AIST REPORT 2012

63/66

AIST began publishing environmental reports in 2004, and has been publishing the AIST Report一Social and Environmental Report that covers its efforts in social responsibility as well since 2010. AIST considers partnerships with society to be important, and has taken them as the main theme for this year’s report. In the lead-off articles, we present our open innovation strategy and related activities. In the research articles, we present our work on new research activities in the region that suffered the Great East Japan Earthquake, and our research activities based on partnerships with overseas research organizations and the business world. We have worked hard to go from simply introducing our systems and activities to presenting our efforts at evaluation and improvement.Also, in the Environment Report we present our activities in radiation monitoring and our efforts at saving electricity in the summer, and the reductions in electricity use and in greenhouse gas emissions that were achieved as a result.As a part of society, AIST intends to carry out activities aimed at realizing a sustainable society. We would like to continue to develop in this way, with this report serving as an improved communication tool for presenting the mission and activities of AIST in a way that is easy to understand.AfterwordMasahiro Seto, AIST Vice-president and Director-General, Public Relations Department On the publication of the AIST Report 2012I am presenting my opinion here in the light of two exchanges of opinions during the preparation of the report. The authors were kind enough to sincerely seek and respond to my comments on early drafts of the report.Social responsibility (SR) reports have been included in the AIST Report since 2010. With growth in the size of the report (from 49 pages to 55 pages and then 63 pages), there has been steady improvement, such as in the breadth of content in the report, including new disclosures, and writing that gives consideration to ease of understanding.This year’s report leaves a strong impression that the keyword is partnerships. Along with an editorial policy of introducing AIST’s activities in society with a focus on collaborative activities, the introductory message by the President strongly emphasizes the importance of collaboration, saying that it is not sufficient for individual businesses to only work on R&D for their own technologies. Taking the lead-off articles and the research reports together, they report on specific forms of collaboration between regional communities and the business world, universities, and research institutions both inside and outside Japan. In particular, the article on the challenges of the Kesennuma Kizuna Project provides a glimpse of a new kind of partnership that has not previously been apparent in the activities of AIST, and the report is rich in pointers to the fundamental nature of innovation.In the reports issued in previous years, there were frequent signs of a lack of appeal. In contrast, I feel that establishing a clear editorial policy and organzing the introductory message, lead-off articles and other articles more organically has been very effective for the appeal of the report.Our organization views SR 3.0 as the current level of SR. In SR 3.0, the social issues are shared with other actors (SR sharing), and common values between society and these actors are created in order to solve problems. The collaborative activities referred to in the report are a good example of SR 3.0, and have made for very interesting reading.It is apparent that efforts in SR have steadily produced results in a number of areas. There are two points that particularly strike me: that female researchers have not left work due to pregnancy and child-rearing since AIST was founded in 2001; and that an environment suitable for people with disabilities to work in has been created, leading to high retention rates (93.5% in 2011). In regard to the former, it has been reported that generally 60–70% of women give up work at the birth of their first child. In regard to the latter , companies with a retention rate of 90% for people working five years or more have been awarded business commendations from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Considering all this, the background to these two points in the report is that AIST seems to have worked hard on creating an unusually supportive environment.The compliance promotion systems and environment and safety systems of AIST are well established and have steadily produced results. For further development of SR, systems and management to promote the integration of social responsibility into the whole organization (ISO 26000) will be necessary. I hope that this will be considered for the future.I have two hopes of an SR report. The first is that, because it is an SR report, I would like clear descriptions with a constant awareness of the social context. Such descriptions can be seen everywhere in this report. However, the social significance of the work would be more clearly shown if more quantitative information was included. My second hope is quantitative discussions of issues such as mental health and harassment. Some ingenuity is needed for quantitative indicators of these issues but it is an important matter for AIST, because interest in and concern about improvements in this area are getting stronger. There are a number of cases where disclosure has resulted in evaluation of the effectiveness of policies and progress in improvements.Third Party ViewsAn Outsider’s View of the AIST Report 2012 Social and Environmental ReportWorkers Club for Eco-harmonic Renewable Society (Junkan Workers Club): A citizens group that investigates, with a global perspective, the form of a society in harmony with the natural ecosystems that will be passed on to the next generation. The goal of the club is to study, support and put into practice measures leading to a sustainable mode of society for regional citizens, businesses and governments. In its CSR workshops, the group runs activities studying and proposing appropriate forms for CSR. http://www.nord-ise.com/junkan/Third Party View|61Tamio Yamaguchi, Director, Workers Club for Eco-harmonic Renewable Society (NPO)Third Party Views

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer9以上が必要です