Seven & i Group works in collaboration with local governments to provide public services to support persons experiencing inconvenience in daily life by reductions in local government offices, banking services, and retail stores.

Seven & i Group is promoting regional revitalization by concluding comprehensive alliance agreements with local governments in a wide range of fields, including local production for local consumption, senior support, health promotion, and environmental protection. Moreover, we are also moving ahead on concluding “watch over agreements” with local governments to look out for elderly people and so on during regular store operating hours, or through delivery services and collaborating with local governments to respond if irregularities are detected, as well as to train Dementia Supporters, and take other measures. In other developments, we have also concluded “supply-support agreements” to prepare for rapid regional support in the event of disasters, and we are also promoting “agreements for supporting people who cannot return home after a disaster” where we provide tap water, access to restrooms, and local information wherever possible.

Seven & i Group makes use of comprehensive alliance agreements to promote various regional revitalization initiatives with respective local governments. For example, Seven-Eleven Japan recognizes the importance of local flavors and food cultures by developing products that use local ingredients. Ito-Yokado, York-Benimaru, and other Group companies are helping to promote the appeal of local areas by retailing regional products and proposals for menus using local products and ingredients. Ito-Yokado has collaborated with elementary school students in Ota-ku, Tokyo, to commercialize the Ota-ku school lunch menu item “Takopettan,” which it sells at some stores in Tokyo. In addition, at two stores in Yachiyo City, Chiba Prefecture, York participated in the Yachipan Project—an event for producing and selling bread based on ideas from local high school students carried out as part of the initiatives with local governments—and sold two types of bread.

Ito-Yokado provides facilities within stores to be used free of charge for use as polling booths in cooperation with local governments. Local governments seek to increase the voting rate due to the reduction in number of polling booths and decline in voting rate due to the merger of municipalities, in addition to the enactment of the revised Public Offices Election Act, which lowered the voting age to 18. The booths are used to provide easy access to voters while they are shopping.

During the fiscal year ended February 29, 2024, this initiative was implemented at 19 Ito-Yokado stores and, in addition to being publicized at stores via poster displays and in-store announcements, some stores provide offers such as discounts to customers who presented their voting certificates. This has also improved customer recognition at stores at which polling booths had previously been in place, and inspired feedback praising the initiative such as “It is extremely convenient to be able to vote at a store in front of the train station” and “I appreciate the ability to vote while also getting my shopping done.”

In recent years, households in which both spouses work for a living have increased, and an increasing number of people have difficulty completing payments of utility bills at financial institutions and procedures at government offices on weekdays. In 1987, Seven-Eleven Japan thus initiated a service for 24-hour payment of utility bills at store registers irrespective of the business hours of banks. Since then, in addition to utilities bills, we have expanded this service to processing NHK license fees, national pension scheme and all types of tax payments, as well as catering to administrative services and insurance enrollment using multifunctional copiers.

Seven-Eleven Japan is expanding the scope of its service to enable customers to have copies of their residence certificate, as well as their seal registration certificate, family register certificate, copies of their supplementary certificate of family register, and various tax certificates issued at its stores*. These certificates can be obtained even on weekends and public holidays, with 1,256 municipalities participating in these services as of the end of February 2024.

7-Eleven became the first in the industry to offer motorcycle and bicycle insurance enrollment and insurance premium payment services where customers can enroll in insurance 24 hours a day by entering the necessary personal information on the multifunctional copier screen in store and paying their premium at the register. (The service is for motor scooters and motorcycles with an engine displacement of 250 cc or less, which do not require a motor vehicle inspection.) "1 DAY Insurance" providing automotive insurance coverage in one-day increments has been available at all 7-Eleven stores since September 2015, and “1 DAY Leisure Insurance” that provides necessary accident coverage when needed has been available since April 2018. In addition, starting from June 2020, cancer insurance is being sold at all 7-Eleven stores. Furthermore, with the exception of cancer insurance, from September 2021, after applying for insurance online, it is now possible to pay insurance premiums directly at the cash register without going through a multifunctional copier.

Seven-Eleven Japan is promoting an initiative to utilize bicycle parking spaces within store premises as hubs for renting and returning shared bicycles. Ito-Yokado started this initiative in June 2018, and Denny's began in September 2018.

Bicycle sharing allows users to pick up a bicycle from any of the multiple stations within a designated area and return it to the nearest station, not necessarily the one where they rented it. In areas where public transportation is insufficient, bicycle sharing is expected to complement public transportation and serve as part of the infrastructure.