Recruit Group — An External Perspective
Recruit Group aims to contribute to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through all of our corporate activities in a global drive to create a better future. We spoke to Kazuo Tase, president and CEO of SDG Partners — who also serves as a senior partner in the Sustainability Transformation Department at Recruit Holdings — about Recruit Group’s efforts to contribute to the SDGs in anticipation of the United Nations’ Summit of the Future in September 2024.
The SDGs Are the Story of Humanity’s Big Dreams. The First Step to Achieving Them Is to Fully Understand Them
The SDGs appear to be gaining widespread acceptance among businesses. We often see companies displaying the icons of the 17 goals.
On the other hand, now that we are at the halfway point between when the United Nations (UN) adopted the SDGs in 2015 and the 2030 deadline, the UN is sounding an alarm, saying the prospects for achieving these goals are not at all clear due to unprecedented circumstances that include the lingering effects of the pandemic, worsening conflicts, geopolitical tensions and climate chaos.
Kazuo attributes this slow progress in part to the fact that many companies with significant influence do not understand the essence of the SDGs. “The SDGs are actually a long text, like a book, with a story consisting of a preamble, a declaration (59 paragraphs), goals, means of implementation and global partnership (12 paragraphs), and a follow-up and review (20 paragraphs),” he points out. “Essentially, it’s a story that tells of humanity’s dream to ‘create a world where all people, generation after generation, can live better, as they are.’
“It’s a plan of action for people, planet, and prosperity,” he continued. “However, many companies focus only on the 17 goals and 169 numerical targets, failing to understand the whole and losing sight of the essence. Recruit Group, though, spent a considerable amount of time and enthusiasm since around 2018 reviewing how carefully we should read the SDGs, what role we should play in this story, and how we can contribute to their achievement through our businesses.”
President and CEO Kazuo Tase of SDG Partners, Inc.
Recruit Group — Committed to Supporting the SDGs through Its Business
Our corporate website reveals how Recruit Group decided to contribute to the SDGs as a result of these discussions. Kazuo says there are three points that he believes are exclusive to Recruit Group.
First, Recruit Group shared the vision declared in the preamble of the SDGs that “no one should be left behind in the pursuit of a society in which all people can pursue greater freedom,” and declared that it would strive to realize this vision.
“Many companies use the SDG icons in terms of how they relate to their various businesses, but perhaps no other company even refers to the language spoken in the preamble to show alignment and agreement with their corporate philosophy,” Kazuo said. Stressing the need to take a holistic view, he added: “The 17 SDGs are linked to each other, and solving one issue can cause a chain of multiple goals to be achieved, like dominoes falling. I believe the future we are aiming for in 2030 lies beyond the realization of each SDG.
“In fact, the ‘greater freedom’ in the preamble fits perfectly with Recruit Group's vision of ‘Follow Your Heart,’ which foresees a future in which people can choose their own way of life from many options,” he continued. It’s not just about minorities or children in developing countries, but all people. Recruit Group is taking a holistic view of the SDGs and viewing them as its own affair.”
Second, the company has declared that it would support the SDGs through its business, particularly in the area of job matching, which Recruit has been involved in since its establishment and where it can exert the greatest influence.
“Recruit Group has a variety of businesses which have chosen to support the SDGs through their business in the area of employment — the foundation of people’s income,” Kazuo pointed out. “The company has also specifically stated that it would foster innovation to develop a quality, inclusive and equitable job-matching infrastructure for all by combining the Group’s data, technology and expertise.
“Companies tend to take their CSR activities — which are far from their core business — and claim that ‘this contributes to goal number xx of the SDGs,’ but what Recruit Group does is completely different,” he added. “I think the company embodies the UN’s ideal of corporate involvement in the SDGs, which is to make an impact at the most scalable core of the business.”
Furthermore, as a plan to reinvent management and business in the drive to realize this vision, Recruit Group has announced its commitment to sustainability for fiscal year (FY) 2030, declaring that it will support the SDGs in this way as well. The sustainability commitment is also one of Recruit Group’s three management strategies. The specific goals are to reduce the time it takes to get hired by half compared to that of FY2021; to help 30 million people facing barriers in the labor market around the world get hired; to achieve gender parity among senior executives, those in managerial positions, and total employees; and to achieve carbon neutrality across the entire value chain by FY2030.
Kazuo said: “The structure is such that working toward each of the sustainability goals through business will contribute to achieving the SDGs. Three years have passed since the start, so it’s also good that the management team is providing updates on specific results at live events, including the challenges they are facing along the way, in a transparent manner.”
Kazuo expressed his expectations for Recruit Group. “All business must be social business. A business can only be sustainable if it makes a profit while also doing good for society. I believe that Recruit Group can embody such sustainable management, having a social impact while also making a profit at the heart of its organization and business.”
Expectations for Recruit Group to Contribute to Wellbeing
At the United Nations’ Summit of the Future, set for September 2024 in New York, expectations are that discussions will take place on getting the SDGs back on track and how to accelerate progress on them.
In this context, Kazuo said the discussion that he’d like to see related to Recruit Group is a review of the indicators used to measure the degree of prosperity and its progress. “The ultimate goal of the SDGs is to ensure that all life can prosper, and that all people can live well, physically, mentally and socially,” he noted.
To measure this status, it’s necessary to capture economic growth through development and corporate activities as well as to assess the negative impact on people and the planet that occurs as a result of that growth.
“However, this cannot be measured using the gross domestic product (GDP), which was used as an indicator until recently,” Kazuo stated. “This sparked a debate about whether we should adopt wellbeing as an indicator to complement GDP. Wellbeing is very subjective, unlike monetary values, and is a matter of the human heart. In fact, the UN has not clearly defined it. However, some companies are already working on initiatives to measure wellbeing, and Recruit Group is one of them. Indeed is also publishing its Work Wellbeing Score
in several countries.
“In this respect too, I hope that Recruit Group will contribute to the SDGs by making use of its data, technology and knowledge,” Kazuo said. “I have high hopes that Recruit Group will take on exciting new initiatives, such as improving workplace wellbeing by matching people with ‘enjoyable and rewarding work’ that goes beyond decent work, meaning productive work that guarantees rights, generates sufficient income, and provides appropriate social protection.”
Watch the following explanatory video about Recruit Group’s contribution to the SDGs.
Kazuo Tase
President and CEO, SDG Partners, Inc.
After joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1992, Kazuo held a number of positions, including in the United Nations Policy Division, Human Rights and Refugees Division, Africa II Division, United Nations Administration Division, and as First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations. From 2001 to 2003, he worked as an aide to Sadako Ogata at the secretariat of the Commission on Human Security. From 2005, he was the Director of the Human Security Unit at the United Nations Secretariat, and from 2010 to 2013 served as the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Pakistan.
In 2014, he became an executive officer at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting, where he established the CSR and SDGs Promotion Office and helped strengthen corporate sustainability. In 2017, he went independent and established SDG Partners and SDG Impacts, where he is currently involved in the formulation and implementation of companies’ overall sustainability policies, the implementation of the SDGs, the design of integrated reports, ESG and information disclosure, and the formulation and implementation of SDG strategies for local governments and small and medium-sized enterprises.
In his private life, Kazuo has been active in a number of areas, including serving since 2004 as co-representative of the United Nations Forum, which has more than 8,500 members, and opening the first Think Coffee café in Japan in 2023, which is dedicated to sustainability, originated in New York.
Featured Book
Author: Kazuo Tase
Publisher : Impress (March 2022)
Language : Japanese