Skip to main content
  1. Top
  2. Sustainability
  3. Index for Researchers
  4. 07environment
  5. Environmental Products

Environmental Products

In addition to enhancing quality while ensuring safety and reliability, business enterprises have an important responsibility to supply products and services that encourage customers to lead more eco-friendly lifestyles. Seven & i Holdings sells environmental products tailored to the characteristics of its various operating companies. Among these products are organically grown food, organic cotton apparel, and household goods.

Environmental Products
Sogo & Seibu sells approximately 100 eco-friendly product items that satisfy its in-house standards, which are set based on audits by a third-party institution. Standards include qualification as resource- and energy-saving products, the use of recyclable materials, and the promotion of environmental preservation. At stores, point-of-purchase advertisements are displayed along with these products to catch the attention of customers.
Environmental Products
Sogo & Seibu also ask customers purchasing gifts whether they would like to use“ green wrapping,” which involves the purchase of a wrapping ribbon with a leaf-shaped mascot for an additional price of 100 yen, of which 50 yen is donated to tree planting and growing activities. This cooperation allows the giver to make a social contribution and provides the recipient a chance to think about the environment. Sales of 80 ribbons plants one tree. In addition, customers purchasing ochuugen and oseibo (summer and winter) gifts who agree to simple packaging also contribute to tree planting, with one tree planted for every 4,000 gifts that use the simple packaging option. (Between 2009 and February 2015, 7,215 trees were planted.)
Environmental Products
In May 2015, the “WHAT’S ETHICAL-Let’s Embrace Ethical Fashion!” event was held at the Sogo Yokohama store. This sale fair event highlighted ethical products that show special consideration for people, society, and the environment. To help customers understand the features of each product, every product was displayed with a panel providing a clear explanation of the product’s ethical nature. Moreover, the event sought to enhance customer interest in ethical products by hosting talk shows and workshops featuring guest speakers who advocate ethical consumption.

The Corporate Sales Division of Sogo & Seibu provides proposals on uniforms that give total consideration to environmental impact for companies and other groups. Beginning with uniforms made of recycled polyester, these proposals encompass not only environmental considerations at the production stage, such as the choice of uniform fabrics, but also reusing uniforms during the period of use, and recycling into recycled fabrics after use, among other aspects.

Ito-Yokado sells a rice series that not only use fewer pesticides and chemical fertilizers, but also encourages “ biodiversified farming” in which rice fields also service as wildlife habitats. Part of the sales are donated for environmental improvements; in the fiscal year ended February 28, 2015, sales of Koshihikari Rice Nurturing White Storks provided 140,000 yen for nurturing oriental white storks, while sales of Sado, Niigata Prefecture– Produced Koshihikari Rice Certified by the Creating Villages Coexisting with Crested Ibis Program provided 220,000 yen to the Fund for the Improved Habitat for the Japanese Crested Ibis.