How Toshiba is Helping its Suppliers Go Carbon Neutral

Global electronics giant Toshiba has been following a sustainability strategy called ‘Toshiba Group Environmental Future Vision 2050’ and a significant pillar of the programme is the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through its procurement partners and value chain. 

To try and achieve carbon neutrality, like all companies, Toshiba is committed to ascertaining both its own emissions and those in its procurement ecosystem.  This includes not only the manufacturing of the item or component, but the whole lifecycle of the product.  All areas of raw material procurement, logistics, sales, use and eventual disposal all have to be taken into account. 

Toshiba and Scope 3 emissions

“Scope 3 refers to indirect emissions other than Scope 1 and 2, that is, emissions generated by other companies in relation to a company’s own business. For companies with a large value chain, like Toshiba, Scope 3 accounts for a large proportion of emissions, so there is a strong imperative for reductions in this area. Scope 3 is further subdivided into 15 categories, and one of the most important categories for manufacturers is “Purchased Products and Services,” says Kyoko Fukushima of Toshiba’s Environment Management Office.

 “In order to identify emissions from “Purchased Products and Services,” and make reductions accordingly, it is very important to collect GHG emissions data from our suppliers. We are working with multiple departments within the company to reduce GHG emissions throughout the value chain, and with respect to implementation in the supply chain, which represents the upstream of the value chain, we are working together with Shinohara and her colleagues in the Procurement Division,” she adds.

Toshiba is consulting with its suppliers as part of its procurement and supply chain management to take specific action in their emissions. 

“Activities involving Toshiba’s value chain are just getting started. First, we need to discuss with our suppliers methods for calculating and reducing GHG emissions. The procurement and environmental divisions are working closely together to share their expertise in order to move forward with full-scale initiatives,” she says.

Green procurement at Toshiba 

Toshiba has followed a green procurement approach for many years, to prioritise purchasing services, parts and materials with lower impacts on the environment, and by collaborating with suppliers with strong environmental business management credentials. The company’s procurement division stays on top of this method by regularly surveying primary suppliers.

“We conducted an online survey of more than 10,000 primary suppliers in the world. Previously, the survey questions focused on the acquisition status of ISO14001*. However, in order to realise Toshiba’s Environmental Future Vision 2050, the questions have been fundamentally updated,” says Emiko Shinohara, who works on supply chain management in Toshiba’s Procurement Division.

“Given the broad scope of Toshiba’s business and the diversity of industries and business categories among our suppliers, we first sought the cooperation of a wide range of primary suppliers with whom we have ongoing business relationships in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of their current initiatives. The fact that we were able to identify suppliers that have set GHG emissions reduction targets and are currently managing their actual results represents significant progress. We are very grateful to all of our suppliers who participated in the survey.”

“However, we did not have a sufficient response rate. Our guess is this was due to the way we communicated with our suppliers, the usability of the online survey, and the content of the questions. We are looking into improvements to make the survey easier to complete, whilst ensuring that it does not place a burden on suppliers.

Suppliers who responded that they set Scope 1 and Scope 2 targets and manage their results accordingly were asked to complete a supplementary GHG emissions survey. While verifying the results, we will focus on suppliers in industries with high GHG emissions and those from which we make the largest volume of purchases to further dialog,” adds Shinohara.

Toshiba’s Environment Management Office and Procurement Division are looking to solve the challenges of a sustainable supply chain in collaboration, to solve the complex issues that will help the company make progress with its supply chain in reaching carbon neutrality. 

“I want to see us create value together with our suppliers, in terms of reducing GHG emissions, by taking a collaborative approach, rather than simply asking them to do something for us. Toshiba offers a variety of technologies to help achieve carbon neutrality, ranging from energy to power semiconductors that facilitate energy conservation. In other words, our suppliers come from various different industries, and so emission reduction strategies will vary accordingly. I look forward to further collaborating with our suppliers to achieve mutual understanding,” says Fukushima.

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