I would like to express my deepest condolences to all those who suffered damages from the Great East Japan Earthquake, and my prayers for early recovery.
　The Great East Japan Earthquake that struck on March 11 inflicted irreparable damages to the Pacific coasts of the Tohoku region. The Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant suffered damages from both the earthquake and tsunami, causing a nuclear crisis with high levels of nuclear radiation leaks. As a result, we are facing power shortages, causing serious public concerns particularly during the summer when the air conditioning demands are the highest.
　Amada has implemented power saving measures in addressing this urgent issue, including the securing of our own electricity by NAS battery and private power generation, downsizing of private shows, and work days/ work hour shifts.
　In April 2010, the Amada Group developed the “Amada Group Environmental Declaration”- our policy on environmental initiatives. We reaffirmed our commitment to become a business enterprise that connects with our customers, society, and the world through eco-conscious manufacturing.
　The Amada Group's products are industrial goods, and when looking at the products' life cycle, most of the CO2 is emitted during customer use. As a machine manufacturer, we think it is most important to develop machines with good environmental performance; and in order to do so, we are renovating Amada into sustainable facility/ factory, and we will support customers' green manufacturing by offering our low impact products manufactured in our facilities. We will also contribute to making our customers' manufacturing environment more environmentally sustainable by offering knowhow accumulated within our group. This environmental declaration was established to show Amada's commitment to making social contributions through this ecological process.
　Our “eco” products released in FY2010 were all machines with great environmental performance with energy-saving and resource-saving features. In particular, FOL-AJ, the fiber laser machine, is a revolutionary machine with our own fiber laser oscillator, with which we have made a rapid progress in processing range expansion and energy efficiency. We believe it will successfully reduce CO2 emission of our customers' factories by a large margin.
　The primary purpose of Amada's Environmental Declaration is to exhibit our group's approach to environmental initiatives to the outside world, but another is to clarify the targets, and to improve the environmental awareness of our employees. We will train our employees so that each one of them will change their awareness and behavioral patterns, and with “ecological manufacturing” as our keyword, we will work together to promote environmental activities for the sustainable growth of our society and business.
　As for our biodiversity program, we have started a natural environment research for plants and animals at the Fujinomiya Works. Approximately 700 species of plants have been confirmed inside the premises, including those specified as endangered species by Shizuoka Prefecture. We have started thinning the forest according to schedule in order to realize a biodiversity-rich forest ecosystem. At the Isehara Works, “Four Seasons Path” was created along the headquarters building with a variety of flower trees that attract wild birds and insects, and pleases the eye at every season. It is a place for the employees to come to relax, and to feel close to nature. We are creating forests in urban areas to realize our dream of being an office of the forest.
　And lastly, we hope to fulfill our social responsibilities by helping to build a bright and prosperous future for people around the world by creating and proposing “new manufacturing”, and by responding to the voices of various stakeholders including our customers.