6 | The Japan Times | Monday, February 8, 2021

sustainable japan

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Lixil change-maker cultures people for a cleaner world
Roundtable
LOUISE GEORGE KITTAKA
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Sanitation is something we take for granted,
yet 3 billion people around the world lackaccess to good hygiene. Jin Montesano of
Lixil Corp. wants to change that. A global
corporation based in Japan, Lixil’s purpose
is to help all people live more comfortably.
Since joining in 2014, change-maker Montesano has combined her passion for listening
and learning with a personal philosophy forkeeping people at the center of everything
while helping to steer the corporation inbold new directions.

Finding ‘joy in the process’

Montesano has never been afraid to jump
into new situations. Emigrating with herfamily from South Korea to Hawaii at theage of 2, she happily ran around with thelocal children before knowing even a wordof English.
New York beckoned for the teenage
Montesano, and she moved to the mainland
to attend Columbia University. “This was aplace where people walked fast, talked fast,thought fast — things were happening! I’ve
always searched for adventure and I wasalways quite fearless. I think that still defines
who I am today,” she said.
It was during her years at Columbia thatshe discovered a love of learning for its own
sake, which developed into the realizationthat “the joy is in the process, not in theoutcome.”
She points out that focusing on the process can also be applied to management,even though it may seem counterintuitiveat first. Instead of just saying “do it this way,”encouraging employees to think about solutions will pay off in the long run. “If you finda way to empower people to think about
the work for themselves, using their own
logic, they’re much more likely to remember how they got there and apply those lessons for the next problem.”technology brandin Japan, whereby
every product soldfunds a free Satofor someone in need. This became a talking
point with customers, who had not realized
the scale of the issue of the lack of sanitation. “It changed the conversation, creatinga different dimension of Lixil with our business partners,” she said.

People first

Articulating the purpose

A commitment to listening to others has
been a cornerstone of Montesano’s management style since arriving at Lixil. Thecorporation was formed in 2011 when five
firms in various areas of the housing andbuilding industry merged. Within two years
they had added companies from the UnitedStates, Italy and Germany to the mix, andMontesano came on board in 2014 to help
bring everyone together under a commonmission.
“Communicators like to put pen to paper
and work through a good-sounding narrative and story, but I didn’t do that. I decided
to go on a ‘listening journey’ to find out
exactly what this company is about,” shesaid.

Jin Montesano, chief public affairs and people officer, director and senior managing director at Lixil YUICO TAIYA FOR PHOTOMATE

Montesano spent the next few months
gathering people throughout the corporation in focus groups to “articulate the purpose” and define Lixil’s reason for existing.
“So it was about listening to where the beating heart of this corporation is, just by getting people to speak up, and then going in tohelp articulate that,” she said.

The story of SatoRoundtable host
Ross Rowbury andJin Montesano
warming up before
the roundtable
YUICO TAIYA FORPHOTOMATE

It became clear to Montesano that a passion
for water technology and sanitation “existedin the DNA” of the firms that had joined
together to form Lixil. Her efforts to makethis a more visible part of the corporate culture helped create one of their biggest success stories, the Sato.
Short for “safe toilet,” Sato is the world’s

leading low-cost toilet solution, featuring an
innovative design that utilizes a trap doorand self-sealing pan to keep out odors andinsects. Run as a social business, Sato is anaffordable solution for the 2 billion people
who don’t have access to a safe toilet andthe 3 billion who lack proper hygiene.
It was the brainchild of Daigo Ishiyama,
who came up with the original model aftergetting a grant from the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation. Initial sales of the Satowere approved in 2013.
“When I joined in 2014, the team
explained it to me. There was a little bitof the view that we shouldn’t be messing
around with this ‘vanity project’ — excusethe pun!” Montesano said with a laugh. “Buteventually we convinced the corporation togive this product a chance.” The Sato project surged forward in 2016 after the current
CEO, Kinya Seto, joined Lixil and challenged
Montesano and her team to turn it into asustainable business.
Energized by the company’s belief in theirvision, they set to work forming partnerships with UNICEF and governments. To
date, around 4.2 million units have been
shipped to 38 countries, helping about 21
million people. The business has now broken even in Bangladesh, which she says has
been a big turning point for her team.
Montesano is grateful that the executives at Lixil understood and facilitated hervision for Sato, which has also led to otherpositive outcomes. One example is the success of a tie-up with their Inax bathroom

Montesano recently assumed the roleof chief people officer at Lixil. The easily
understood job title is a reflection of Lixil’s
commitment to changing from a top-down
corporate culture to an inclusive, bottom-up
style. This includes simplifying and streamlining job titles to create a flatter, more egalitarian culture where everyone has a voice.
Having done away with core office hours
and pivoted successfully to remote working,
Lixil is urging employees to own their career
paths and rethink their approach to work.
“We are trying to encourage employees tointegrate work into their lives and making
it more enjoyable: when I do it, how I do it
and, of course, why I do it,” Montesano said.
Going forward, there are still many challenges to tackle, and she is excited to see
how Lixil will deal with issues like water
scarcity and creating a sanitation economy.
“We are sending people to the moon on a
private package, and yet we have people
who don’t have a basic toilet!”“I think the grease in the wheel of execution is culture, and culture lives throughpeople,” she said. “The heart of creating
value at Lixil is really about unlocking thepower of our people.”
Roundtable is a monthly
series of English-language
events organized by The
Japan Times Cube. For more
information visit https://sustainable.japantimes.com/
roundtable

With Seino service, sell yourexcess stuff when you move

Citizen revitalization projects
take root in Tsukuba district

ESG / SDGs

Satoyama~AuthenticJapan

MAIKO MURAOKACONTRIBUTING WRITER

People who are moving tend to wonder
what to do with all the items they find they
don’t need. Sometimes there are just too
many and it is too troublesome to give themaway or sell them even if they are still usable.
Seino Transportation, one of Japan’s top
commercial logistics companies, based in
Gifu Prefecture, launched a new service inFebruary 2020 that combines moving withthe purchase of unwanted goods.
Moving is one of the company’s existing
services, and its staff members had beenaware of their customers’ need for getting
rid of junk when they move. “We are always
trying to provide solutions for problems thatarise at the sites of moving and to add newvalue to our services,” said Aya Makimura,product planning section supervisor of thesales management department, in a recent
online interview with the Japan Times ESG
Consortium. “Moving is a rare opportunity
for someone to pick up every single thingin his house,” she said, explaining that Seino
decided to make the most of this opportunity by providing a one-stop service for bothmoving and for removing unwanted items.

Helping achieve U.N. goals

The service can reduce their customers’
troubles and the waste generated by moving at the same time, which is in line with
Seino’s constant efforts to help achieve theUnited Nations’ 17 sustainable development
goals. “We have been making various efforts
to curb emissions, such as making a modal
shift from vehicle to rail and coastal transport, using articulated and hybrid trucks, andcooperating with other logistics companies
to share transportation,” Makimura said.

Brand-name bags and wallets packed in
cardboard boxes waiting to be collected
SEINO TRANSPORTATIONMAIKO MURAOKACONTRIBUTING WRITER

Seino has developed services that integrate moving and selling unneeded items as part of its efforts tohelp achieve the United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals. SEINO TRANSPORTATIONThis new service, which focuses on reusing what can still be used and reducing waste,
is Seino’s new challenge to itself to go beyond
the environmental contributions achievedby its transport service.
It will also free users of the service fromthe stress of having to think about what
to do with unwanted but still usable items
and the guilt of throwing them away. They
can also get some additional money in theirpocket from selling things that could haveended up in the garbage.

Service buys used stuff

The reuse part of the service is named Eco
Loop, which you can subscribe to by itself,
without using the moving service. “All they
have to do is to register at our website fromtheir PCs or smartphones, pack the things
that they wish to sell in the cardboard boxes
delivered to their homes and have the boxes
collected. They will receive the evaluation
result by email,” Makimura said, stressing theconvenience of being able to complete thewhole procedure at home. Things that canbe accepted include books, CDs, game software, digital devices, cameras, jewelry, musical instruments, sports equipment and andbrand-name items.
Seino is collaborating with a provider ofrecycling and reuse services to offer the Eco
Loop program. A certain amount per contract is donated to an organization selectedby the customer. Donations are used forsocial activities such as supporting developing countries, the health and independenceof women and people with disabilities,and preserving forests. Customers can also
donate part of the proposed sales proceeds ifthey wish.
Makimura said thenew service got orders
even amid the coronavirus pandemic,
ascribing this to anincrease in people
spending time de-cluttering the house whilestaying home to avoid exposure to the virus.
This year, a new collaboration will startwith a company that runs a network of secondhand shops, upgrading the service tomake it possible to purchase bigger items
such as furniture. This will add extra value
to the service because it will give people theability to sell large items that they otherwise
would have thrown away and paid a waste
disposal fee for.
Seino is promoting the service in various
ways to enhance consumer recognition somore people will choose it. There are several
ways to dispose of large pieces of furnitureand home appliances, such as using local government services for removing oversize trashor arranging for the store where an item wasbought to come pick it up. Neither is simple
and both cost money. Seino says it providesthe hassle-free advantages of home service,
and even pays the customer to boot.
“Sustainable Japan,” features issues related tothe environment and a sustainable society. It
highlights the ESG (environmental, social andgovernance) activities of companies and otherorganizations and also introduces municipalities and local companies promoting thebeauty and excellence of the real Japan. For
more information, see https://sustainable.
japantimes.com/esg

In the Oda district of the city of Tsukuba,
citizens are starting to engage in projects
aimed at revitalizing the community withsupport from older generations.
“There were many small groups of young
people who helped organize a local festival
or worked on other small projects in theneighborhood, so I thought it would be agood idea to put all those groups together,”
Masato Suzuki, the chairman of the Society for the Promotion of the Community
Development of Oda District, said in a
recent online interview with the Japan
Times Satoyama Consortium.
“Satoyama” refers to a type of settlementthat lies between urban and remote mountain areas and is maintained by the sustainable use of resources, just like Oda, one ofthe eight districts that surround the central
area of Tsukuba in Ibaraki Prefecture.
In addition to various ongoing revitalization projects in those districts, the cityorganized the Tsukuba R8 Regional Revitalization Plan Competition over the last
two years. The final screening session ofthis year’s competition, which selected fiveprojects out of 27, was conducted online,
which allowed more residents to join theaudience than in the previous year.
Last year, Suzuki’s organization became
one of the winners and received city funding to carry out its project: local residents
planting moss phlox, a ground cover plantwith vivid pink flowers, in a large vacant lotin Oda.

A road bike stand made out of bamboo
CITY OF TSUKUBA

PAGE: 6Moss phlox flowers in full bloom CITY OFLocal residents plant moss phlox, a groundcover plant with vivid pink flowers CITY OFTSUKUBATSUKUBA

People who had seen flyers distributed
at schools or read municipal newsletters
joined in planting at the site in October
2019. “The first flowers bloomed in April
this year, but it will take a few years for theplants to cover the entire area,” said Suzuki,explaining that local residents continue togather regularly to participate in weeding
and maintenance, which has resulted indeepening ties across generations.
The organization intends to gradually
expand the area to turn it into a future tourist spot. “But moss phlox is not just beautiful. Its roots spread to every corner of thearea, supporting the ground and preventing
erosion,” he said.
Another opportunity that the city provided to encourage regional revitalization
was to hold a series of community development workshops for residents in each area.
According to a city official, participants
were able to identify the characteristics,
resources and potential of their district,which led to the creation and execution of
new ideas to promote the districts such as
making a town map and restaurant information newsletter, planning events thatutilize regional resources, and developing
key locations for communities.
Based on what was discussed in theworkshops, local residents came up with
the idea of using a former elementary
school building as a community plaza. It isin a perfect location for both trekkers andbike riders in addition to local residents —exactly between Mount Hokyo, which ispart of the Tsukuba mountain range, andTsukuba Kasumigaura Ring Ring Road, acycling path with panoramic views.
“Now we are researching the needs ofbike riders by actually riding on the roadourselves,” Suzuki said. He also explainedthat the organization’s members and supporters had made bicycle stands frombamboo. “We have more than 30 supporters who help us with various activities,” hesaid.
The city has also been supporting thisproject by renovating part of the schoolbuilding and letting the organization use it.
The community plaza also serves as aplace for children’s after-school activities.
“As this school has been closed, children inthis area go to a distant school by bus. They
needed a place to play with their friends
after they come home,” Suzuki said.
To make money beyond usage fees for
cultural and sports activities, Suzuki andhis organization’s members are planning
to restart the production of souvenir items,
such as delicacies made with local rice oronions, that have been suspended due tothe spread of the coronavirus.
“The plaza plays the role of connecting
people inside and outside the community.
I hope more people
will visit Oda andexperience its charms
through interactingwith the local residents,” Suzuki said.
This section, “Sustainable Japan,” features issues related to the environment
and a sustainable society. It highlights
the satoyama activities of companies andother organizations and also introduces
municipalities and local companies promoting the beauty and excellence of the realJapan.
For more information, see https://sustainable.japantimes.com/satoyama and https://sustainable.japantimes.com/esg