerships with outside conservation organizations, reduction of CO₂ emissions, and promotion of resource circulation

Progress Towards Biodiversity Conservation Targets

Two medium-term targets for FY2030 regarding biodiversity conservation are set in the Brother Group Environmental Vision 2050. To achieve these targets, we are working to quantify and reduce the environmental impact of business activities on the ecosystem.

Medium-term target for FY2030

The Brother Group will assess the environmental impact of its business operations on the ecosystem and the effectiveness of restoration and conservation activities, and works to avoid and reduce the environmental impact on the ecosystem.
The manufacturing and sales facilities of the entire group will work on ecosystem restoration and conservation activities on a voluntary basis depending on the situation in each region.

Efforts to Conserve Biodiversity

Zero ocean waste activities

For many years, the Brother Group has been conducting voluntary biodiversity conservation activities at each of its facilities, and in FY2021, in order to further revitalize the Group's activities, the zero ocean waste activities were launched for Group employees in Japan and overseas, in support of World Oceans Day. In FY2023, more than 22,000 people from 43 business sites in Japan and overseas participated in these activities. In some facilities, not only employees but also their families, suppliers, and local communities participate in these activities, helping to raise environmental awareness. The Group will continue to engage in zero ocean waste activities in FY2024.

Major facilities participating in zero ocean waste activities

Philippines
Philippines
Taiwan
Taiwan
China
China
Germany
Japan

Recognition of "Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site"

Brother Forests in Gujo, where BIL has been working on environmental protection since 2008, have been recognized by the Ministry of the Environment as a "Nationally Certified Sustainably Managed Natural Site"^*1 for FY2023 (first half). In August 2024, it was also registered in the World Database on OECMs^*2, one of the international databases managed by the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), as an OECM. In 2008, BIL signed an agreement with the Gifu Prefectural Government and the City of Gujo to restore and conserve forests in three areas in total, including the former ski resort in Shirotori-cho, Gujo City, as well as Minami-cho and Hachiman-cho. In the Shirotori-cho area, mainly employees and their families work on tree planting activities twice a year (in spring and autumn).^*3 Since 2014, their activities have evolved into industry-government-academia environmental protection activities encompassing scientific aspects with support from the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University. In the Shirotori-cho area, the presence of rare species, including Japanese Luehdorfia, an endemic species, has been confirmed thanks to zoning^*4 of habitats, planting of seedlings suited for the soil, and environmental improvement of the entirety of the forests. The ecosystem of the entirety of the forests has been successfully restored. The Minami-cho and Hachiman-cho areas are covered with cypress and cedar forests. Proper thinning has been performed by managers, and the understory vegetation of indigenous species has been formed. These forests are also used by employees to experience thinning. The Minami-cho and Hachiman-cho areas offer multifaceted ecosystem services of forests, such as water source recharge,^*5 disaster prevention, and CO₂ fixation functions,^*6 through timber production.

BIL also joined the 30by30 Alliance for Biodiversity, a coalition of volunteers launched by the Ministry of the Environment, to continue to actively deploy initiatives for biodiversity conservation and contribute to attaining the 30by30 target.

A program in which areas where biodiversity is being conserved through private initiatives and other means are certified by the Japanese government as an action in Japan to achieve the 30by30 target. "30by30" is a target to effectively conserve at least 30% of the land and sea in healthy ecosystems by 2030, which was agreed upon at the G7 Summit in 2021, toward the goal of Nature Positive to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
OECMs stands for "Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures," referring to areas that are not designated as national parks or similar protected areas but where biodiversity can be effectively conserved.

In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection, the activities were not conducted in FY2020, FY2021, and in the spring of FY2022.
To establish different zones and formulate improvement plans to fully demonstrate various functions of forests
It refers to the functions of forests to regulate the amount of rainwater that flows into rivers and produce tasteful water. The functions include storing water resources, mitigating floods, and purifying water.
The function of forests to play an important role in preventing global warming by absorbing CO₂ through photosynthesis and fixing it as carbon

Brother Forests in Gujo Special Site: Brother SDGs story

Forests in Gujo_30by30OECM

Biodiversity conservation activities at Mie Brother's Saiku Kobushi-no-Mori

Mie Brother Precision Industries, Ltd. has been promoting biodiversity conservation activities at Mie Brother's Saiku Kobushi-no-Mori on the factory site since 2017 to become a "resource circulation factory in harmony with nature."
Ongoing activities include planting of Kobushi Magnolia, deciduous trees whose seeds were collected from forests in the region, and Japanese Iris and similar species, which were donated from a local organization, as well as weeding and extermination of exotic species. The activities have led to the growth of indigenous species, such as Weak Ixeris and Japanese Dandelion, which are wild plants, on the site. Ecologically valuable species, such as wild plants named Nonigana and Nokanzo in Japan, have also been confirmed. Northern Goshawks and Ospreys, which are raptors, as well as many butterflies have also been confirmed.
Mie Brother Precision Industries, Ltd. will continue to step up efforts and contribute to realizing a society in harmony with nature.

Saiku

Beginning collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature Japan (WWF Japan) for forests

BIL has formed a partnership with WWF Japan, an organization that promotes forest conservation activities and sustainable consumption and production around the world. Through donations to WWF Japan's forest conservation activities and the exchange of information on sustainability, BIL will further contribute to the conservation of biodiversity than ever before.

©wwf japan

Supporting conservation activities in tropical rainforests through resource circulation

In 2009, Brother International Europe Ltd. (BIE) partnered with Cool Earth, a U.K.-based NPO promoting activities to protect the environment in the basin of the Amazon River, and joins with 20 European Brother sales facilities in promoting "the Cool Earth Eco-Rewards initiative". This initiative donates funds corresponding to the volume of collected consumables, such as toner and ink cartridges, to Cool Earth.
The fund is being used for activities to protect the tropical rainforests and habitats of endangered species in the Republic of Peru, which Cool Earth supports. Starting in FY2010, "the Click for the Earth" program, a donation feature available on the Brother Group's special website on the environment (brotherearth.com; currently, the SDGs special website Brother SDGs STORY), was incorporated into donation activities for Cool Earth, expanding the scope of support. The funds donated through Click for the Earth are also being utilized for this activity. BIE plans to continue supporting this activity.

Certificate of Donations issued for BIE by "Cool Earth"

Certificate of Donations issued for BIE by "Cool Earth" (July, 2024) [PDF/1.3MB]

Continuous activities to stop desertification and protect people's lives

Desertification is rapidly advancing in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (Inner Mongolia).
In an effort to bring back the grasslands of the past, local Brother employees have joined with OISCA and local residents to plant more than 10,000 tree seedlings. They also dug wells to help water the trees, and succeeded in pumping up groundwater. Slowly but surely, new trees are putting their roots down into the desert.
This project is also suggesting new livelihoods to local residents, such as alternate livestock and sale of traditional Chinese medicines.

Environmental-related Data (E)

Contents of SDGs STORY

The Brother Group will continue to quantify the environmental impact of business activities on the ecosystem, and deploy effective environmental impact reduction activities and ecosystem conservation activities, aiming to achieve the medium-term target for FY2030 and the Environmental Vision 2050.

Relationship Map Between Business Activities and Biodiversity

In our business activities, for the group's main products, a relationship map between business activities and biodiversity was developed to understand the stages in the life cycle of each unit of product where environmental impact occurs and provide customers with products having even less environmental impact. This relationship map quantifies the environmental impact caused by the input and output in individual processes of business activities and shows the rate of environmental impact in the individual processes. As a result, the Brother Group has determined that the procurement, use, and disposal stages of its products (Scope 3) have a high proportion of environmental impact and should be prioritized for improvement. The Group is working to reduce CO₂ emissions and resource circulation with the aim of reducing the environmental impact in these stages. Furthermore, the map lists the following five items as the major impacts that business activities have on the ecosystem: climate change, pollution, biological resource loss, habitat loss, and invasive alien species, and describes the group's ecosystem conservation activities designed to reduce the risk of these impacts.

[Example] Relationship between business and biodiversity for the machine tool

Relationship between business and biodiversity for the machine tool