SEKISUI SDGs Academy encourages users to think in an enjoyable way about the connections between themselves and the SDGs, through activities such as card games, which involve information about the company’s own products.

SEKISUI has launched the SEKISUI SDGs Academy, a global website for the next generation to learn about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This website is the Japanese chemical manufacturer’s response to recommendations from children who participated in the 2017 Global Children’s Eco Summit, at which SEKISUI promised to provide teaching materials on environmental issues. Last year, SEKISUI created EduTown SDGs for Japanese young people. As a learning portal, the new English website has widened its reach globally.

SEKISUI CHEMICAL is a leading manufacturer of housing, building equipment and high-performance plastics. The Company has 84 offices and factories, mainly in Asia, but also in North America, Europe and the Middle East; and more than 26,000 employees. As part of its environmental activities for all employees and their families, every five years the company holds the Global Children’s Eco Summit, and positions its employees’ children as Eco Ambassadors.

At the 2017 Summit, participating children made a suggestion: “We felt that there were differences in the level of environmental education between countries. We’d like SEKISUI to provide good-quality learning materials, accessible to everyone.” The launch of this website, which offers the material requested, is SEKISUI’s response to this suggestion.

SEKISUI SDGs Academy encourages users to think in an enjoyable way about the connections between SDGs and themselves through activities such as card games, which involve information about the company’s own products. The target age is 10 to 15 years, and the site is expected to be widely used educationally around the world. It is based on EduTown SDGs, a Japanese-language website that has received positive responses from teachers in Japan, and which SEKISUI opened last year.

Hitomi Miura, from SEKISUI’s ESG Management Department, remarked: “We created this global website to fulfil SEKISUI’s wish to provide teaching materials with which children around the world can learn about environmental issues.”

Users’ voices have already been heard. One message began: “We, parents and children together, are using the site and learning about SDGs,” and ended with: “Thanks for promoting your CSR activities to us and our children.”

Based on this English-language website, SEKISUI is considering making these educational materials available in multiple languages, to be downloaded from a future website.