From 2 to 5 billion yen have been invested annually to refurbish equipment and improve their functions to lower the environmental impact. Over 20 billion yen has been spent annually on facilities and other maintenance costs. These investments have enabled Kobe Steel to implement multipronged environmental measures. Furthermore, in order to reduce the number of processes and thoroughly recover exhaust heat, Kobe Steel has implemented various energy-saving capital investments.

Kobe Steel's environmental conservation cost in fiscal 2004 consisted of approximately 4.0 billion yen for capital investment and approximately 20.7 billion yen for various expenditures. Roughly 42% of total expenses was for air pollution prevention, 16% for water pollution prevention, and 33% for by-product and waste treatment. As these figures show, environmental measures and recycling costs accounted for a large part of the total expense. The expenditure for environment-friendly product development and R&D to reduce the environmental impact of production processes accounted for approximately 2% of the total expenditures or 0.4 billion yen.