Creating a Sustainable Society for a Better Future.
The KWE Group is Moving forward on Sustainability in Line with Global Standards.
Overview of FY 2021 As KWE marks over 50 years as a leading freight forwarder, we imagine how we can put sustainability at the forefront of everything we do. We have had a busy past two years doing just that. In 2020, we established the KWE Group Sustainability Committee and the KWE Group Sustainability Basic Policy. In 2021, we conducted our first GRI-compliant Materiality Assessment. This process helped us identify and publish our material topics, set our improvement targets, and start taking action to reach those targets. We have been pushing out our sustainability initiatives globally across the company, using our company newsletter and other means to make sure each and every person in the workplace is aware that sustainability is critical to our business agenda. We are working with our partner airlines to spread the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), raising awareness among our external stakeholders as well as our employees. We are moving our sustainability initiatives forward in line with globally recognized GRI and TCFD standards in close coordination with APL Logistics, a major player in achieving our sustainable goals.
Material topic initiatives
In FY 2021, we took concrete steps to address the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) areas of our company, creating a strong foundation for more action and progress in the coming years. Specifically, we will be increasing our participation in partner airlines' SAF programs to address our material topic of emissions. On the topic of emissions, KWE is also actively collecting energy and fuel consumption data from our global sites to create Scope 1 and 2 baselines. We will then get KWE Japan non-consolidated Scope 1 and 2 CO₂e emissions certified by a third-party auditor. Once we have collected 12 months of Scope 1 and 2 data, we will publish these baselines and our absolute reduction goals for the entire KWE Group. In FY 2023, we will work toward third-party certification of our global Scope 1 and 2 CO₂ emissions, KWE will publish the 2030 targets for reducing our operational emissions, and we will work to collect our global Scope 3 CO₂e emissions data. In the area of social sustainability, we took the past year to work on both data security and diversity and equal opportunity. To reduce potential data risks, we have taken steps to enhance cybersecurity measures, rolled out employee data security training, started conducting periodic security assessments, and we created a cyber-risk insurance scheme. These initiatives will be expanded in the coming year. On the topic of diversity and equal opportunity, we are targeting an increase in the number of women in management positions, and our goal is for all employees to participate in diversity and inclusion training. Next year we will be focusing on implementing these employee training sessions and exploring retention strategies. To bolster our governance strategies, we have taken action to combat anti-corruption with the appointment of a Group General Counsel in April 2021. The Group General Counsel functions to provide accurate advice on how to mitigate the risks faced by the KWE Group globally, navigating the differing legal systems and business practices in every country. This year, all KWE Group employees will participate in a compliance training program designed by the Group General Counsel.
Taking Action
We are committed to contributing to a sustainable society by taking action in line with global standards. KWE will become a privately held company in October 2022. In close coordination with Kintetsu Group Holdings, we will continue to move forward to achieve our long-term vision of becoming a Global Top 10 Solution Partner by implementing our strategy to meet diverse international logistics needs in a rapidly changing business environment. We remain committed to contributing to a sustainable society, working in collaboration with APL Logistics and global frameworks to achieve our ESG targets. We ask for ongoing support from our stakeholders in these endeavors
Nobutoshi Torii
Kintetsu World Express, Inc.
President & CEO