Eco Brand Survey: Toyota Tops for Eight Consecutive Years; Aeon and Sharp Come in Top Five

Tokyo – July 4, 2007 – Nikkei Business Publications (President & CEO: Seiichi Oteru; Tokyo) announced results of the Eighth Eco Brand Survey, conducted with general consumers between March 26 and April 27, 2007.

The survey, conducted by Nikkei BP EcoManagement Forum, is based on an Internet-based questionnaire on leading 560 companies in the country to find out how environmental efforts of these companies are received by the consumer public.  The valid response from 21,153 respondents was collected this year.  The respondents were asked how they perceived companies’ ecological efforts in terms of “evaluation,” “image,” and “degree of contact to information,” and the results were turned into scores of the “Eco Brand Index” – the survey’s original index indicating each company’s eco brand power.

In the Eco Brand Index ranking, Toyota marked the highest score.  Toyota has been enjoying the number-one position for eight consecutive years since the survey‘s start in 2000.  Toyota showed overwhelming strength with the Eco Brand Index of 99.9 points (deviation), outdistancing the runner-up by more than 10 points.  As for other automakers, Honda followed Toyota as in the last year, and Nissan ranked seventh (eighth last year) – much the same results as in the last year.

Toyota was highly evaluated for its leadership in environmental technology - the effort of steadily expanding its renowned hybrid technology to other models including the Lexus top-end model.  Honda, which had expanded hybrid models and announced a low-emission diesel car plan, was also highly received for its effort to lead environmental technology.  Nissan, on the other hand, was unable to dispel the impression of a slow start compared to Toyota and Honda completely as far as this survey is concerned, despite the medium-term environmental strategy that it announced last December to produce its own hybrid models.

Aeon, the last year’s sixth, made it in the top three.  The company has launched various environment-conscious plans, including expanded lineup of safe and green private brand products and shop-lead tree-planting, and these attempts have been successfully turned into customer acquisition.  This year, the company’s plastic shopping bag reduction campaign, which went into a full start following the revision of the Container and Packaging Recycling Law, seems to have further pushed up consumers’ evaluation of the company.

Aeon was the only retailer that came in the top ten, but a number of other retailers also showed notable improvements this year, with Seven-Eleven Japan advancing from the last year’s 26th to 14th, and LAWSON and Ito-Yokado leaping from 59th to 22nd and from 42nd to 27th, respectively.   

In terms of electric appliance manufacturers, Sharp advanced from the last year’s tenth to fourth this year.  In addition to emphasizing energy-saving benefit of LCD televisions and promoting its photovoltaic power system products, the company received higher evaluation by taking a consistent environment-friendly attitude throughout its entire business, including promotion of its technologically-advanced Kameyama Plant (Kameyama City, Mie Prefecture) as an environment-friendly plant.  On the other hand, the last year’s third, Matsushita Electric Industrial, fell to ninth.

To be noted is Nippon Oil’s great leap from the last year’s 72nd to 13th.  The company named its high-octane gasoline with reduced sulfur (“ENEOS NEW Vigo”) “eco-friendly high-octane” and stressed through TV commercials and at gas stations its contribution to prevention of air pollution and improved gas mileage.  While gasoline itself is very often regarded as a cause of environmental pollution and global warming, Nippon Oil’s efforts to reduce burden on the environment have finally begun to penetrate into consumers’ minds.

The survey also asked about the specific images of the surveyed companies.  Toyota topped for the three positive images of “making efforts for resource/energy conservation,” “making efforts to reduce use of pollutants and control emission into the air and water,” and “making efforts to prevent global warming,” while Aeon topped for the two positive images of “making efforts to recycle and reduce waste” and “contributing to nature protection and supporting grass-roots environmental conservation activities.”

In terms of the image “making efforts to recycle and reduce waste,” retailers gained high marks, including LAWSON’s fourth, Ito-Yokado’s fifth, and FamilyMart’s tenth, in addition to the number-one Aeon mentioned above.

With the debate over charging of plastic shopping bags continuing, retailers have now come to encounter more occasions to encourage consumers to save resources.  While, unlike supermarket chains, not many convenience stores have gone for so far as charging of plastic shopping bags yet, some major convenience stores including Seven-Eleven and LAWSON have started distributing and selling “my bags (reusable shopping bags),” and these attempts have led to improved images and evaluation of the retailers.

With regard to the “making efforts to prevent global warming” image, oil companies accounted for four out of the top ten companies, with Nippon Oil finishing in the third place, Cosmo Oil sixth, Japan Energy eighth, and Idemitsu Kosan ninth.  While petroleum and gasoline tend to be considered as the principal causes of global warming, oil companies’ efforts, such as Cosmo Oil’s publicity activities of its contribution to protection of tropical rainforest and Idemitsu Kosan’s campaign to encourage drivers for eco-friendly driving at gas stations, seem to have succeeded in improving their environment-conscious images.

Negative images, on the other hand, are strongly influenced by the images toward specific categories and types of business as well as by scandals and accidents.  For example, Fujiya, which had been forced to withdraw a huge amount of its product due to the surfaced scandal of using outdated ingredients, resulted in a dishonorable number one for the image of “having a problem in the amount and treatment of waste.”

In terms of this image, seven out of the top ten were electric power companies, including Hokuriku Electric Power (ranking second) that tried to cover up the criticality accident at its nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power (third) that was found to have falsified inspection data on its nuclear power plant, and Kansai Electric Power (fifth).  While the national government positions nuclear power generation as one of the main pillars for prevention of global warming, the survey has unmistakably reflected consumers’ concern over the safety of nuclear power generation and trustworthiness of electric power companies.

<About Nikkei BP EcoManagement Forum>

Established in 2000 to support conservation of the global environment and sustainable development of corporate management, the Forum conducts various joint studies and researches on environmental management with 170 supporting companies (as of the end of May 2007).

<Rankings>

Eco Brand Index Ranking – Top 30

[Methodology] The “Eco Brand Index” is calculated based on four indexes that influence corporate branding.  The four indexes are: 1) “contact to environmental information,” or what degree of contact respondents have to the environmental information provided by each company; 2) “environmental communication,” which sums up the sources from which respondents obtain environmental information (environmental reports, through various types of media); 3) “environmental image,” which looks into the images that respondents have toward surveyed companies; and 4) “environmental evaluation,” which measures respondents’ evaluation for the company’s environmental activities.  The scores are curved (midpoint: 50) to make it easier to see where each company stands.