Towards 100% Renewable Energy by 2026
Pietro on Why Sustainable Management Begins With Employees
Founded in Fukuoka in 1980, Pietro is a food maker best known for its dressings and pasta sauces. Alongside its packaged products, the company runs restaurants and retail shops throughout Japan.
In 2020, Pietro marked its 40th anniversary with the theme “Connecting Happiness to the Future.” Two years later, employees came together to shape the PIETRO VISION, a sort of shared picture of the happier society the company wants to help build. That vision has anchored Pietro’s approach to sustainability ever since, treating environmental action as a long-term commitment rather than a passing trend.
Since November 2021, Pietro has powered its suburban restaurants with Hachidori Energy’s renewable electricity plan for businesses. We sat down with the team to hear why they keep choosing Hachidori Energy, and how they’re working toward a decarbonized future.
What Inspired Pietro to Prioritize Sustainability and Social Contribution?
Could you tell us what led Pietro to focus so much on sustainability and social contribution?
Mr. Takahashi: Pietro started in 1980 as a pasta restaurant in Tenjin, Fukuoka. When I became president in 2017, I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of company we wanted to be. What I kept coming back to was the Japanese idea of “sanpō yoshi ” that business should be good for all three sides: the seller, the buyer, and society.
Profit matters, of course. But it isn’t enough on its own. We wanted to be a company that delights its customers, gives its employees a place where they can truly thrive, and gives something back to the wider world. We’ve received so much from society already, and I think it’s important never to lose sight of that gratitude. I shared this with everyone at the company toward the end of that year.
Later, when I came across the Sustainable Development Goals, it clicked right away: this was something we should take on as a whole company.
Ms. Nagasaka: Honestly, a lot of us started out thinking,
“What even are the SDGs?”
But the idea gradually took hold, and today many of us feel a real personal connection to it. We set up an SDGs Promotion Office and started cross-departmental projects, and out of that grew a culture where people think for themselves and take the initiative.
In fiscal 2020, through what we called the Future Creation Project, everyone at Pietro joined discussions around one question:
What kind of future do we want to create?
We gathered around 2,000 ideas and distilled them into 88 guiding principles, a compass we turn to whenever we need direction in how we think or act. That became the PIETRO VISION.
We also pulled it all together visually in the PIETRO VISION MAP, built around three kinds of happiness: for our customers, for the people who work here, and for society. It’s displayed throughout our offices, so it’s something we consciously come back to in our everyday work.
Employees Leading the Way: How Pietro’s SDGs Projects Take Shape
Of all the cross-functional work happening across the company, what does the SDGs Project actually focus on?
Ms. Nagasaka: Quite a range of things like cutting food waste, switching to eco-friendly packaging, and getting out into the community for clean-up efforts. With the health of the planet in mind, we’ve also swapped the plastic chopsticks in our restaurants for bamboo ones, moved to shopping bags made from rice-resin plastic, and started “Label to Label,” a program that collects used dressing labels and recycles them into something new. None of these are huge on their own, but together they add up to a steady, ongoing commitment.
There are more than 15 projects running at any given time, and employees sign up through an open application, you rank up to three you’d like to join. One of the best parts is that you can work on something completely outside your usual department. It puts you shoulder to shoulder with colleagues from all over the company and builds connections you wouldn’t make otherwise.
Looking Beyond Electricity: Choosing a Partner That Shares Our Values
It’s clear sustainability runs through the whole company. With that in mind, how did Pietro come to bring in Hachidori Energy?
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Mr. Takahashi: We set our renewable energy target in 2020: 100% renewable power across our operations by 2025. As part of that, we looked at a number of electricity providers. What tipped the scales was how much we connected with Hachidori Energy’s philosophy.
Someone recommended them to us at first, but once we understood their values and how they think about social impact, we felt sure they were the right partner. What really moved us was their model of putting 1% of every electricity bill toward social causes. For any company, giving up even one percent of revenue isn’t an easy call but knowing that one percent would genuinely change someone’s life made us want to be part of it.
At the time, Hachidori was still fairly new with a limited track record. Did that give you any pause?
Mr. Takahashi: Of course we talked about the risks such as cost fluctuations, reliability, all of it. But more than anything, we’ve always felt that once you decide something is worth doing, you commit. That might be a hard stance for a big corporation, but since the day Pietro was founded we’ve believed caring about society matters just as much as caring about our customers. And we figured this was a decision our employees could be proud of.Here’s a more natural version:
Working Toward 100% Renewable Energy
You mentioned Pietro is aiming for 100% renewable energy by 2025. How far along are you?
Mr. Takahashi: All of our suburban restaurants have already made the switch to 100% renewable energy. Our new factory, though, was delayed by about a year in construction, which has pushed our overall timeline back a little. We’re getting ready to install solar panels there and cover the rest of the demand with renewable energy. So our goal now is to reach 100% across the whole company by 2026.
Mr. Fujita: I work at the factory and look after our facilities, so one question is always on my mind:
How do we use less electricity?
Over time it hit me that every bit of energy we save feeds directly into lower CO₂ emissions and moves the SDGs forward. We’ve done things like fine-tuning the air conditioning and growing green curtains of bitter melon vines to cool the buildings naturally in summer. A lot of these ideas have come straight from the people out on the factory floor.
What’s Next for the Factory?
Are there other environmental initiatives planned for the new factory?
Mr. Fujita: Yes. We’re planning to replace some of our most energy-hungry equipment such as, air conditioners, boilers, compressors etc., with far more efficient models. For the air conditioning, we’re also looking at ways to cut electricity use by cooling the outdoor condenser units, and we’ve already started talking with a few companies about putting these technologies in place.
We’re not stopping at solar, either. We’re exploring other renewables too, wind power among them. Even once the new factory is up and running, we plan to keep improving efficiency and shrinking our environmental footprint.
Editor’s Note (English Edition)
One thing stayed with me after translating this interview: how often the word “employees” came up.
When companies talk about sustainability, it’s easy to fixate on the big targets like net-zero, renewable energy, carbon reduction. Pietro has those goals too. But what stood out here was the conviction that lasting change doesn’t start with policies. It starts with people.
Whether it’s cutting food waste, floating an energy-saving idea at the factory, or signing up for a cross-functional project, employees aren’t just carrying out a company initiative, they’re actively shaping it.
That echoes Hachidori Energy’s own philosophy: meaningful change isn’t driven by a handful of extraordinary acts, but by thousands of everyday decisions made by ordinary people. Maybe that’s what makes this story feel hopeful. Sustainability here isn’t a destination but rather it’s a culture, built together, one choice at a time.
Hachidori Energy is a Japanese renewable energy company built on a simple belief: the everyday choices we make can create positive social change.
By switching to 100% renewable electricity, customers reduce their environmental impact while helping fund new renewable energy facilities and nonprofits tackling social issues across Japan. We think electricity can be more than a utility; it can be a way to support the future we want to build.
This interview is part of an ongoing series featuring the organizations and businesses that have chosen Hachidori Energy and are making a difference in their own communities. Originally published in Japanese, these stories have been translated into English to reach a wider audience. We hope they offer a glimpse of the people, ideas, and values shaping a more sustainable future in Japan and perhaps inspire some action wherever you are.
