Caring for the earth
Conservation of natural capital
Our lives are crucially supported by various benefits brought to us by natural capital* such as food and water (ecosystem services). The Calbee Group's business activities are closely associated with agriculture. In line with our corporate philosophy, “we are committed to harnessing nature's gifts,” we aim to realize a sustainable global environment by understanding and improving our processes that depend on and affect natural capital.
* Natural capital: The capital (stocks) formed by nature, such as forests, soil, water, air, and biological resources.
Excerpted from the “Annual Report on the Environment, the Sound Material-Cycle Society and Biodiversity in Japan 2023” by the Ministry of the Environment.
Main initiatives
Sustainable raw ingredients procurement
The Calbee Group depends on and affects nature's gifts provided by natural capital throughout its whole supply chain. There are a range of challenges associated with the procurement of our raw ingredients, which are nature's gifts. They include loss and degradation of biodiversity resulting from development of areas where our ingredients are grown and greenhouse gas emissions from forest and land clearing. We are striving to address and deal with these challenges.
In 2020, we identified “progress of sustainable agriculture” as one of our material issues (materiality). We developed and grew potato varieties that are resilient to climate change and performed soil analyses on fields, which each have their own unique soil properties and conditions. We then proposed appropriate fertilizers to increase potato yields.
To address another material issue, “ensuring the sustainability of raw materials and logistics with improved efficiency,” we pursued sustainable procurement with considerations for human rights and the environment by expanding our use of RSPO* certified palm oil and certified paper.
In recent years, there has been a shift in global financial flows to nature-positive outcomes. Therefore, an increasing number of companies have made disclosures that are aligned with the framework of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) to report and act on their nature-related risks, opportunities, dependencies, and impacts. The Calbee Group is in the process of developing a roadmap that is aligned with the official version of the TNFD framework announced in September 2023.
Climate change and biodiversity are inextricably linked. We are committed to responding to climate change, protecting the natural environment, and maintaining the balance between natural capital and our business activities in accordance with our corporate philosophy.
* RSPO: Acronym for the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a non-profit membership organization established by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and stakeholders in the palm oil industry (manufacturers, retailers, environmental organizations, etc.)