Hitachi’s environmental management mitigates increasingly serious global environmental threats and helps to achieve a more sustainable society. In our social contribution activities too, Group employees and members of their families are involved in planting trees and other environmentally conscious projects in keeping with the two main Environmental Vision priorities: prevention of global warming and preservation of the ecosystem.
The Hitachi Environment Foundation has been holding “Science Cafe” events since 2011. Participants deepen their understanding of environmental issues over a cup of coffee with experts and researchers who look at environmental issues from a scientific perspective. At the first five lectures, held between February and October, Professor Ryuji Tada, a paleoenvironmental scientist from the Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, spoke on the science of climate change, followed by Q&A sessions and exchanges of views with a total of 190 people. At the sixth lecture, held in November at the National Museum of Nature and Science, Professor Gaku Kimura, a leading expert in structural geology, also from the Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, spoke on new earthquake science with an audience of 100 from several generations. The speaker at the seventh session in February 2012 was the Meteorological Research Institute’s Dr. Hirotaka Kamahori, who addressed 40 people on extreme weather and climate change.
The Hitachi Group has operated the Green Curtain Project, growing vines, such as bitter gourds and loofahs, on the windows and walls of buildings to reduce indoor temperatures. In fiscal 2011, green curtains were grown at more than 300 locations, including factories, branch offices, and training centers, as well as at the homes of interested employees, as part of the Hitachi Group Summer Energy Conservation Campaign. To publicize this project, we held the Hitachi Group Green Curtain Contest, presenting awards to groups (offices) and individuals (employees and their families).
Since fiscal 2007, Hitachi, Ltd. has been organizing annual volunteer experience tours in conjunction with G-Net, a non-profit afforestation organization working in the Horqin Desert in Inner Mongolia, China. This program was designed to raise awareness of the environment and ecosystems among Hitachi Group employees in Japan and China and their families through their participation in afforestation. As well, it encourages them to consider what they can do personally and how they can begin to take action.
For the next decade, we will provide support for this afforestation project.
In May 2011, more than 700 employees Hitachi Display Devices (Suzhou) sold some 1,370 items at a flea market organized by the Suzhou Industrial Park Environmental Protection Office, donating CNY 1,420 (approximately 17,000 yen) to the China Green Foundation. The money was used to plant 284 trees.
