Biodiversity Conservation

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

The Brother Group is working to quantify and reduce the environmental impact of business activities on the ecosystem toward achieving the Environmental Vision 2050. In these 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. Based on this relationship map, 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. In addition, the Group is preparing to assess natural capital such as water, land, and forests in order to disclose nature-related financial information.
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 FY2022, more than 21,000 people from 45 offices 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 FY2023.

Major facilities participating in zero ocean waste activities

Philippines
Philippines
Taiwan
Taiwan
China
China
U.S.
Japan

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.

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.

Relationship Map Between Business Activities and Biodiversity

The relationship map between business activities and biodiversity is based on product life cycle assessment. This 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. 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 laser multi-function printer

Relationship between business and biodiversity for the laser multi-function printer

Efforts to Conserve Biodiversity

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, 2023) [PDF/156KB]

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.