CSR in the Mitsui Chemicals Group

Identifying Key CSR Challenges

To live up to the requirements and expectations of our stakeholders and society as a whole, and to ensure that every member of the Mitsui Chemicals Group is moving in the same direction, we have clearly set out our Key CSR Challenges for the year ahead and intend to promote CSR via initiatives in every department.

Key CSR Challenges for fiscal 2012
Create a “strong frontline” to:
1. Provide safety, reassurance and stability
2. Focus on technology, business and products to help resolve global issues
3. Improve employee awareness and conduct as a trusted corporate group

1. Provide safety, reassurance and stability

We focused on establishing a safety-first culture during fiscal 2011 and successfully achieved our targets in terms of accidents in the workplace.
As we were unable to maintain stable product supplies in some cases due to issues with production facilities however, we intend to take steps to fundamentally and systematically enhance the stability of our facilities in fiscal 2012, whilst also continuing to focus on improving safety standards.
We also intend to start work on a chemical management framework in fiscal 2012 in order to minimize chemical-related risks at every stage of our products' lifecycles, from production and shipping through to usage and disposal, thereby providing added reassurance with regard to chemical products.
Our main objective here at the Mitsui Chemicals Group is to provide society with a range of materials. As such, we have a fundamental corporate social responsibility to manufacture our products safely so as to prevent any risk to our employees or members of society, to supply products that people feel completely safe using, to ensure stable supplies of such products, and to provide seamless support for social infrastructure.
To reaffirm our commitment to fulfilling our responsibilities on a companywide basis, we have made it our first Key CSR Challenge for fiscal 2012 to “create a ‘strong frontline' in order to provide safety, stability and reassurance.”

2. Focus on technology, business and products in order to help resolve global issues

One of our Key CSR Challenges for fiscal 2011 was to enhance environmental management initiatives. In addition to reducing greenhouse gases, formulating medium-term emissions targets, catering to demand for environmentally friendly products and establishing a chemical management framework, we also have also been focusing on actively developing cutting-edge technologies in areas such as CO2 fixation (synthesizing methanol from CO2) at our test plant and biomass-based chemical synthesis using E. coli bacteria. We need to take action on a global scale to tackle a whole range of issues, including biodiversity, food shortages, water resources and the depletion of scarce resources, as well as global warming. As a chemical company producing a range of materials, we have an increasingly important role to play in that process. It is essential that we keep on trying to resolve global issues such as these through our production technologies, products and services, to ensure the sustainable development of Mitsui Chemicals and society as a whole. In order to underline that fact and encourage us to think and take on new challenges on the frontline at every level, from R&D to manufacturing to sales, we have made it one of our Key CSR Challenges for fiscal 2012 to “focus on technology, business and products in order to help resolve global issues.”

3. Improve employee awareness and conduct as a trusted corporate group

All of our activities as a company are carried out by our employees. Retaining the trust from society depends heavily on the awareness and conduct of the individual employees who interact with our stakeholders on a day-to-day basis.
Here at the Mitsui Chemicals Group, we are committed to putting our Essential Principles (outlined as part of our efforts to improve awareness and conduct as a “good and trustworthy company”) into practice and have made it one of our Key CSR Challenges for fiscal 2012 to “improve employee awareness and conduct as a trusted corporate group.”

Stakeholders and key initiatives for fiscal 2011