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companies responding to a 2018 survey by the Kanto Bureau of Economy, Trade and Industry, more than 80% replied, “We know nothing about the SDGs,” while only 2% replied “We are already taking action” or “We are considering taking action.” Regarding “Topics for action on the SDGs,” 30.2% of small- and medium-sized enterprise respondents answered, “We have no idea where to start.” Conscious of these issues, the xSDG Consortium: Financial Assessment Platform Working Group (2020) developed and published the “SDGs Action List for Companies, Version 1.0” (referred to below as the “SDGs Action List”), which summarizes examples and key considerations by companies tackling the SDGs. By concretely presenting corporate actions that can be taken to achieve the SDGs, they enable connections to be made to provide yardsticks or criteria for actors, including financial institutions and investors that evaluate corporate actions on the SDGs. regarding The SDGs Action List presents corporate actions, referred to as the “SDGs Actions,” to contribute to achieving the 169 targets of the SDGs. These SDGs Actions are then provided in combination with a list of “Specific Examples of Actions” applicable by companies at the functional level. According to the SDGs Action List for Companies, Version 1 Userʼs Guide, three points must be kept in mind with respect to the Specific Examples of Actions. First, the examples do not cover actions that are already required by laws and regulations. Second, the examples do not cover corporate social responsibility (CSR) since CSR in recent years has tended to be applied in the context of corporate information disclosure and social contribution activities. Finally, what the examples do cover is corporate actions that contribute to the achievement of the SDGs through a company’s core business (xSDG Consortium: Financial Assessment Platform Working Group, 2020). For each division or department in a company to identify its own roles and to facilitate initiatives in the SDGs Actions, tags have been assigned in the four categories of “management,” “labor and human rights,” “environmental management” and “climate action.” In addition, each SDGs Action comes with an indication of which stage of the supply chain process is involved, whether it be procurement, distribution, production, sales or crosscutting. For example, Target 12.5 of SDG 12 (Responsible “By 2030, Consumption substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse.” For this target, the SDGs Actions include “Practice the 4Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse) throughout the life cycle.” Brought to the practical level in a company, some of the proposed specific examples of actions include reducing the use of shopping bags; recovering used products, parts and containers; and using direct-to-consumer sales from and Production) The Sustainable Development Goals as a Tool for Analysis initiatives concrete says: The first half of this article attempts to examine approaches the interrelationships between corporate activities and the SDGs, including SCP, based on the SDGs Action List. Kosaka international certification programs and Fairtrade Standards will contribute to achieving the SDG targets. However, the study focuses only on whether a particular initiative conforms to the wording indicated in the SDGs in order to determine whether or not the initiative follows the SDGs. Determining which corporate activities contribute to the SDG targets is highly challenging for private companies because it requires specialized knowledge. As explained above, we now know that company actions are closely related the attainment of the SDGs. Therefore, this study uses the SDGs Action List as a tool to provide clear standards on whether specific actions of private companies contribute to the SDGs. This article focuses on the efforts of Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. as a case study to identify clearly the linkages between corporate activities and the SDGs, using the SDGs Action List. From 2018 to 2020, utilizing this SDGs Action List, the xSDG Laboratory conducted a joint research project with Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd. the relationships between corporate activities and the SDGs and consider how to visualize the content. Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd is a Japanese company that plans, manufactures and sells “MUJI” brand products including apparel, household goods and food items. It has stores in Japan and abroad. The company is particularly appropriate as a case study for this research, as it is involved in various business activities at each stage of the supply chain, from the procurement of raw materials to the disposal of products, including the collection of products for recycling. The SDGs Action List breaks down the various corporate activities into the components of practical SDG actions. Within all of that, many SCP-related actions become evident. For example, the SDGs Action List contains the action “Practice the 4Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse) throughout the life cycle.” Ryohin Keikaku dubbed these SDGs actions as “100 Good Things,” and was already spreading word about them inside and outside the company. For example, the “100 Good Things” include actions like recycling textile products and wool, and these also apply to the “Practice the 4Rs” action in the SDGs Action List. However, the “100 Good Things” did not specify exactly which of the to visualizing (2020) analyzed how to contributing tagged as producers. Actions such as “environmental management” the company. Next, from the supply chain perspective, the actions are tagged as “crosscutting” since they can be considered at all stages, as shown above. these are functions within and analyzing the to to analyze 103 2.2 The Case of Corporate Activities

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