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.
Through the advancement of sustainability management efforts, Sumitomo Corporation Group clarifies its roles in solving social issues and makes an even stronger commitment to developing a sustainable society.
One of our Material Issues, “Build resilient and prosperous society”, is to create a virtuous circle in which all people can enjoy physically and mentally enriched lives, and we can grow and develop together with local communities by stepping ahead in dealing with the needs of people in various countries and regions. To this end, it is important to develop human resources who will drive the future. We are committed to providing “quality education” through our business activities and social contribution activities, including 100SEED, and developing human resources who will drive the future.
Related Information: Material Issues and Long-and Medium-term Goals
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.
