The report came in the wake of separate emissions scandals rocking Volkswagen, Mitsubishi and Suzuki. Honda itself is in the midst of a global airbag recall that has been linked to several fatalities. The dangerous Takata airbag flaw is also found in some cars made by Toyota, GM and Daimler.
Honda said the report was a way for it to prove its worth to society so that it could become "a company society wants to exist."
Striving to further increase the quality and quantity of the information its discloses, Honda prepared this year’s Sustainability Report in accordance with the “Comprehensive” option of the G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), formally inaugurated at the United Nations as a new global institution and a collaborating center of UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme), develops globally applicable guidelines for sustainability reporting. GRI’s latest version of the guidelines, the G4 Guidelines, offers two “in accordance” options - Core and Comprehensive. The Comprehensive option requires a broader range of disclosure.
The G4 Guidelines also define the GRI Content Index, which is a reporting template that offers a quick overview of reported sustainability information.
The car maker said the Honda Sustainability Report 2016 was the first sustainability report prepared by any Japanese company where GRI verified that the GRI Content Index of the report is accurate.
In the report, Honda corporate activities are reported in correlation to these four themes.
Environment: While viewing “climate change,” “energy issues” and “effective utilization of resources” as the most critical challenges in the area of the environment, Honda strives to reduce its environmental footprint from the perspectives of both “products” and “corporate activities.” The Sustainability Report introduces results and future plans of such efforts along with data related to Honda’s global environmental performance.
Safety: The Sustainability Report introduces Honda initiatives in various areas of safety, including traffic safety/driving education, development of safety technologies and offering of information that enhances safety. Honda pursues these activities to realize a “collision free society” based on its concept of “Safety for Everyone.”
Quality: Based on the concept of “Aiming for 120% product quality,” Honda is striving to improve quality by establishing the “Honda quality cycle” which starts from the phase of design/development and goes all the way through production, sales and service phases. The Sustainability Report introduces such quality improvement initiatives being implemented by Honda.
Society: The Sustainability Report introduces Honda initiatives to meet the expectations and the demands from society. Such initiatives include use of diverse human resources on a global basis, social activities that take root in local communities and working with its suppliers to establish an outstanding supply chain at the spot of development and production.
