Ajinomoto Group CSR Vision
The Ajinomoto Group promotes CSR efforts under its CSR Vision, which depicts the commitment the group should aspire to in pushing CSR activities forward, as well as five paths to realizing specific CSR achievements to be made by 2020.
Ajinomoto Group CSR Vision
CSR achievements by 2020—five paths to realizing the CSR Vision
1) Food
With the global expansion of the Ajinomoto Group's food business, we will have contributed to a reliable and high-quality dietary life for people around the world by promoting the development, proposal, and provision of new products that suit the regional food cultures of the world while also making the most of the special characteristics of Japanese food, as a global company with roots in Japan.
2) Health and pharmaceuticals
We will have created new value and contributed to the lives and health of people worldwide by further improving and expanding our proprietary technologies as a leading company in the field of amino acids.
3) Food resources and the environment
We will have contributed to a sustainable global environment by supporting agriculture, fisheries, and livestock farming, and establishing a recycling-based business model that minimizes the use of exhaustible resources and energy and the production of waste, with the goal of securing safe and sustainable food resources.
4) Human resources development
We will have contributed to the building of better societies by fostering the high-caliber human resources needed around the world, and by ensuring that our employees can make the most of their unique traits and abilities, without regard to characteristics such as nationality, ethnicity, sex, religion, and cultural background.
5) Partnerships and public communications
In line with the Ajinomoto Group Principles, we will have contributed to the building of sound and vibrant societies by proactively disclosing a variety of information about our business activities to all stakeholders, and by forging honest, fair, and open partnerships with them through dialogue undertaken as a sincere corporate citizen.
Comprehensive CSR strategy themes
1) Food
- Ensuring safe food products and building a value chain that can serve as a model for society
- Sharing information with distributors and consumers
- Promoting understanding of umami and disseminating information on the nutritional and physiological functions of glutamate
2) Health and pharmaceuticals
- Promoting better nutrition in developing countries by utilizing the nutritional value of amino acids
- Actively promoting the positive environmental benefits of feed-use amino acids
3) Food resources and the environment
- Cooperating with and supporting the agricultural, livestock and fishery industries for sustainable procurement of raw materials
- Promoting greenhouse gas reduction
- Determining the carbon footprint of the Ajinomoto Group
- Promoting understanding of ecology relating to food culture
4) Human resources development
- Developing and assigning global human resources
- Improving work-life balance for employees
- Sharing the new unified corporate image
5) Partnerships and public communications
- Promoting corporate citizenship activities as “a group of companies that contributes to human health globally”
- Realizing CSR communications
- Evaluating ourselves through society's eyes, and working towards mutual betterment
Implementing CSR
CSR management is part of the basic strategies of 
, the Fiscal 2005 — 2010 Medium- to Long-Term Management Plan of the Ajinomoto Group. To strengthen its CSR management, Ajinomoto Co., Inc. established the CSR Department in April 2005. The CSR Department is in charge of corporate citizenship and human rights awareness, and cooperates closely with relevant departments regarding business ethics, quality assurance, purchasing, and the environment, among other issues.
In reviewing the Fiscal 2008 — 2010 Medium-Term Management Plan, covering the final three years of , feedback obtained during stakeholder dialogues was used in establishing a comprehensive CSR strategy.
Ajinomoto Group Stakeholders
Customers
The customers of the Ajinomoto Group include everyone around the world who uses its products and services. Ajinomoto is building relationships of trust with customers by providing reliable, high-quality products, promptly responding to the voice of the customer in its business activities, and promoting a more active dialogue with customers.
Employees
Ajinomoto strives to increase the value of its workforce by enhancing the work environment, and enabling all employees to reach their full potential and enjoy safe, comfortable workplaces.
Future generations
By striving to achieve the Ajinomoto Group CSR Vision, the group is working to build a sustainable society. In all of these efforts, it seeks to contribute to good Food and Health for future generations.
Local communities
Ajinomoto is working to help realize a better quality of life for local communities through its broad range of corporate citizenship activities, while also striving to improve communication with stakeholders.
Shareholders and investors
Ajinomoto strives to increase its corporate value and to meet the expectations of shareholders and investors. The company discloses information of interest to these parties and takes the concerns of those pursuing socially responsible investment (SRI) into account in its management practices.
Global environment
Ajinomoto carries out its business activities from a global perspective. Its goal is to help move the world closer and closer to true sustainability, by working in harmony with the natural environment and pursuing environmentally friendly technologies.
Business partners
Ajinomoto aims to be a company that grows together with its business partners, through information sharing, fair and open transactions, and strict compliance with all laws and regulations, based on its Basic Purchasing Policy.
Contributions at each stage of the group's business cycle
