CSR

Third-Party Opinion/Response to the Third-Party Opinion / Third-Party Certification Report

For three years running, I have read through the Fujikura Group's annual report on its CSR activities to give a third-party opinion on the report. In fiscal 2013, the Group made great progresses in the activities. Above all, Fujikura Ltd. made an announcement to support the United Nations Global Compact. Through this, the Group declared to address internationally important issues in the areas of "human rights," "labor," "the environment," and "anti-corruption" and to comply with international principles in its business activities. To fulfill this commitment, the Group has formulated the necessary in-house policies and guidelines with reference to the international principles and guidelines and proactively conducted activities to raise employees' and the public awareness of the Global Compact and the related policies and guidelines, as is faithfully reported in this report.

While taking a global approach to fulfill its CSR, the Fujikura Group has also been steadily establishing the internal foundation for CSR activities. As described in the report, the Group has made the Health Management Declaration to make it clear that the Group will monitor the health of individual employees, who provide a source of corporate value, and take a preventive approach to foster their health. The Group has also implemented a range of other measures, including clarifying its basic policy on social contribution activities to establish firm relationships of trust with local communities. One of the innovative initiatives implemented by the Group is the quantification of the social contribution activities conducted by Group companies and the sharing of the numerical information across the Group. CSR activities and business growth of a company can be compared to the roots and branches or leaves of a tree. Fujikura Ltd. has been globally developing its business toward the 130th anniversary of its founding. The company is laying down roots through CSR activities and extending its branches and leaves for business growth to become a big tree. I have the impression that the company is advancing its CSR activities in a timely manner.

I expect that the Fujikura Group will further foster the idea of integrated reporting. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) published the International Integrated Reporting Framework in consideration of the needs of investors who attribute importance to nonfinancial information about companies, such as initiatives implemented by the companies for sustainable value creation, in addition to financial information that shows their past business performance. CSR activities support companies in maintaining and increasing their corporate value, and companies are required to regard their CSR activities as an integral part of their management strategies. It is highly appreciable that the Fujikura Group has created its first CSR integrated report this year to show its commitment to the integrated reporting of its financial and nonfinancial information. I expect that Fujikura Ltd. will in its future integrated reports further clarify the relationships between its business and CSR activities and communicate how the Group has created unique value.

I also expect that the use of diverse human resources, including women, will be further promoted by the Fujikura Group. According to the Gender Gap Index, which is announced annually by the World Economic Forum, Japan is ranked as low as No. 105 among 136 countries in the world in terms of gender equality. This is a problem to be tackled by the entire country. In Japan's society, which faces depopulation, it is indeed critical for companies to meet the challenge of making better use of diverse human resources including women. This challenge, which influences corporate competitiveness, cannot be met through short-term measures and companies need to take medium- to long-term measures. I hear that the Fujikura Group has a range of overseas bases where the power of women is successfully utilized. Moreover, the Group regards the better use of female human resources as one of its priority issues for CSR. I expect that specific measures implemented by the Group to this end will be reported in its future reports.

Companies need to conduct CSR activities as a never-ending challenge, and in conducting these activities, they might face problems. I expect that the Fujikura Group will learn from such problems, deal with risks in a preemptive manner and make ceaseless efforts to further enhance its CSR activities.

　

This report is our first CSR integrated report. We had been publishing a CSR report annually, but decided to change the conventional report to an integrated report in response to the announcement of the International Integrated Reporting Framework by the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) in December 2013. By creating this report, we have taken the first step to integrated reporting, regarding the Framework as an embodiment of the needs of our stakeholders and expectations of society at large. The Fujikura Group followed the process to create an integrated report based on the decision made by members of the Group's CSR Committee, who believe that companies should meet the expectations of society promptly by identifying the changes and needs of society ahead of others through communication with stakeholders. In line with this idea and based on comments received from experts, we held repeated examinations and discussions to decide the best way to conduct integrated reporting. We have, however, just begun our initiatives in this sort of reporting format. We will work to publish more substantial integrated reports in the future, achieving accountability as a company.

We received comments from Ms. Keiko Omori, who took a broad view of our integrated report in her capacity as a third-party expert. With regard to the items for which Ms. Omori gave us a high evaluation - specifically for the announcement of support to the United Nations Global Compact to deal with internationally important issues on a global scale, initiatives to foster the health of employees, who provide a source of corporate value (Health Management Declaration), and for the establishment of the basic policy on social contribution activities to create new relationships with local communities - we will implement more measures to continue to receive high evaluation as a company taking innovative measures.

Regarding the issues pointed out by Ms. Omori as requiring improvements - specifically for the enhancement of the Group's integrated reporting on its unique value creation process and for the reporting of the specific measures implemented by the Group to make better use of diverse human resources including women - we are now working to foster the necessary measures on these CSR themes from a medium-term view. In response to the recommendations made by Ms. Omori we will reexamine these CSR issues, monitor trends in society to deal with the daily changing issues, address risks in a preemptive manner, and make ceaseless efforts to fulfill our CSR.

The business environment surrounding the increasingly globalized Fujikura Group is constantly changing. We will identify specific CSR issues in the changing environment, regarding the solution of the issues as our priority, and implement the PDCA cycle to enhance our CSR activities in a ceaseless manner, keeping in mind Ms. Omori's valuable comment that "Companies need to conduct CSR activities as a never-ending challenge." Through the activities, we will contribute to the creation of a sustainable society while also increasing our corporate value from a short-, medium- and long-term viewpoint.

　

We have received a third-party review of the environmental performance data disclosed in the Fujikura Group CSR Integrated Report 2014 in order to increase the reliability of the data.　

The third-party verification report shows the results of the review conducted by Bureau Veritas Japan* concerning how the 2013 data on the amount of CO₂ emitted from the use of energy (Scopes 1 and 2) and on the use of water were collected, calculated and reported in the Report.

As a certification body, Bureau Veritas Japan engages in the testing, assessment, inspection and analysis of buildings, systems, consumer goods, as well as ship classification.