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Environmental Management Sustainability Report 2006 |
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Third-Party Comment |
Comments Upon Reading the Kobe Steel Group's Sustainability Report | |
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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. |