Message from the President
Our goal is to contribute actively, taking the viewpoint of society and our customers, and taking advantage of Mitsui Chemicals’ unique qualities.
The global economic recession that started in the autumn of 2008 has had a major impact on the performance of the Mitsui Chemicals Group in fiscal 2009, and we expect the business climate to remain difficult moving forward. As I and the other new members of the management team grapple with this difficult situation, we will work to maintain our existing policies firmly and unshakably, and carry out realistic activities.
Toshikazu Tanaka
President & CEO
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Fiscal 2009 Results for Three-axis Management
In fiscal 2009, our group added targets for the environmental and social axes to our economic-axis targets such as financial goals, in order to achieve sustainable growth balancing social and corporate needs. Our aim since has been to manage our group balancing these three axes.
Our environmental-axis goals were to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and reduce industrial waste. We achieved almost all our fiscal 2009 goals by steadily revising our production processes.
Meanwhile, our goal on the social axis was to achieve the world’s highest occupational safety level with regard to the occupational injury frequency rate. Despite our efforts to eliminate occupational injuries, however, we were unfortunately not able to achieve this goal. Safety is fundamental premise of companies that make things. We remain committed to achieving this goal, and we will thoroughly make revisions to both the human and equipment aspects of our initiatives.
Amidst severe changes in the environment, it is vital to carry out continuous initiatives with a long-term perspective with regard to our goals on the environmental and social axes. We remain firmly committed to the Long-term Management Targets we set in 2007. As an example in April 2009 we created the Corporate Social Responsibility Center in order to plan and promote these activities centrally, and provide more functional support to activities in each division.
Society and Customers Are the Foundation of Corporate Activities
From the perspective of CSR, rebuilding on the economic axis is a major challenge in order to fulfill one of our fundamental responsibilities to society stably, such as ensuring employment.
It is precisely in this kind of situation, however, where we must return to our foundation, and demonstrate the humility to ask what society and our customers need. We must take the viewpoints of society and our customers, and continually strive to raise the level of all of our activities. We believe that this will enable us to achieve the goal for CSR, the sustainable development of society and companies.
Active Contributions that Leverage the Unique Qualities of Mitsui Chemicals
We believe that the best way for us to continue to contribute to the sustainable growth of society is by leveraging our characteristics and strengths as a chemical company—our technologies, people, and organization—in our area of core competency. We are committed to improving our sensitivity to change in society in order to anticipate future societal needs, never taking a passive stance. We will continue to offer new value to society that leverages the unique qualities of Mitsui Chemicals. Through these commitments, our corporate group is working to earn the trust of society.
We are leveraging our vast store of technologies to resolve societal challenges. In particular, we are focusing our full strength on technical innovations that can lead to fundamental resolutions to environmental issues, such as using catalytic technologies to synthesize chemical products by fixing carbon dioxide （see ： “Special Feature: Innovation” for details）, and expanding the use of inedible raw materials using bio-synthesis technologies.
Two-way Communication
We cannot earn the trust of society unless we acknowledge its expectations. In order to communicate with society, each of our employees must value contact with society, interact closely with society and our customers, and think and act together with them in a positive manner. As an employee of Mitsui Chemicals, I am fully committed to standing on the front lines and listening directly to society and our customers.
Our CSR Report 2009 has been greatly reorganized to achieve a dialog with a larger segment of society. We are working to enhance this report's function as a tool for two-way communication with society. To this end, we have changed the layout of the print version to make it more readable, and we added more information by enhancing the links to our website.
It is my sincere hope that you can find this report of use, and I look forward to your comments.
