Message from the President
Our group is united in its commitment to remain essential to society
Toshikazu Tanaka
President & CEO
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Making Doubly Sure That Safety Has Top Priority
On November 4, 2009, a fire caused an explosion at our group company Shimonoseki Mitsui Chemicals, Inc. (located in the city of Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture). I offer my deepest apologies to everyone who was injured by this accident, and all those with nearby homes and other property that was damaged directly, as well as to the local community, the government authorities, our customers, and society as a whole.
After we failed to reach our target for reducing occupational injuries in fiscal 2009, in fiscal 2010 we revamped our vision for establishing safety at a fundamental level. We are shamed that this accident has occurred despite these efforts.
An absolute commitment to the safety is essential for a manufacturer. To reduce the potential for reoccurrence of accidents, preventive measures should be addressed not only at the manufacturing sites, but also at each layer of the group. That is, every employee should seriously think of accidents, recognizing that accidents are relating to all of us, and look into the direct and indirect causes to prevent recurrence. With this in mind, we earnestly strive to achieve our target of zero accident at the group-wide level.
Three-axis Management and Fiscal 2010 Results
Our group sets long-term objectives along the three axes of economy, environment, and society, in order to achieve the sustainable development and growth of society and our company.
On the economic axis, although we made it through the second year of the worst business climate we have ever faced through our efforts to thoroughly reduce costs and make sales, and achieved a profit in the second half of the year, our initiatives to return to a growth trajectory are still incomplete as of fiscal 2010.
While we were left with a huge safety challenge on the social axis, on the environmental axis we continued our steady efforts to revise our production processes in order to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and industrial waste, and after achieving our targets in fiscal 2009, we again achieved them in fiscal 2010.
We Have Positioned Fiscal 2011 as Our Crucial Year, and We Will Aggressively Tackle Our Challenges
We must establish a solid economic axis in order for our group to remain essential to society. We are confident of achieving a profit in fiscal 2011, through a strategy of out-competing our rivals in Japan, and expanding our businesses internationally.
We have positioned fiscal 2011 as our“Crucial year”: the platform for our launch into a new growth trajectory by overcoming the severe fluctuations in the business climate, and following the strategy we laid out at the end of 2009. We will tackle the challenges facing us swiftly and aggressively.
In fiscal 2011, we have also identified three key CSR challenges: thoroughly instilling a culture that places top priority on safety; enhancing environmental management initiatives; and enhancing communication with society and our customers. We will advance powerful initiatives to meet these challenges, and strengthen our unified group-wide CSR promotion system.
Enhancing Environmental Management Initiatives by Leveraging Our Core Competence in Chemistry
One of our group's key CSR challenges for fiscal 2011 is enhancing environmental management initiatives. We will continue to carry out highly creative activities, leveraging our strengths as a chemical company in order to achieve this.
Our business structure produces large volumes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions, but we are also confident that we have a wealth of potential to resolve these issues at a broad and fundamental level, through such means as catalysts and biotechnology that use non-fossil raw materials.
We have already successfully run experiments in fiscal 2010 to validate a method for synthesizing methanol by fixing carbon dioxide, and we are steadily piling up successes in our initiatives to create a new sound sustainable society with next-generation fermentation techniques using biotechnology.
We are also responding to worldwide trends in chemical regulations, such as REACH, with active efforts to achieve harmony with the global environment. Starting in this fiscal year, we will build a system to comprehensively manage chemical substances, and the entire group is fully committed to this task.
Communication with Society and Our Customers
We have positioned our CSR Report 2010 as a vital medium for meeting one of our key CSR challenges for fiscal 2011: enhancing communication with society and our customers.
I believe strongly that good communication with society and our customers is only possible if every employee in the group listens seriously to them, and responds to this feedback with their full ability. All employees, from executive management to front-line employees, are united in their commitment to this goal.
Your frank views, no matter how critical, are what sustain our growth. Please do not hesitate to send us your feedback.
