Question: Does the company assess its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, in the upstream activities of its value chain?
Answer:
No
19796134
World Benchmarking Alliance
Kao Corporation
2024
Verified by Steward check_circle
The company discloses that in 2021, it used ENCORE, a risk assessment tool, to identify dependencies on natural capital and impact factors within its company, and in 2022, it analysed the entire value chain, using its flagship product, detergents, as an example, in line with the LEAP approach of the TNFD. Also, it states that it identified critical issues upstream and identified materialities for each critical issue using a combination of various tools. Moreover, it redefined the issues by examining the results of its 2021 analysis in addition to the latest competitor benchmarks and various guidelines, reports, and other sources, and then, for each of the key issues, it overlaid a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool and organised them according to the axis of interest of stakeholders and its business activities. Additionally, it used two axes, the axis of stakeholder interest and the axis of importance in its business activities, to create a relative order of the importance of each issue, and as a result, “deforestation,” “drainage into the environment,” and “waste discharge” were identified as the most important issues. Also, it discloses that deforestation and peatland development in the country of origin of the palm oil were identified as issues in the upstream value chain. Although this approach is commendable, it however only covers a single product. The company should strive to continue to increase its coverage and set a time-bound target for when it intends to cover all operations.