A Business That Sustainably Coexists
With the Planet

ATSUTOSHI NISHIDA

President and CEO
Toshiba Corporation

• JAPAN: IN THEIR OWN WORDS 2008
  
• J. THOMAS SCHIEFFER
  U.S. Ambassador to Japan
• NAOKI TANAKA
  Center for International Public Policy Studies
• FUJIO MITARAI
  Canon Inc.
• ATSUTOSHI NISHIDA
  Toshiba Corporation
• YASUAKI WAKUI
  Kuraray Co., Ltd.
• SHIRO KONDO
  Ricoh Co., Ltd.
• YUZABURO MOGI
  Kikkoman Corporation
• SATOSHI SEINO
  East Japan Railway Company
• KAZUO TSUKUDA
  Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
• IKUO OGIHARA
  Kyorin Co., Ltd.
• AKIHIRO TERAMACHI
  THK CO., LTD.
• EIZO KOBAYASHI
  ITOCHU Corporation

When Atsutoshi Nishida took over as president and CEO of Toshiba Corporation in 2005, he announced three major policies that would become pillars of Toshiba’s philosophy going forward. “Actually, I wanted to announce at least four or five policies,” he says with a laugh. “But three is so much easier for people to remember.” One of Nishida’s three fundamental policies was to carry out CSR (corporate social responsibility)-oriented management throughout the global Toshiba Group.

Nishida was well aware that CSR would become an essential prerequisite for any 21st-century enterprise. He began to evangelize CSR management by reminding the company’s some 190,000 employees worldwide of Toshiba’s responsibilities to make an active contribution to the betterment of society. To spread his message throughout the company, Nishida coined a phrase: chikyunai-kigyo. Translated as “a corporate citizen of planet Earth,” the term recognizes the fact that Toshiba is engaged in businesses within the context of the planet. He says, “At first, no one in the company understood what I meant by this phrase, but gradually they began to catch on.”

What he meant was two things: First, that the Toshiba Group must actively work for the betterment of the environment throughout all its global operations, and second, that the Group must recognize, respect and value the diversity of the many different societies where it does business around the world.

Nishida recently laid out “Environmental Vision 2050,” the company’s far-sighted commitment to improve the environment by raising the eco-efficiency of its products and business processes, substantially reducing CO₂ emissions and creating greater value for society through improved products and services.

A major element of the initiatives is to efficiently supply energy to a world that constantly demands more.

“We need a ‘best mix’ of stable, efficient sources
of energy that produce progressively
less CO₂ than in the past.”

“Our role is to supply reliable and efficient energy sources to meet the growing demands of the industrialized economies plus new, rapidly expanding economies such as China and India, while making every effort to prevent global warming,” Nishida states. He sees this as both a great challenge and a contradiction, but believes it is possible through constant innovation.

He continues, “We need stable, efficient sources of energy that produce progressively less CO₂ than in the past. That means we need to find a ‘best mix’ of energy supplies that fits our social as well as industrial needs.” Not surprisingly, Toshiba is now well positioned to supply the “best mix” that Nishida imagines. The Group will actively promote enhancement of thermal power efficiency (using coal, oil and gas), global diffusion of nuclear power and the harnessing of renewable or distributed power sources such as fuel cells. The recent acquisition of Westinghouse has surely added to this momentum.

Toshiba now embraces programs that will achieve CO₂ reductions equivalent to 47 million tons per year in FY 2025 compared to FY 2000 levels—almost the same as the amount of CO₂ emitted by all of Greater London today.

Nishida also notes that CO₂ reduction should include the home. While industry is working hard to squeeze more production out of less energy, consumers want more appliances, which means more power consumption. Nishida mentions white LED lamps as technology that could substantially decrease electricity consumption at home and might become a next-generation light source to replace fluorescent lamps or traditional light bulbs in the future.

So Toshiba’s mission is vast, extending from light bulbs to nuclear power plants. “Zero CO₂ emissions is ideal,” Nishida says with that ever-present smile. “It is an ultimate goal; we must keep pushing ourselves to do better.”