Message from the Chair of the CSR Committee

CSR in the Sumitomo Corporation Group

CSR in the Sumitomo Corporation Group


Yasuyuki Abe
Director, Senior Managing Executive Officer, General Manager, Corporate Planning & Coordination Group

In the preamble to the Corporate Mission Statement, the Group sets out its corporate vision: "We aim to be a global organization that constantly stays a step ahead in dealing with change, creates new value, and contributes broadly to society." The statement continues to describe the corporate mission, which is, "To achieve prosperity and realize dreams through sound business activities," and the management style, which is, "To place prime importance on integrity and sound management with utmost respect for the individual."

The Sumitomo Corporation Group regards CSR as working to achieve our corporate vision by staying true to the management style described in our Corporate Mission Statement, engaging in responsible corporate management, and working to fulfill our corporate mission. In other words, CSR is nothing other than putting our Corporate Mission Statement into practice, engaging in sound business activities and having every member of the organization perform his or her daily duties with spirit and a strong sense of ethics.

Taken from a CSR viewpoint, in order for the Sumitomo Corporation Group to contribute to the development of a sustainable society and grow along with society, we must create and provide new social values through our business activities, which would in turn result in enhanced corporate value. We feel the Sumitomo Corporation Group's CSR should revolve around the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. We develop an accurate understanding of social issues and identify new needs through dialogue with stakeholders. We then offer proposals to provide the solutions by bringing together the Group's unique strengths and capabilities, to boost earnings and expand business activities by improving the standard of living and contributing to the development of economies, industries and societies in the communities and countries where we conduct business.

We will celebrate the centennial anniversary of our founding in 2019. To ensure that we are among the first to respond to the dramatically changing business environment and continue to grow along with society for another 50 years, 100 years, and beyond, we believe it is critical that we consider what we should do and how we should do it as a corporation, and then follow up by planning and implementing business strategies.

Progress and Achievements of Our CSR Efforts

One key step we took to put CSR into practice over the past year was working to deepen employees' understanding of our Corporate Mission Statement—the foundation of the Group's CSR activities. We took opportunities to further entrench this statement globally.

Meanwhile, the Sumitomo Corporation Group has also been an active participant in a local network of the UN Global Compact, the Global Compact Japan Network. In fiscal 2013, we took part in workshops on ISO 26000, environmental management and human rights, obtaining the latest information on global trends and advanced case studies and acquiring specialist knowledge from experts, which we have used to evolve our promotion of CSR. In November 2013, we partially revised the Sumitomo Corporation Group CSR Action Guidelines for Supply Chain Management in regard to the importance of respecting human rights throughout the supply chain.

Furthermore, in the belief that we should raise the level of CSR promotion, all sales departments conducted a self-diagnosis based on ISO 26000, the CSR global standard. Going forward, we will designate priority issues and move toward improving them based on PDCA.

On Annual Report 2014

Sumitomo Corporation published a print edition of the Report on Responsibility & Sustainability through fiscal 2012. From Annual Report 2013 onwards, we have integrated the print edition with our annual report and offered greater information on CSR initiatives. In addition to providing more detailed reporting of the Group's CSR promotion as well as its environmental and social initiatives, we introduce the CSR initiatives that each business unit is implementing through its business activities in the segment overviews of the report, in messages from the General Managers of each unit.

While continuing to pursue an involvement with CSR that is appropriate for a corporate group with global operations, the Sumitomo Corporation Group will realize its corporate vision by striving to create value that nobody else can match in ways befitting our distinctive identity.

Major CSR Promotion Activities

CSR Promotion Framework

Since establishing the Environment & CSR Department in April 2008, Sumitomo Corporation has aggressively pursued CSR in cooperation with relevant internal departments, domestic and overseas organizations, and Group companies. We have also established the CSR Committee as an advisory body to the President and CEO. The committee's activities include examining and discussing the Company's CSR frameworks and promotion measures. In addition, we set up the Global Environment Committee within the CSR Committee to promote environmental management activities based on the ISO 14001 standard and to hold environmental seminars and more.

The CSR Committee is headed by the General Manager of the Corporate Planning & Coordination Group, and its members are General Managers from the Corporate Group and General Managers of Planning & Administration Depts. of each business unit. The committee meets annually in principle. At the CSR Committee meeting in March 2014, a basic CSR policy and future direction was established after reviewing the steps taken in fiscal 2013. Specifically, the comittee discussed the following: 1) using ISO 26000 as a reference for measures to further raise the quality of CSR promotion, 2) actively transmitting information about matters like CSR through our business activities, 3) moving ahead with improving the efficiency of environmental management activities to a new level, and 4) focusing on social contribution activities befitting our distinctive identity.

Promoting Practical Application of Our Corporate Mission Statement throughout the Group Worldwide


Training for locally hired employees

We believe ongoing value creation and widespread contributions to society through business activities start with practicing our Corporate Mission Statement. Accordingly, we take every opportunity to deepen the understanding of this statement and expand its reach throughout the Group. We include employees of all ranks, locally hired employees at overseas offices, and employees of Group companies in our various training programs to enhance awareness and penetration of the Corporate Mission Statement. We also utilize tools like e-learning and training materials developed in-house to foster greater understanding of the story behind the establishment of the Corporate Mission Statement as well as Sumitomo's Business Philosophy that is its underlying foundation. Our organizations overseas are also leading initiatives to raise employee awareness in step with advancement of our global operations. By ensuring that every Sumitomo Corporation Group employee fully grasps the Corporate Mission Statement and puts it into practice in their daily business activities, we will demonstrate our core competence—our integrated corporate strengths—on a global scale. We also believe that sharing these values with our business partners around the world will enable us to build a more solid, sustainable business foundation.

Initiatives for the United Nations Global Compact

THE GLOBAL COMPACT Network Japan WE SUPPORT

The Sumitomo Corporation Group has declared its support for the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact, as this international CSR-related initiative shares the same values as our Corporate Mission Statement. With our participation in the Global Compact, we committed ourselves to making further improvements by constantly considering enhancements to our business activities in light of the values advocated by the 10 principles.

In fiscal 2013, we took part in the Leader's Summit held in New York in addition to continuing to actively participate in the activities of the Global Compact Japan Network. Amid these activities, at a small group session on human rights education, we endeavored to gather a variety of information from the participating companies from diverse industries about human rights, exchanged information about effective teaching methods and produced useful teaching materials for in-house training and seminars related to raising awareness about human rights.

  • * We also support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact are derived from.

CSR Initiatives for Supply Chain Management

To learn more about our CSR initiatives for supply chain management, please refer to the following website.

CSR Promoting Activities