ASICS: Dare to focus

14 oktober 2020

This interview is part of The Terrace’s ‘1.5-degree society campaign’. In this series we ask professionals: how is your organization contributing to the 1.5-degree society? And – most importantly – what can other organizations learn from your experiences? We hope to inform and inspire other businesses to do even more and accelerate their impact.

What if we are not committed to take any actions on climate change and limit global warming to 1.5-degrees? In the future, will it still be possible for people to enjoy outdoor sports in a sustainable environment? Or will having a city walk without the constant smell of smog be unimaginable by 2050?

Reason enough for ASICS to take continuous action: “Going forward, we will continue to act for future generations to achieve a sound mind in a sound body and address the climate change.’’ said Yasuhito Hirota, COO and President of ASICS Corporation, this September. To suit the action to the word they joined the RE100, the global environmental initiative composed of member companies committed to relying solely on renewable energy for their electricity needs in business activities.

We’re happy to see that ASICS takes a clear stance in accelerating their change and impact. We were able to ask the CSR & Sustainability team at ASICS EMEA, some questions on their challenges and learnings in contributing to the 1.5-degree society:

What does positive change mean to you and what is your biggest, most important motive for investing in a sustainable future?

In the light of a 1.5-degree society, positive change would be the active involvement of all stakeholders that will enable us to fight climate change together. Not only us as a brand, but also our suppliers, customers and end consumers. We need to realize we all play a role in successfully changing the way we consume resources and impact our environment. I believe sports brands can play a positive role in changing the behaviour of people to reduce the impact we have on our planet.

How do you stay focused on your sustainability targets when so many things are changing in society, among which Covid-19, that influences nearly every cornerstone of the world?

This is indeed a challenge. At the same time some of the changes and crises in society like Covid-19 have also really helped people to realize that something needs to happen. So despite the many challenges, pressure on continuity of businesses and the economy, at all levels (authorities, institutions, companies and individual level) there is more motivation and determination to change than ever before. We also see a momentum of people and businesses being more open and receptive to big changes now, that we can also use to make changes toward more sustainable business actions, such as switching to digital services for sports and e-commerce sales growing dramatically. This can boost some of our sustainability programs even in these challenging times.

And are there any big bumps on the road that holds ASICS from going forward and hinder this progress?

For many team sports, people need to come together, which is a challenge in the lockdown situation that people are facing in many countries. However, due to the scale of this pandemic, there is a great push to develop alternatives to that, and at the same time more people are reverting to individual sports such as running in order to stay healthy and sound. Either way, the bumps on the road are not holding us back in the end, only delaying some people a little.

What do you see as the biggest sustainability challenge for ASICS at the moment and in the future?

With Climate Action and our CO2 reduction targets being the backbone of our environmental sustainability strategy, a big challenge lies with circularity. As a product driven brand, about 80% of our GHG emissions are so called indirect emissions and originate from processes that involve the materials, manufacturing and end of life stage of our products. There are still many challenges in truly converting into a circular business model. Some of them are technical and some of them also operational and involves the entire industry rather than only our company and its value chains.

What message would you like to pass on to other companies that are striving to create sustainable and social impact?

Focus. As a person and as an organization you cannot be and do everything. At ASICS, a lot of what we do has started with research. So, we would always suggest taking time for a good assessment. Take a close look at your organization and how you operate and where your – both positive and negative- impact lies. Although you can take a lot of inspiration and valuable learnings from others, you could sometimes feel pressure to start moving on a topic because of pressure from external stakeholders or other parts of your organization, but you will achieve the most impact if your sustainability and social ambitions are truly matching the nature of your business.

In this series, The Terrace asks its network how they are contributing to the 1.5-degree society and what other organizations can learn from that. Last time we spoke with Lipton on how they are closing the loop on plastic waste.