Comments Upon Reading the Kobe Steel Group's Sustainability
Report
Katsuhiko Kokubu
Professor, Graduate School of Business Administration, Kobe
University
Profile Professor Katsuhiko Kokubu received
his doctorate in business administration in 1990 from the Graduate
School of Business Administration at Osaka City University.
He served as an assistant professor at Osaka City University
and Kobe University before assuming his present post. Specializing
in social environmental accounting and environmental administration,
he founded the Institute for Environmental Management Accounting,
which utilizes his research results. He has also participated
in various groups, including the Study Group for the Reform
of Environmental Accounting Guidelines. Currently, he serves
as the chairperson of the Working Committee on the Development
and Dissemination of Material Flow Cost Accounting commissioned
by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
This year's report begins with the air emission
problem discovered at Kobe Steel's steelworks. For corporations that
publish environmental reports, the inappropriate handling of data
is a serious problem that requires those involved not only to thoroughly
clarify the cause of the problem and ensure it doesn't happen again,
but also work very earnestly to recover lost public trust. In this
sense, I believe that the response Kobe Steel has shown since the
incident can be positively evaluated in quantitative terms. What's
important, however, is how the company actually improves the quality
of its environmental management to a higher point than its previous
level through its efforts to regain public trust. This will require
even greater effort on an ongoing basis.
This year's report has more content about environmental protection
activities than last year's. Although the Group has made progress
in areas other than management systems and monitoring, they still
have a number of issues that must be addressed. For example, I'd like
to know what kind of action plan they have in place to meet the 2010
targets for combating global warming. Concerning the building of a
recycling-oriented society, emphasis is placed on reusing resources,
but I think they still have room for improvement with regard to reducing
the amount of total waste generated. Also, although the report details
individual examples of environmental performance, I believe material
balance information should be disclosed concerning the impact that
the Kobe Steel Group as a whole has on the environment.
This year's report includes social as well as environmental information,
a change that can be positively viewed as a reflection of the Group's
new stance on CSR management. Detailed information is offered concerning
societal issues from a variety of perspectives. In the future, however,
the Group will be expected to formulate policies and adopt targets
keyed to management cycles in both environmental and social areas.
The key to this will be how the opinions of stakeholders are reflected
in CSR management.
The air emissions incident was truly regrettable, but there are many corporations
that have taken incidents such as this as the starting point for the thorough
reform of their environmental management systems. To achieve this, the corporate
culture must be reformed along with the management system that supports
it. It's my profound hope that Kobe Steel will become an example of success.
Editorial Postscript
The Fiscal 2006 Sustainability Report contains
more social information than the Fiscal 2005 Environmental Report.
To encourage a deeper understanding of the Kobe Steel Group's corporate
activities among our stakeholders, we have strived to make the report
easy to understand and visually attractive. We have also included
the air emissions incident that occurred at our Kakogawa Works and
Kobe Works in May 2006, with explanations of the background to the
problem, Kobe Steel's response, and the measures that have been taken
to prevent recurrence. Despite our best efforts, this report no doubt
still has shortcomings. We hope readers will not hesitate to share
their opinions with us so that we can make further improvements in
the years to come.
Secretariat and Publicity Department, Kobe Steel,
Ltd.
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