The environmental education Mitsubishi Electric offers in Japan consists of both general and job-specific courses. General environmental education is for all employees, and is conducted for four different career stages: new hires, section managers, management and overseas appointments. Job-specific training is broken up into environmental management, materials, product design, manufacturing and sales divisions. Various innovative approaches are incorporated into each course.

Voice

Instructor's Perspective

Corporate Environmental Sustainability Group
Planning Group Manager
Yoshio Kasuga

The environment is of critical concern to all employees. Preventing global warming, creating a recycling-based society, compliance (with internal rules and government regulations), and expanding the range of environmental products are just a few of the broad spectrum of environmental activities in which development, design, production, management, supply, sales, and other departments are involved. From this perspective, it has become particularly important in recent years for section and group managers, who play key roles in moving Mitsubishi Electric Group operations forward, to understand environmental initiatives.

I've been in the Corporate Environmental Sustainability Group only since April of last year and am still rather new to environment-related work. However, having renewed my awareness of Environmental Vision 2021 and worked on formulation of the 6th Environmental Plan, I understand very clearly the importance of the Group's environmental initiatives. I aim to communicate what I've learned to other employees and work with others in making sure that environmental activities ultimately strengthen our business and contribute to society.

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New Section Manager's Perspective

Public-Use Systems Marketing Division, Planning Department, Planning Section
Takaichi Takemura

In my previous position in the Associated Companies Division, I gained some exposure to the Group's environmental initiatives through negotiations with affiliates. When I was assigned to my current position in October 2008, I underwent environmental training for section managers and renewed my understanding of Environmental Vision 2021 goals.

Environmental initiatives are taking on greater and greater importance regardless of one's particular job or assigned position. I feel very strongly that it is important for individuals to consider the needs of the environment while pursuing their daily activities and for companies to offer products that help to lower environmental impact. Speaking of products in particular, the Public-Use Systems Marketing Division, which I am assigned to, handles a broad range of products that lower environmental impact. Examples include photovoltaic power generation systems for the government and industrial markets, water treatment systems that apply the power of ozone, and building power supply devices that save energy and resources. Looking ahead, I will pay particular attention to not only regulatory compliance, but also helping to lower environmental impact by providing better products to more customers, and, at the same time, increasing our business competitiveness.

New Hire's Perspective

Legal Division, Sales Law Group
Naoko Tsushima

What I learned about various environmental initiatives in new hire training further strengthened both my pride in working at Mitsubishi Electric and my sense of mission. Environmental Vision 2021 in particular makes a clear statement of the importance of environmental activities and reinforces my belief that the environment must be protected.

I learned that Mitsubishi Electric makes so many environmentally beneficial products, ranging from air conditioners and other commonplace items to industrial devices that allow other companies to reduce their CO₂ emissions through using them. I'm very happy that our company's products can contribute to the environment, and I appreciate the importance of manufacturers providing products that have excellent environmental properties.

In the Legal Division, we help all business groups close agreements and deal with matters of regulatory compliance. In the future, I would like to help promote environmental consciousness from ethical and legal perspectives, through classes or other types of legal training, and be even more involved in work focused on the relationship between business and the environment.

I'm also interested in the company's Outdoor Classroom, forest development, and other environmental awareness education activities and will definitely seize on opportunities to participate.

The Mitsubishi Electric Group has been conducting special training for head office Environmental Managers and Environmental Promotion Committee Members since fiscal 2007. The purpose of this training is to help strengthen the role of the Environmental Managers for individual business groups. The training aims to improve the skills of employees expected to function as environmental experts, and goes beyond factory environmental protection activities, to cover environmentally conscious products and services and other matters, in an attempt to support business activities from multiple perspectives.

Several types of training were conducted in fiscal 2009. Of the programs offered, the environmental courses focusing on objectives like providing ISO 14001 information useful to managers and looking at internal audits from a management perspective were taken by regular employees, as well as Environmental Promotion Committee Members. Furthermore, in March 2009, we held briefings on the revisions of the Act on Promotion of Global Warming Countermeasures and the Act on the Rational Use of Energy, where active Q&A sessions helped to deepen everyone's knowledge.

Transferring to younger generations the skills and experience of experts who have spent years managing environmental facilities is critical for maintaining high levels of environmental management. The Mitsubishi Electric Group, therefore, has been training 20 new key environmental personnel every year since fiscal 2005 to take the lead in managing environmental facilities.

This group training is led by employees who are seasoned veterans in the management of pollutants and waste. Up-and-coming employees selected from throughout Japan are chosen to take part and study the basics of environmental law, as well as analytical technologies, danger signals, risk management, environmental audits, and other topics that will be of practical use.

In fiscal 2009, 24 employees passed the key environmental personnel final examination. That brought the total over the past five years to 118 and allowed us to meet our goal of reaching 100 during fiscal 2009. Employees who passed the final examination are now overseeing environmental matters at Mitsubishi Electric works, factories, and affiliates. As an additional benefit of key environmental personnel training, nearby offices are beginning to form groups in which they evaluate each other's environmental protection activities.

Under the 6th Environmental Plan, key environmental personnel will be assigned to each manufacturing site in Japan, and will then conduct enhanced training. As for overseas sites, assignments of key environmental personnel and training are being planned primarily for China and other parts of Asia.

Curriculum of Key Environmental Personnel Training and Abilities Acquired by Trainees

The purview of environmental audits has now expanded far beyond the management of pollutants and waste, and energy efficiency, to cover areas like environmentally conscious product design and green procurement. Environmental auditors, therefore, must have expert knowledge of and practical experience in their specialty field. Auditing is a form of communication, so verbal abilities are a must, along with an objective, impartial orientation. To ensure access to an outstanding core of environmental auditors, the Mitsubishi Electric Group takes steps to develop new auditor candidates and continuously conducts training aimed at improving auditor skills. We also appoint experts to perform audits in areas such as the Mitsubishi Electric Group's environmental accounting, and compliance with new European regulations.

Individual sites train their own internal auditors, and these efforts are supplemented by mutual auditing arrangements in which auditors conduct audits of other sites, visiting auditor training performed by the head office, and Internet-based Mitsubishi Electric Seminars. Training for senior-level auditors is held to help them refine their skills. Auditing procedure manuals and guidelines, casebooks, and other materials have been prepared and are posted on the intranet so they are accessible throughout the Group.

In fiscal 2009, participants in environmental auditor training over the Internet numbered 168 in the lower level and 146 in the middle level. Of these trainees, 163 passed the lower-level final exam and 144 passed the middle-level final.

Fostering environmental awareness is one of the principal features of Environmental Vision 2021. Accordingly we are promoting environmental awareness through Group environmental policies and measures, and by publishing an "Eco News" poster in a bimonthly Japanese version and semi-annual English and Chinese versions to highlight environmental activity innovations and results in various offices. From a different perspective, we are also conducting Mitsubishi Electric Outdoor Classroom and forest cultivation/"Satoyama" woodland preservation activities for employees to participate in.

In Outdoor Classrooms, employees promote conservation education as "nature conservation leaders," who guide local children, and employees and their families, through activities in which they experience the cycle of nature through observation, and are encouraged to view the environment as something precious. In fiscal 2009, 35 employees attended nature conservation leader training, bringing the cumulative total to 68. Moving forward, we plan to train nature conservation leaders at the rate of 50 per year on the way to achieving the goal of 1,000 by 2021. Since their inception in October 2006, Outdoor Classroom activities have been held a total of 27 times in 10 regions, for 700 participants (as of November 2008).

Forest cultivation/Satoyama woodland preservation activities are intended to give employees and their families opportunities to work up a sweat in a natural setting, gain a direct appreciation for the role and importance of the natural environment, and help both the environment and society. In the head office region, activities aimed at cultivating trees in the Fujisanroku area have been going on since fiscal 2004. Furthermore, the "satoyama" concept has been adopted for natural environments close to developed coastal, river, and wooded land or farmland, and individual offices have been working to protect these satoyama areas since fiscal 2007.

Mitsubishi Electric Outdoor Classroom

Observing, through a magnifying glass, marks made in moss from insects eating it

Observing field irrigation channels where creatures make their homes

Forest cultivation/Satoyama woodland preservation

Mt Fuji volunteer (head office)

Woodland preservation (Kobe)