Hitachi Cable News vol.373
73rd cumulative second quarter business report
From April 1 to September 30, 2009

CSR is an abbreviation for Corporate Social Responsibility. Through its business activities and through technologies and services that improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of energy and information, the Hitachi Cable Group seeks to help build a more prosperous society and fulfill its social responsibilities. These pages describe the Hitachi Cable Group’s CSR policies and its latest initiatives. Pick out! CSR initiatives introduce products related to hybrid vehicles and renewable energy products as examples of businesses that help establish a sustainable, more prosperous society.

As fundamental credo, the Hitachi Cable Group seeks to contribute to society through its products and technologies and to help establish a truly prosperous society through business activities characterized by environmental harmony, engage vigorously in activities that contribute to social progress, and fairness and open manner.

Based on these fundamental credo, the Hitachi Cable Group CSR Policy*1 identifies medium-term objectives and themes in the following eight areas: awareness of corporate activities as social responsibilities; social contributions through business activities; disclosure and communications; corporate ethics and respect for human rights; promotion of environmental preservation activities; promotion of community support activities; creation of workplaces with good working conditions; and common awareness of social responsibilities with business partners. The Group strives to improve CSR activities by acting at all times according to these objectives and themes, by assessing the results, and by reflecting these results when establishing subsequent objectives.

In addition, to increase the fairness and open manner of its business activities, the Group is enhancing its corporate-governance structure and supplementing its corporate purification in these areas through enhanced compliance training for employees and the adoption of the Disclosure Compliance Reporting System.

In August 2009, to broadly promulgate information on the status of these activities both inside and outside the Group, the Hitachi Cable Group published CSR Report 2009,*1 covering Group CSR activities during fiscal 2009. This report complies with the 2006 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G3 Guidelines) prepared by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), a nonprofit organization established in 1997 to establish and promote the use of international guidelines on sustainability reporting. This report has earned a GRI Application Level reflecting compliance with these guidelines, making Hitachi Cable the first member of Japan’s wires and cables industry to achieve this distinction.*2

*1 See the following website for the Hitachi Cable Group CSR Policy, CSR Report 2009, and other information concerning CSR across the Hitachi Cable Group:

*2 According to the G3 Guidelines as of the time the CSR Report was published (August 31, 2009)

The Hitachi Cable Group seeks to advance its CSR activities by continuing to meet the demands of its customers, suppliers, shareholders and investors, employees, and society and communities—all stakeholders with deep connections to Group business activities. To do so, the Group strives to provide fair, highly transparent disclosure of information to stakeholders and to communicate with its stakeholders in a proactive manner.

The Hitachi Cable Group is engaged in a wide range of initiatives to fulfill its responsibilities to stakeholders, identifying as key themes efforts to promote quality-assurance activities, cooperate with suppliers, continually enhance investor relations (IR), creation of workplaces with good working conditions, and coexistence with local communities.

Ties to local communities

The Hitachi Cable mountaineering club performs continuous environmental improvement activities along a roughly 10-kilometer hiking trail located in Ogitsuyama Nature Park in the city of Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture. In recognition of the club’s activities, including cutting undergrowth along the trail, installing guideposts at key points along the trail, and producing guide maps over the more than 30 years since 1977, two members of the Hitachi Cable mountaineering club have been named Natural Park Instructors by the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.

To realize a sustainable society in harmony with the environment, the Hitachi Cable Group strives to reduce the environmental impact of its business activities and to use resources more efficiently.

Based on the Environmental Action Plan, which in turn is based on the Action Guidelines for Environmental Conservation, Groupwide environmental activities are primarily implemented and overseen by the Company-wide Environmental Committee, which formulates action plans and assesses and seeks to improve results and performance, by theme-specific subcommittees, and by the Environment Center, which also coordinates communications related to activity policies and assess results and performance.

Under this system, the Group pursues a broad array of activities, including efforts to reduce CO2 and SF6 emissions to help fight global warming as well as to promote recycling and waste volume reductions. Additionally, the Group targets expanded green procurement, environmental-conscious manufacturing from the development and design stages, and employee environmental training.

Environmental-conscious manufacturing processes

Located in Jiangsu Province in eastern China, Suzhou Hitachi Cable Precision Co., Ltd., has adopted a recycling system that processes waste fluid discharged in the lead-frame plating process for reuse in the plating process, helping to reduce wastewater volumes generated by the facility. As a result, the facility reduced annual wastewater volumes in 2008 by up to 99%—from an initial forecast of 89,760m³ to just 1,160.9m³.

In December 2008, this massive reduction in wastewater volume was recognized with an award from the Environmental Protection Bureau of the Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee.