Initiatives for SDGs

Promoting the main business contributes to ICON 11 as a provider of better living solutions.

Entering a university or vocational school is a new step for every student going on to the next level. However, the financial hurdles to higher education have continued to rise in recent years due to sharply rising tuition fees and pressure on family budgets.The Company established the Leopalace21Scholarship Program in order to support talented students who play a part in the future and to address the social problem of scholarship repayment.

We established Leopalace Smile Co., Ltd. in August 2009 with the goal of expanding the hiring of persons with disabilities, and received approval for the company to operate as a special subsidiary in November 2009. The company handles sorting and shipping of various types of posts for companies in the Leopalace21 Group, and it handles a wide range of other works as well, including the creation of important customer documents. The employment of persons with disabilities is not only a means of complying with statutory employment rates. We believe sustaining employee retention rate is also an important indicator to help people with disabilities realize independent lives. A member of the Board of Directors of the special subsidiary is active in giving lectures at universities and various events to promote a diverse society.

In response to the growing number of foreign national nursing care staff as solution to chronic labor shortage problem in the nursing care industry, we at Leopalace21 held monthly training sessions for such employees to improve skills. Our goal is to nurture personnel who will be able to work in Japan long term, so we provide Japanese language course that offers workplace communication skills using dedicated teaching materials that simulate real conversations occurring in nursing care. In addition, we help these employees learn the kanji characters and honorific language that will aid them in acquiring nursing care qualifications and passing the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

Leopalace21 is also committed to providing housing for the growing number of foreign workers and international students studying in Japan. IFC, or International Front Center, which has 7 offices in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Okayama, and Fukuoka, specializes in serving customers who came from overseas, for finding an apartment, handing over the key, and providing daily life support after move-in. IFC office staff speak English, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. After they move-in, call center staff take care of any inquiries in seven languages, including Portuguese and Spanish, to support foreign national tenants for their comfortable living.

We began installing smart locks since June 2022 with a target of 440,000 apartment units, equivalent to approximately 80% of the apartment units the Company manages. Tenants do not need a key but a smartphone or other device, that allows the front door to be unlocked. This will eliminate the need for customers to visit a leasing sales office to pick up keys when viewing a room or after signing a rental contract. It does not only save time and effort for the customers, but makes it possible to avoid face-to-face contact, which is an effective measure for infection control. The real estate lease industry has been required in recent years to prepare services for non-face-to-face contact in response to social demands such as DX promotion and countermeasures against infectious diseases. The Company continues to prepare online services for all customer procedures related to rental property contracts in addition to web-based rental contracts.

The Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 triggered an increased focus on clean energy in Japan. We started selling solar power generation systems in April 2011, and began to expand our roof-lease solar power generation business nationwide in 2013. We generate about 74,650 kWh of electricity per year for sale to power companies.