2. Social Contributions

(1) Philosophy

JSR Group has been involved in various social contribution programs with a focus on community activities. In January 2009 we established our "Philosophy to Social Contribution" as a philosophy aimed at further strengthening our activities. We are currently implementing the initiatives outlined in this philosophy.

Additionally, in 2010 we established "standards for making donations to disasters" in order to stipulate evaluation criteria when making donations to natural disasters. This brought greater clarity to standards and allows contributions to be made promptly and fairly.

(2) Advancement Structure

JSR Social Contribution Committee plans and executes activities that promote JSR Group's standing as a good corporate citizen.

• CSR management and advancement structure

(3) Approaches in FY2018

The following section describes some of our main social and community activities for FY2018.

• 1) Social Welfare Activities

  - Cooperation with blood donation activities

  Blood cannot be stored for a long time, nor can artificial blood be created.
  To supply blood to medical institutions in a stable manner and save the lives of as many people as possible, the JSR Group has been actively cooperating with blood donation activities for a long time with both Japanese and overseas bases.

  - Donations to charity

  Through the Cheongwon Ward Office, JSR Micro Korea presented 22 underprivileged, local households with monetary donations raised through an internal bazaar auction. The money was distributed to families selected by the Ward Office, including single-parent households with no income and low-income households with a disabled elderly person living alone.

  - Donation of foreign coins

  The JSR Group has been conducting a foreign coin collection campaign since 2009 to assist a program that supports children around the world through the Japan Committee for UNICEF. Collection boxes for this purpose have been set up on the Tokyo, Yokkaichi, and Tsukuba Districts.
  These coins are effectively utilized to protect the life, health, and rights of children in developing countries.

  

  A collection box (Tokyo)

  - Donations to food banks

  On Disaster Drill Day every September, offices in JSR Group's Tokyo District take stock of their emergency supplies. Old stored hardtack and water are replaced with new supplies. While some of these supplies are consumed through sample tasting or on other occasions, some are donated by employees and sent to the Second Harvest Japan (2HJ) food bank, a certified NPO. This helps ensure effective use of the hardtack and water, which has a shelf life of at least one month.
  2HJ receives donations of food that would otherwise be disposed of for various reasons from corporations, farmers, and individuals, and sends them to welfare facilities and other organizations in need.

  - Participation in aluminum can collection activities

  Since October 2010, the JSR Yokkaichi Plant has been participating in aluminum can collection activities for “i-project”, an independence support organization for children with disabilities in Yokkaichi City. Aluminum cans are useful to multi-functional work environments that incorporate can-crushing activities into their processes. The collection of aluminum cans helps children with disabilities make connections with other people and society, and become more independent. We plan to continue participating in this activity.

  - Plastic bottle cap collection

  In the Tokyo and Yokkaichi Districts and at JM Energy, JSR Group collects plastic bottle caps that would ordinarily be incinerated as waste and sells them to recycling companies. The funds earned through this activity are then used to provide vaccinations to children around the world.

  

  Plastic bottle cap and aluminum can collection boxes (JSR Yokkaichi Plant)

  - The Table for Two Program

  The JSR Group's Tokyo and Yokkaichi Districts have participated in the TFT program run by the non-profit organization TABLE FOR TWO since February 2010. We have donated approximately 140,000 meals as of the end of March 2019.
  TFT is an approach to share meals with children in developing countries. When an employee purchases a healthy meal designated by TFT, 20 yen per meal is donated to buy a school meal for a child in a developing country. School meals not only satisfy children’s hunger; they also improve school attendance rates and academic records, improve children’s physical fitness and strengthen disease prevention. Results such as formation of a community of schools and parents are expected, and school meals play an important role in solving poverty.
  In Yokkaichi City, activities (CUP FOR TWO) that utilize beverage vending machines are ongoing.

• 2) Health and Medicine

  - JSR donations to help resolve global health issues

  We make donations to medical care support programs such as the Japan branch of the Médecins Sans Frontières NGO to provide treatment for HIV/AIDS and infectious diseases such as cholera and malaria.

• 3) Academic and Research Programs

  - Participation in the Human Resources Fostering Program in Chemistry

  The Human Resources Fostering Program in Chemistry was created by the Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) in October 2010. It is based on a proposal made in a report prepared in April of the same year by the "Kagaku Bijon Kenkyukai" (chemistry vision study group) of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The program informs universities of the chemical industry's human resources needs. Then industry supports the university courses that can meet these needs and their students. Its purpose is to develop the young people who will serve as the foundation for stronger international competitiveness and industrial promotion in Japan's chemical industry. We use the program to support courses engaged in outstanding initiatives and their students.

  - Supporting young researchers through sponsorship of a mini-series

  We support young researchers by sponsoring the TBS TV/CBS TV mini-series "Mirai no Kigen (Origin for the Future)."

• 4) Education and Social Education

  JSR Group provides support for young-generation development and education opportunities through our continued efforts to provide education and internship opportunities to students both in Japan and abroad. We also provide career experience opportunities.

  - Science education for elementary school students

  On August 3, JSR exhibited in the “7th Yokkaichi Children’s Science Seminar” organized by the Yokkaichi Board of Education. The objective was to raise children’s interest in science through experiments. At JSR’s booth, approximately 120 children participated in a synthetic rubber coagulation experiment.
  In October 2018, JSR held a visiting lecture for 86 students at Utsubehigashi Elementary School in which they learned about global warming through the Yokkaichi Kids’ CO2 Diet Challenge.

  

  Yokkaichi Children’s Science Seminar

  - JSR Kashima Plant - Classes for local junior high school students

  In November 2018, employees from JSR Kashima Plant visited Kamisu Third Junior High School and held a class for 129 second-year students.
  Class contents consisted of three experiments—“Rubber manufacturing experience using a coagulant”, “Bouncing ball and non-bouncing ball” and “Unbreakable plastic”. The peculiarities of the materials and their relationship with molecules were explained in an easily understandable manner.

  

  Visiting lecture by employees from Kashima Plant

  - Participation in a program for training skilled workers to lead local industry

  The Yokkaichi Plant accepted 12 students from a nearby high school for a workplace experience program. The participants learned about work and safety in the plant through a plant tour and practical activities in a miniature plant.

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    Safety training

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    Practice operation in the miniature plant

  - Employee presentations at Nihon University

  As part of our efforts to promote collaboration between industry and academia^*, every year, the Chiba Plant holds presentations at the Nihon University College of Industrial Technology. On September 27, 2018, it presented a course titled "The Properties and Manufacturing Processes of Rubber and Quality Assurance" that attracted approximately 50 students.

  * Ichihara City's program to strengthen collaboration between industry and academia

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  - Support of “Summer School for Junior High and High School Girls: Encounters with Science, Technology and People”

  JSR supports “Summer School for Junior High and High School Girls” run by the non-profit organization GSTEM-CPP.

  Summer School for Junior High and High School Girls: A program in which junior high and high school girls are exposed to science and technology, which is connects them to women who are active in the world of science and technology, and also encourages them to think about the future with friends and seniors who are also interested in science and technology. The objective is for these girls, through exchanges with scientific researchers and engineers, university and graduate school students, etc., to learn about the merits of choosing a path in science, or to re-realize these merits and strengthen their determination in moving forward along the science path. After the program, participating junior high and high school girls will be given support in selecting their future path and in deepening their ideas on career development.

  • Junior high and high school girls  Summer School (Japanese only)

  - Creation of educational opportunities  Participation in book bag donations in Yokkaichi

  Since 2014, the Yokkaichi Plant, with cooperation from JSR Group and JSR Labor Union, has participated in the "Memory Book Bag (Randoseru) for Children in Afghanistan" event held by JOICFP, an NGO engaged in international cooperation. Through the event, we donate unused school bags to underprivileged children in Afghanistan to assist their education. The event's aim is to help give children the knowledge and information they need to keep themselves and their families healthy by attending school and learning to read and write. In FY2018, we again donated book bags as well as pencils, notebooks, and other stationery. We will remain involved with the event, viewing it as a social contribution activity in which individual employees can participate.

  • JOICFP (external site)

• (5) Culture and Art

  - Support for the non-profit organization Supporting Organization for Artists of Tohoku (SOAT)

  JSR supports the activities of the non-profit organization SOAT.
  SOAT carries out support activities for victims in the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 by creating motivation in life through an art workshop. As part of these activities, SOAT and women who suffered damages create wine bags, and sell them at JSR Trading’s Wine Sale event. The wine bags are made out of leftover curtain cloth provided by Actus Co., Ltd., an interior goods store, and bottom liners provided by Techno-UMG Co., Ltd., and are sustainable. All profits go back to the victims.

  

  A fabricated wine bags

  • NPO Supporting Organization for Artists of Tohoku (external site)

• 6) Environmental activities

  JSR Group continues to help with local clean-up activities of roads, coastlines, and rivers at domestic and overseas offices and plants.

  - Beach clean-up activities

  Following last year, JSR BST Elastomer (Thailand) again participated in the International Coastal Cleanup event organized by the Ocean Conservancy NPO based in the US. In 2018, 117 employees and their families helped clean Mae Ram Phueng Beach and Namrin Payung Beach in cooperation with other companies located in the same industrial park, other local businesses, educational institutions, and community volunteers.

  

  International clean-up activity (JSR BST Elastomer)

  This event is held on the third Saturday in September all around the world to clean beaches, lakes, seas, and rivers in various countries. The participation of nearly 500,000 people in 91 different countries makes this one of the largest marine conservation projects in the world.

  JSR Micro (U.S.) carried out beach clean-up activities on April 22, 2018.

  JSR's Yokkaichi Plant participates in coastal cleanup activities on Toshijima, an island in Toba City, Mie Prefecture. Companies and organizations that are members of the Mie Prefecture Industrial Waste Solutions Promotion Committee and environmental administration of Mie Prefecture participate. JSR's Yokkaichi Plant serves as an executive member company of the committee.

  - Mountain clean-up activities

  On November 25, JSR Micro Korea implemented nature protection activities at Sangdang Mountain Fortress, in which participants cleaned up the mountain while hiking.

  

  Mountain clean-up activity (JSR Micro Korea)

• 7) Community activities, preservation of historic sites and traditional culture

  - JSR Harmony Festa

  JSR Harmony Festa is held in the Yokkaichi District every year to bring JSR Group and their families together with residents in the local area. Having become a local custom, the event was attended by some 1,700 people in FY2018. Many fun and interesting activities were featured, including various sports and games, soccer lessons, and workshops. On the stage, dance and other performances were presented by neighboring schools and welfare facilities. This time, the non-profit organization COM-FRIENDS, whose objective is to support the independence of disabled persons by providing them with a place to work, also participated in the JSR Harmony Festa by setting up a shop with food and drinks.
  The JSR Harmony Festa is an excellent opportunity for the JSR Group and neighboring residents to build a favorable relationship.

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    Break the decorative paper ball and catch a fluttering number

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    First-time participant! COM-FRIENDS’ kitchen car

  - Donations to the Otsukado Performing Arts Preservation Society

  The Otsukado Performing Arts Preservation Society in Joso City, Ibaraki Prefecture is committed to preserving the old tradition of Tsunabi, which dates back to the Edo Period. Tsunabi is a traditional play that combines puppets and fireworks. The play is enacted with wooden dolls wrapped in fireworks that hang from a string. This play is performed for the public every year at the Grand Festival at Hitokotonushi Shrine in Otsukado. Elastimix donates to this preservation society to help keep this tradition alive.

• 8) Assistance to disaster-stricken areas

  - Support for the 2018 Japan floods

  JSR donated relief money towards the rescue of people and restoration of afflicted areas that suffered damages in western Japan in July 2018. We are praying for the victims to be able to return to their peaceful lives as quickly as possible.

  - Holding of a "Tohoku reconstruction support market"

  On February 13, 2019, we held a "Tohoku reconstruction support market and wine sale with JSR Trading" at JSR's Head Office for the second year in a row. Held as a joint CSR program by JSR and JSR Trading Co., Ltd., a member of JSR Group, this collaborative undertaking featured sales of specialty products from three Tohoku prefecture that were stricken by the Great East Japan Earthquake (Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima) and tasting and sales of wines imported by JSR Trading. Eight businesses from the three Tohoku prefectures set up sales stands. Many people from both inside and outside the company visited and enjoyed purchasing products while talking to the stand operators. Approximately seven years after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the affected areas continue to move from the reconstruction phase to the business promotion phase. Nonetheless, around 52,000 people^* continue to live a refuge life, and thus the road to recovery has only just begun. In addition to making a contribution to society through our business activities, we will continue to actively meet society's requirements and resolve social issues as a responsible member of society.

  

  * Number of evacuees: Announced by the Reconstruction Agency on February 27, 2019).
  Cooperation: Office for disaster victim support coordination, Reconstruction Agency, FY2018, and Mitsubishi Research Institute, Inc.

• 9) Employee volunteer activity support

  JSR actively supports employees voluntarily participating in social contribution activities. Employees can take up to five days of paid leave per year as a part of our paid volunteer leave system. This allows employees to participate in social contribution activities that occur during working hours.

  • ESG Data (PDF1,673KB)