Honda Motor has issued the “Honda SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016” which summarises the company's approach to sustainability as well as initiatives Honda has undertaken based on key challenges identified in non-financial areas.
Striving to further increase the quality and quantity of the information its discloses, Honda prepared this year's Sustainability Report in accordance with the "Comprehensive" option of the G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), formally inaugurated at the United Nations as a new global institution and a collaborating center of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), develops globally applicable guidelines for sustainability reporting. GRI's latest version of the guidelines, the G4 Guidelines, offers two "in accordance" options - Core and Comprehensive. The Comprehensive option requires a broader range of disclosure.
The G4 Guidelines also define the GRI Content Index, which is a reporting template that offers a quick overview of reported sustainability information. Honda SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2016 became the first sustainability report prepared by any Japanese company where GRI verified that the GRI Content Index of the report is accurate.
In his CEO message in the Sustainability Report, Honda Motor representative director, President, CEO Takahiro Hachigo said: "As a company that strives for the realization of a sustainable society, Honda views the environment, safety, quality and society as important themes to pursue.
"Honda continues to create and offer new value through innovation and challenge in ways unique to Honda."
In the Sustainability Report, Honda corporate activities are reported in correlation to these four themes.
Key contents of reporting/disclosure
Environment: While viewing "climate change," "energy issues" and "effective utilization of resources" as the most critical challenges in the area of the environment, Honda strives to reduce its environmental footprint from the perspectives of both "products" and "corporate activities." The Sustainability Report introduces results and future plans of such efforts along with data related to Honda's global environmental performance.
Safety: The Sustainability Report introduces Honda initiatives in various areas of safety, including traffic safety/driving education, development of safety technologies and offering of information that enhances safety. Honda pursues these activities to realize a "collision free society" based on its concept of "Safety for Everyone."
Quality: Based on the concept of "Aiming for 120% product quality," Honda is striving to improve quality by establishing the "Honda quality cycle" which starts from the phase of design/development and goes all the way through production, sales and service phases. The Sustainability Report introduces such quality improvement initiatives being implemented by Honda.
Society: The Sustainability Report introduces Honda initiatives to meet the expectations and the demands from society. Such initiatives include utilization of diverse human resources on a global basis, social activities that take root in local communities and working with its suppliers to establish an outstanding supply chain at the spot of development and production.
Through its Sustainability Report, Honda will continue reporting to its stakeholders about how the corporate activities of the Honda Group are connected to society in various ways. Moreover, Honda will incorporate stakeholder feedback in Honda's sustainability-focused management for the future to increase its corporate value and to better contribute to the realization of a sustainable society. With that, Honda will strive to be a company society wants to exist.
