Message from the President
All of us at Kuraray are praying for those who lost their lives as a result of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and offer our heartfelt condolences to all others victimized by the disaster.
Our Kashima Plant was shaken by the quake, but fortunately there were no injuries, toppling of machinery, or other major incidents. It was nevertheless forced to slow production for a time because parts of its supply chain were cut, and this caused concern to our customers. The Kuraray Group manufactures many products that have no parallels around the world, and we therefore are keenly aware of our social responsibility to assure their sustained supply. We are now rechecking risks from a companywide perspective to make sure that we will be able to stay in operation even in the event of contingencies that are difficult to foresee.
Contribution to the Environment and Society
Fiscal 2011 is the last year of GS-Twins, our three-year medium-term action plan. Shortly after the crisis induced by the failure of Lehman Brothers in fiscal 2009, we posted the aim of profit structure improvement and took steps to weather the difficulties by, for example, deferring additional capital investment, compressing costs, and increasing personnel efficiency. In 2010, our Group performance made a steep recovery driven by our original products as newly emerging economies expanded at a speed exceeding all expectations and the economy in the U.S. and Europe headed for recovery as well. In fiscal 2011, we are actively promoting action on the remaining two targets of GS-Twins (creation and expansion of new business, and acceleration of our global strategy for core businesses), toward the goal of boosting our sales to 400 billion yen and our operating income to 60 billion yen. On the agendum of creating and expanding new business, we strive to develop environmental-oriented business and have designated the fields of new energy, aqua business, and environmentally friendly materials as priority domains conducive to full exercise of our technical potential and contribution to the solution of global problems. And to accelerate our global strategy for core businesses, we are making the transition from activities centered in developed countries to the cultivation of markets in newly emerging ones, so that we can help to improve the quality of life and the environment with our original, high-performance products.
In the Medium-term Environmental Plan we formulated in 2000, we set ambitious targets mainly for our domestic sites and undertook various activities to attain them. For example, in fiscal 2010, our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 11.8% lower than in fiscal 1990, and the reduction therefore bettered the targeted 10%. Held in 2010, the 16th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) produced an agreement on the basic outline of a new framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, but also saw a divergence of opinion among the member countries and left issues for future coordination. Japan is faced with a short supply of electricity in the wake of the disaster and under very difficult circumstances as far as further environmental efforts are concerned. We at Kuraray, however, view this crisis as a chance to build business for the future, and are working for the development and spread of technologies that reduce GHG emissions and products that contribute to the environment.
CSR Roots
Kuraray was founded in 1926 to pursue business in rayon and became the first firm in the world to succeed in commercial manufacture of KURALON (PVA fiber) in 1950. Ever since, we have continued to furnish society with valuable products in the field of high-performance resins and chemicals, beginning with poval, EVAL, and isoprene, based on our distinctive polymerization and synthesis technology. Our development of KURALON, which is at the foundation of today's Kuraray, grew out of the sense of mission felt by Soichiro Ohara, who was our president at the time. Japan had suffered badly in the second world war, and he was determined to make the world's first synthetic fiber to assist its recovery and to better the lives of its people, who were struggling with shortages of all sorts of commodities. This spirit lives on in our corporate culture, under the banner of "contributing to the world and individual well-being through actions that others are unable to produce". We believe that the purpose of our business lies in heightening the value added to the resources we receive from society by applying our unique technology, and then returning them in this high-value added form to that society, for the benefit of all. We use the profit gained from this business for investment in facilities and R&D for further growth. Besides making a return to our shareholders by paying higher dividends through the continuous improvement of our result, we make a proper return to our employees, communities, social activities, and society as a whole.
Kuraray's corporate philosophy carries on the spirit behind its founding, and is encapsulated in the words "respect for individuals", "cooperation in shared goals", and "creation of values". We consider it the essence of the social responsibility Kuraray should discharge. Japan is now being confronted with unprecedented difficulties. I hope that each and every employee of the Kuraray Group will remain undaunted by this challenge, assist Japan's recovery by pooling knowledge with each other, and continue to fulfill our obligations to society in the future as well.
