Will Delicious Beer Become a Thing of the Past?
Kirin and LY Corporation's Commitment to 100% Renewable Energy
A Vision for a Future to Be Created Through RE100 Participation

RE100 is a group of companies striving to power their business operations entirely with 100% renewable energy. Renewable energy includes electricity generated from sources such as wind and solar power.

Given the massive scale of energy infrastructure, increasing renewable energy is not an easy endeavor. Even if companies have a strong desire to adopt renewable energy, it is very challenging for each company to individually secure the required renewable energy. Therefore, we believe that moving forward, it will be increasingly important for many companies to collectively and actively voice their demand for renewable energy.

RE100 aims to amplify the collective voice of many companies expressing their desire to use renewable energy, thereby urging the government, power companies, and society to increase the supply of renewable energy. This year, as part of this effort, twelve RE100 member companies, including Kirin Holdings and LY Corporation, made a policy recommendation to the Japanese government to increase renewable energy in Japan.

Kirin operates in the fields of food, medicine, and health science, and we need a lot of energy to provide these products to our customers. We believe that unless we choose energy that does not harm the global environment, specifically energy that does not emit greenhouse gases, we cannot claim to be conducting business activities without environmental impact.

As a specific example, I would like to talk about the process of manufacturing and delivering our product, "Gogo-no-Kocha."
Companies that manufacture PET bottles and farmers who grow tea leaves exist upstream in the process. To deliver products to customers without emitting greenhouse gases, the energy used by these companies and farmers must also be free of greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy is also used in the process of processing these raw materials into products. Furthermore, the energy used to transport the finished products by trucks to retail stores, and the electricity used to refrigerate the products in stores, ideally, should also be greenhouse gas-free, meaning renewable energy.

If any stage in this process uses energy that emits greenhouse gases, then the product, "Gogo-no-Kocha," cannot be said to be without environmental impact when it reaches the customer.

To ensure that we deliver products to our customers that do not harm the environment, we need to convert the energy used in the production and sales processes to sources that do not emit greenhouse gases (GHG). However, this cannot be done all at once. Given the current insufficient supply of renewable energy in Japan and the high costs of its use, we are still unable to achieve the two goals of maintaining our business operations and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions.

Therefore, we have joined RE100 and are moving toward achieving our goal of 100% renewable energy consumption by 2040. Although we are dedicating ourselves to what we can achieve within our own company, there are limitations to what one company can do alone. We believe that delivering products that have no environmental impact to customers will be challenging unless all companies involved in the value chain, both in Japan and around the world, choose renewable energy for their business activities.

As part of our current efforts that can be implemented when delivering products to customers, Kirin Beverage is utilizing green power for its vending machines. We buy certificates for electricity generated from renewable energy for the energy used in vending machines, presenting the machines with stickers that say: "This vending machine has net-zero CO2 emissions."

Our business mainly uses electricity and focuses on the provision of digital services. Since manufacturing physical products is not our primary activity, and the use of electricity and greenhouse gas emissions is invisible, it is easy to mistakenly believe that our business is clean.

Indeed, digital businesses contribute to greenhouse gas reduction in certain ways. However, in reality, the amount of electricity used in our business activities is very high due to the large number of people using the services of LY Corporation.

If such electricity is generated from fossil fuels, the services we provide will indirectly damage the planet. Thus, even though LY Corporation does not manufacture physical products, it is crucial for us to aim for a "business with no environmental impact," similar to Kirin.

Yes. With our numerous media and communication tools, we believe we can contribute significantly through our services. For example, Yahoo! JAPAN Maps visualizes CO2 emissions for each route. In our commerce business, such as Yahoo! JAPAN Shopping, we recommend options like specified date delivery and unattended delivery to avoid re-delivery. In addition, we launched the LINE Official Account "Sustomo (Sustainability Friend)," focused on sustainability in November 2023. As of June 2024, it has 3.02 million subscribers, and we regularly publish articles on the importance of renewable energy and sustainability.

Through LY Corporation's services and information distribution, we hope to inspire users to think that there may be something they can do and to encourage them to change their behavior.

As Mr. Hattori mentioned earlier, the ideal situation for the future is that society, regardless of the power source chosen, always opts renewable energy. However, reaching that point will take quite some time.

Therefore, it is effective for companies like us to speak out and promote behavioral changes. Utilizing various touchpoints that can reach a wide audience, such as the media and apps provided by LY Corporation, seems to be a very effective approach.

We believe it is crucial to make more proactive choices to increase the use of renewable energy across society, such as prioritizing initiatives to increase renewable energy generation.

Our business also relies on the blessings of nature to deliver products to our customers, but climate change could disrupt that supply. For example, barley and hops are used as raw materials in the production of beer. However, if climate change prevents us from obtaining these natural resources, we cannot continue our business. In such a case, we would be unable to deliver beer to our customers. In addition, advancing climate change could potentially change the taste of beer in the future.

In 2022, New Belgium Brewing, a Kirin Group company, developed a beer called "TORCHED EARTH ALE" to illustrate to consumers what beer might be like in a future impacted by climate change. This beer is made from ingredients that are expected to be available in such a future, but it is reportedly "not delicious."

To ensure that customers can continue to enjoy delicious beer, Kirin is promoting business activities that do not contribute to climate change. One such effort is the launch of a collaborative program with suppliers in April this year. In this program, suppliers involved in the production and transportation of raw materials and packaging are working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on scientific evidence.

While many people are making efforts to stop global warming and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, there is no single breakthrough technology to accomplish this. Nonetheless, we need to aim for a decarbonized society by 2030 and 2050, assuming that our current society will continue.

To reach this goal, it is crucial to keep our sights on the long-term future while diligently continuing to do what we can in the present. Together with Kirin, LY Corporation, and other leading companies participating in RE100, we aim to advocate for the increased use of renewable energy.

To those who use products and services, I would like to offer a suggestion to spark an interest in energy. For example, you might think that electricity is always available and that blackouts never happen, but have you ever wondered why it doesn't go down? I think we can make a difference by taking just a little interest in how our energy environment is sustained.

As a provider of internet-related services, we should reconsider the fundamental purpose of these services.Yahoo Japan Corporation's initial mission prior to the merger was to be a "problem-solving engine" addressing numerous challenges. LINE, on the other hand, was born out of the desire to be a "hotline in critical times" following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

I believe that the climate crisis and environmental issues are the greatest challenges shared by all humanity, not just Japan. We aim to leverage the problem-solving DNA of LY Corporation to address these issues. Moreover, we want to increase initiatives that drive behavioral change, such as visualizing and communicating invisible elements like electricity and CO2.

However, the procurement of renewable energy is a long-term initiative for any company. The path to future goals like 2030 and 2050 may seem particularly long. At the RE100 Asia Summit panel discussion I participated last month, I was impressed by a saying shared by another panelist: "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."*¹

These words also apply to our energy efforts. Working together with numerous companies to achieve the goal of using 100% renewable energy broadens our learning opportunities and fuels our progress. I also believe this will also amplify the societal impact of our efforts. We look forward to continuing to create a more positive impact with our partners in RE100.