OBC recognizes initiatives for climate change as important issues to address and is working to respond to climate change and reduce its impacts. Among its initiatives for SDGs, OBC identifies the promotion of environmentally conscious business activities as an important theme. In addition, we are striving to disclose information related to climate change based on the framework recommended by the TCFD.* Through the process of analyzing the environmental burden from OBC’s business activities and striving to reduce that burden, we are contributing toward bringing about a sustainable society.

* TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures): The Financial Stability Board (FSB) established the TCFD in 2015, in response to a request at the “G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting.” The purpose of the TCFD is to promote information disclosure on the financial impact on company operations from climate-change-related risks and opportunities.

Disclosure based on TCFD recommendations

Governance

OBC has established the Sustainability Committee to enhance our initiatives to realize a sustainable society.
The committee, which is under the direct responsibility of the President and Representative Director and made up of full-time Directors, enlists the active involvement of OBC management, thereby providing a system where problem solving for climate change, etc. can be reflected in the decision making of management. The committee holds hearings on in-house initiatives carried out in cooperation with offices such as Administrative Headquarters, and examines policies for realizing sustainability, matters to be promoted and measures to address issues.
Matters examined by the committee are reported to the Board of Directors after passing through the decision making process of the Management Committee. Moreover, statuses of in-house initiatives are reported to the Board of Directors by the Sustainability Committee whenever necessary after passing through the management committee.
In addition, the importance of initiatives to address climate related issues is mentioned and promoted in the message from the President and Representative Director as part of the Management Policy determined by the Board of Directors each year.

Strategy

OBC analyzes the significance and impact of various risks and opportunities associated with climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) publish reference scenarios related to climate change as presented in the table below. Based on these, we have assessed as clearly as possible the risks and opportunities for OBC in 2030, based on two hypothetical scenarios—one with more severe warming and one with more decarbonization—and assessed the impact of climate change on our company both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The 1.5℃ scenario assumes various policy, regulatory, and market changes for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including carbon pricing and introduction of renewable energy, as well as the development of low-carbon technologies and environmentally-friendly products. OBC believes that the direct impact of the application of carbon pricing and these other measures on our business will negligible based on our Scope 1 and 2 emissions and actual energy use. However, we recognize the potential for these additional expenditures to lead to increased spending and reduced revenues for OBC due to expense reductions and incorporation of costs into the prices of services and products by many businesses throughout the supply chain. On the other hand, we believe that government strengthening of recycling regulations and promotion of paperless systems will enable us to capture new business opportunities through increased demand and sales of our DX products and development of products and services to meet the growing need for environmental accounting systems.

Under the 4℃ scenario, CO2 emissions will continue throughout industry as business activities proceeds as usual, and worsening global warming will lead to an increase in typhoons, floods, and other severe disasters caused by extreme weather. Although hazard maps and quantitative impact estimates indicate that OBC business sites are not expected to suffer significant direct damage or loss due to flood or storm surge due to the migration of products onto the cloud, economic impacts on the supply chain are expected to increase, and we anticipate an increase in insurance premiums and other indirect costs. However, from the perspective of business continuity for companies, these impacts are also expected to increase the demand for moving accounting data onto the cloud, and we see the provision of services that also contribute to climate change adaption as contributing to the mitigation of climate change impact on companies.

While, as described above, this analysis confirms OBC to be a resilient entity with respect to direct impacts, the impact of climate change is expected to increase throughout our supply chain, and we recognize that improving the contribution of our operations to both climate change mitigation and adaptation to be an issue. We are currently promoting the migration of products onto the cloud as an initiative that contributes both to business continuity in the event of a severe disaster and to resource conservation, and we are also working to improve our contribution to the realization of a sustainable society by reducing CO2 emissions by reducing travel though contributing to the DX of internal business operations.

◎・・・Large impact (100 million yen or more)
○・・・Moderately large impact (10 million yen or more)
△・・・Minor impact (less than 10 million yen)
Risks are shown in red and opportunities in blue.

Risk Management

OBC has established a system to assess the various risks and opportunities associated with climate change through quantitative analysis of their significance and impact, and we apply the results to our business activities. Risks and opportunities related to climate change are discussed by the Sustainability Committee. Based primarily on the framework recommended by the TCFD, we divide potential impacts on OBC into risks and opportunities, and identify and evaluate the significance of each. In making these judgments, in addition to frequency of occurrence and impact, we clarify priorities by linking the risks and opportunities to our mission and four key themes. We will continue to discuss specific measures for these. In addition, risks and opportunities identified by the Sustainability Committee are reported to the Board of Directors via the Management Committee in order to strengthen oversight and continuously monitor their impact on management.

Indicators and Targets

In light of the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below 1.5℃ and the subsequent 2021 global agreement on the details of its implementation, OBC recognizes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to be an urgent social issue and is promoting efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the target of carbon neutrality in 2050. We also recognize that we are a business entity with relatively low environmental impact, and therefore aim to achieve carbon neutrality for society as a whole, with the amount of contribution to greenhouse gas reductions as one of our indicators. OBC’s greenhouse gas emissions are as follows.