The President Discusses the Ajinomoto Group's CSR

Looking forward to another century of contributing to society with confidence and pride

Norio Yamaguchi
President and CEO Ajinomoto Co., Inc.

It has been nearly a century since the discovery that the essence of the umami taste was glutamic acid. Today, we have scientific proof that glutamic acid has value beyond being the source of umami: we know that it plays a very important role in human nutritional physiology. Everyone at the Ajinomoto Group is looking forward to continuing to contribute to a better life for people everywhere-offering not only better food, but also better health. As we succeed in this effort, we will further demonstrate the social value of the Ajinomoto Group-a team of hardworking people that started with the great taste of umami and built it into a global business enterprise.

We believe that enjoying great-tasting, nutritious food is the key to health, and all of our businesses aim to make this possible for people. This quest is in itself the corporate social responsibility of the Ajinomoto Group, and our highest form of social contribution.

It makes more sense to me to talk about corporate social contributions, not just social responsibilities. After all, the least a company should do is fulfill its basic CSR. CSR should be seen in a broader sense-as a duty to make truly new contributions.
Undertaking special initiatives is, of course, a good thing, but the ideal we are pursuing at Ajinomoto is for our business activities to be social contributions in and of themselves.

Every product has its origin in the technology used to manufacture it. Ajinomoto leverages the power of technological innovation to address society's concerns about the environment and agricultural practices.

At Ajinomoto, our core definition of CSR is contributing to great taste and better health by offering the world outstanding products. We take, however, a broad view of CSR. For instance, we examine the actual manufacturing processes used for our products in terms of social responsibility. It is only when social concern becomes completely integrated with regular business operations that one can really claim to be earnest about CSR. In this sense, technological innovation is the key to progress.
Ajinomoto uses many types of innovative technology. We use special fermentation technology to manufacture amino acids such as glutamic acid from agricultural materials including sugar cane and cassava. It takes special skill to productively utilize raw materials that are not always uniform in quality or composition. Yet another technical skill is using efficient fermentative microbes to manufacture larger volumes of amino acids from the same amount of raw material, thus increasing production efficiency. Then, if we were to discard what remains after the manufacturing process, those by-products or effluents would just become waste. Ajinomoto, however, uses technology to extract the good nutrients from these resources and turns them into fertilizer. We have cutting-edge technologies that enable us to realize zero emission of waste in many cases, or to release wastewater in the cleanest state.
In fact, Ajinomoto employs a circular production process-using agricultural products and then returning the by-products to the soil as fertilizer-to create products that bring real benefits to people around the world. This is truly a virtuous cycle for Ajinomoto: the more products we make, the greater our contribution to agricultural development, local economies, and the natural environment.

Technology is also a critical part of the solution to environmental issues. Ajinomoto has set challenging goals for itself to spur further technological improvement.

Public concern for the earths environment is at an all time high, and rightly so. The Ajinomoto Group shares this concern, and is taking action under its own globally implemented environmental standard, the 2005-2010 Ajinomoto Group Zero Emissions Plan. The plan commits us to achieving specific targets for reducing environmental impact by 2010, and we are already making progress. CO₂ emissions per unit of production are down, thanks to our efforts to increase the efficiency of production processes. These efficiency gains, however, have not been enough to offset increasing gross production volumes: as we meet the worlds need for more products, gross CO₂ emissions also go up. We are challenging ourselves to develop even more advanced technologies at a level of innovation that can drastically reduce environmental impact. In addition to our shared global targets, we are developing strategic targets for core products, countries, and regions. As we develop technology to minimize environmental impact, we are also intent on rapidly providing superior technologies to developing countries, which tend to be behind in terms of measures to protect the environment.

If the human race is to ensure sustainable food resources, new social attitudes about food are direly needed. Ajinomoto is uniquely positioned to help by communicating the true significance of food.

Recently, plant-derived bioethanol has been in the spotlight. Competition for resources based on the increased use of agricultural materials to produce fuel, rather than food, may drive up the price of food products. The pressure being placed on food resources by growing demand for fuel is a critical issue that all of humanity needs to grapple with seriously. But before we even get to larger systemic issues like this, there is a lot that everyday people in developed countries can do to conserve food resources. In modern-day Japan, for instance, statistics show that a third of food is simply thrown away. Clearly, as a society, we need to change our attitude about the value of food. In order to ensure sustainable food resources, we must learn to use them with a spirit of conservation, which means changing our wasteful habits.
I also believe it is vital that we pass on Japans food culture to the next generation, especially nowadays, when the tradition of home cooking is fading away. Of course, there are limits to what we can do as a single company. But we are determined to do our part. Ajinomoto provides opportunities for people to deepen their understanding of home cooking-the Beginners Cooking School-and has started making TV commercials that go beyond product advertising to suggest healthy lifestyle choices and promote food education and better dietary habits.
The Ajinomoto Group will continue to make the most of every opportunity to help the public understand the real significance of food.

Interactive communication with stakeholders is a priority for Ajinomoto. Diverse opinions help the company to grow.

The Ajinomoto Group places a premium on ensuring that stakeholders understand its business activities. If they have a solid understanding of what we do, their feedback is extremely useful: we can make corrections if there are problems with our judgment or assessment criteria; or if our criteria are sound, we can make choices in line with those criteria. We are not only committed to this process of improvement, but also to applying the results to get better in new ways every day.
Take our product safety initiatives, for example.
When people visit our plants to see our production process for themselves, their confidence in Ajinomoto becomes much higher than it would be if we only told them about the quality control measures and tests we conduct. We are working to welcome more and more visitors to our plants, emphasizing this sort of experiential communication. When our guests taste product samples at our plants or when school-age visitors conduct experiments to extract glutamic acid from konbu (kelp) broth, first-hand experience speaks louder than words.

Daily communication builds interpersonal relationships you can count on, and strengthens organizations.

At the Ajinomoto Group, we have developed tailor-made systems and custom training programs designed to foster an optimal work environment that enables all of our diverse employees to make the most of their individual abilities. Both the organization and the employees are engaged in a reform of the corporate culture and individual attitudes, striving to increase utilization of various employee programs, such as childcare leave and family care leave.
Progress in this area actually depends on the day-in and day-out quality of personal relationships on the job.
Personally, I have enthusiastically participated, both in and outside Japan, in the Luncheon Meetings program that I started immediately after becoming president. These opportunities to communicate directly with young employees have been very valuable.

Ajinomoto encourages employees to improve themselves. We are supporting work styles that suit peoples stage of life and developing globally competitive human resources.

The Ajinomoto Group has articulated three HR Values that encourage employees to improve themselves as professionals, and as people.
As peoples values diversify, so do their work styles and career aspirations. These also change with an individual's stage of life. The Ajinomoto Group is enhancing its development of programs and systems that offer employees choices that fit their individual wishes-and this is helping to make the groups diverse employees more globally competitive. We believe that these steps will also help employees to work with more confidence and make greater contributions as individuals in their neighborhoods, communities, and nations.

We invite you to help us achieve our goals.

I hope that this report is engaging and useful, and I appreciate your taking time to read it. I invite you to walk alongside us as we grow and change: watch what we do, give us your feedback, and help us to realize our vision to build a better world through food and health.

HR Values: Ajinomoto Group Human Resources Principles (Established in 2003)