To share the same vision while working on the educational issues of each region around the world, we have complied the Mission Statement for 100SEED, which expresses the significance of our activities.
We believe that education leads to the creation of a foundation for solving all social issues. Taking advantage of the diversity of our human resources—one of our important management resources—we are committed to a range of educational issues, and to growing and further contributing to the realization of a sustainable society.
Sumitomo Corporation Group has launched an initiative to further enhance sustainability management for sustainable growth with society. As well as clearly defining our role in helping to resolve social issues, this represents a strengthening of our commitment to realizing a sustainable society.
As part of our enhancement of sustainability management, the Sumitomo Corporation Group has identified six key social issues to target through Group initiatives, with a long-term goal set for each issue: “Mitigation of climate change,” “Circular economy,” “Respect for human rights,” “Development of local society and economy,” “Improvement of living standard,” and “Quality Education.” These issues and goals indicate the areas where the Group can use its strengths in human resources and business relationships to fulfill its social role and will serve as indicators guiding the Group’s business activities as a whole. In principle, each of the issues will be addressed through business activities, but in the case of “Quality Education,” our initiatives will be carried out through social contribution activities mainly 100SEED, and various human resource training activities.
Related Information: Enhancing Sustainability Management
100SEED started on the occasion of the centennial of the Company’s founding, born from an employee’s idea: “Let’s think about what the Sumitomo Corporation Group and our society should be like 100 years from now!”
This program, which started in 2019, has been conducted in three steps: POST about social issues to be tackled, DISCUSS specific activity contents, and ACT to carry it out.
A dedicated website was launched in February 2019 to explore the interests of Sumitomo Corporation Group employees around the world. Employees were encouraged to post about social issues from among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that concern them and the reasons. More than 2,500 posts were made in two months.
Quality Education, #4 of the SDGs, received the most votes, but climate change, poverty, and the gender gap also received many votes in some regions. The most urgent issues differed depending on the conditions in each region, but Quality Education was selected as the global shared theme from a long-term perspective with the hope of making this initiative a social contribution program for discussing together and acting globally. Meanwhile, the participants shared the belief that “education will produce the talent needed for solving many social challenges.”
In May 2019, DISCUSS was commenced to determine the specific actions in each region. In Japan, to reflect the opinions of many employees concerning action proposals on education, 31 workshops were conducted nationwide and 413 proposals were submitted. Based on this, experts including researchers as well as NPO and government members were interviewed and proposals for activities were refined. Employees voted from the perspectives of support for and intent to participate in the activities, with a total of 4,610 votes cast nationwide. Through this process, Educational Support for Multicultural Society, Career Education Support, and Pro Bono Educational Support were selected as the activities for carrying out the 100SEED concept.
The ACT phase commenced in 2020. In the 100SEED social contribution program, we provide our diverse human resources—our most important management resource—and their time on all organizational levels to address quality education with the aim of creating a sustainable society. To encourage participation and voluntary action by employees around the world, we established the Mission Statement for 100SEED, which expresses the significance and objectives of these activities. Education will produce the talent needed for solving many social issues and is indispensible to a prosperous future. Sumitomo Corporation Group employees in all regions of the world are going to worksites and actively engaging in hands-on initiatives so that they can pass on this aspiration to future generations. Information on activities and their progress will be released from time to time on this websites and via other media.
