Fujifilm to adopt TCFD recommendations

Fujifilm will analyse the impact of a 2C trajectory on its own operations

Under the recommendations, which were first outlined in 2015, Fujifilm will be required to report on impacts of different climate scenarios – including the 2C pathway of the Paris Agreement – and what this would mean for the business. Specifically, the company has pledged to communicate such impacts “from the perspectives of governance, strategy and risk management”.

The concept of this scenario analysis is that it encourages businesses to explore uncertainty to create a “well-established method for developing strategic plans that are more flexible or robust to a range of future states”. 

Fujifilm will also work to include more climate and sustainability-focused messaging in the communications it uses to market its products and services to the general public, the company has confirmed.

“Fujifilm will continue to actively work on addressing climate-related issues and engage in dialogues with stakeholders so as to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society,” Fujifilm’s president Kenji Sukeno said.

“We will now actively disclose information on the impact of climate change on business activities from the perspectives of governance, strategy and risk management.”

The TCFD’s guidelines additionally recommend that signatory businesses promote senior management engagement on climate-related issues.

Industry leadership

While the TCFD’s main aim is to help individual businesses thrive in a low-carbon economy by disclosing climate-related information under traditional financial filings, the body also recommends that participating organisations research and publish information on how climate change could impact their respective sectors.

Fujifilm has pledged to report in line with this recommendation and is encouraging other corporates – both within the imaging and technology sectors and more widely – to follow suit.

The company has also committed to refresh its communications, in a bid to encourage consumers and other key stakeholders to get involved in making positive social and environmental changes.

The announcement builds on Fujifilm’s Sustainable Value Plan 2030 (SVP2030) CSR strategy, which was launched in 2017 and includes a headline target of reducing the company’s carbon footprint by 30% by 2031, against a 2014 baseline.

Under SVP2030, Fujifilm is also working to drive a 50 million tonne reduction in the CO2 emissions from its global customer and service user base by decarbonising its products and services.

TCFD trend

There are currently more than 200 TCFD signatories across all sectors, accounting for $44bn in average market capitalisation. An additional 300 firms have expressed support for the recommendations without moving to adopt them yet.

TCFD’s latest status report, which was released in September 2018 following analysis of the disclosure practices of nearly 1,800 companies, claimed that the recommendations have helped push climate reporting into the mainstream. However, the report also noted that many businesses are failing to translate climate impacts into business risk.

Similarly, a recent survey of 152 TCFD signatories by risk analysis firm Datamaran found that just one-third of the financial service signatories studied placed a “high emphasis” on their greenhouse gas emissions in their reporting in 2018.

The TCFD’s recommendations were recently discussed in-depth by a group of sustainability experts outlining what the future holds for reporting. You can read a comprehensive round-up of that debate here.

Sarah George