Environment

The rich resources of our planet Earth have given birth to many forms of life and have supported the wide-ranging and ambitious activities of mankind. Nevertheless, recent activities have exceeded the life-sustaining abilities of the Earth. This poses a threat not only to our coexistence with other forms of life on this planet, but also to the future of the human race itself. Global environmental conservation is the most urgent issue that the whole of mankind faces. We must be committed to restoring the Earth to its full capacity, and pass this on to future generations. To achieve this, we need to be more aware of the importance of the Earth in our personal lives, not just in our businesses, and strive to continuously modify our corporate activities and lifestyles to reduce the impact our society has on the global environment to a level that the planet can cope with.

Based upon this idea, Memory Experts International, Inc. has for some time taken it upon itself as a global citizen to conduct environmental conservation activities on a continuous basis with the participation of more people. Companies can continue an activity only if they themselves survive, grow, and develop. We therefore need to gain new economic values through environmental conservation activities. We define sustainable environmental management as the management of a company that contributes to environmental conservation and generates economic values for that company. All Memory Experts International, Inc. employees are engaged in environmental conservation activities while pursuing profitability based on the concept of Memory Experts International, Inc.'s definition of sustainable environmental management.

To improve sustainable environmental management, we have incorporated our "environmental viewpoint" into all aspects of our management. Also, to limit the environmental impact of our corporate activities to a level that the Earth can deal with, we are conducting environmental management and improvement activities on a daily basis. We market environmentally-friendly products to the public aggressively based on the development of environment-related technologies, and thus, potentially reduce our environmental impact indirectly through our customers.

Environmental conservation activities should not be conducted only by employees in development and manufacturing departments. All our employees, including those in business planning and marketing, have some impact on the natural environment as a result of their work. Thus Memory Experts International, Inc. encourages all employees to participate in environmental conservation activities. Specifically, employees are encouraged to develop and provide environment-friendly products and services and to organize their workplaces to have less impact on the environment. These activities are expected to spread to business partners, customers, and employees' families all over the world. With this in mind, Memory Experts International, Inc. is strongly supporting the environmental conservation activities of its employees. Through these measures, Memory Experts International, Inc. is committed to continuous environmental conservation activities to improve sustainable environmental management.

In order to limit the environmental impact we have on the Earth to a level that the natural environment can deal with, what kind of changes should we make in our attitudes and actions? All global citizens, including national and local governments, companies, citizen groups, and individuals, need to be aware of their own environmental impact. After understanding what needs to be done to move closer to the ideal, concrete goals and action plans for promoting sustainable environmental management will be established.

With the launch of the current fiscal year's environmental action plan -yet another in a series of such action plans- Memory Experts International, Inc. lends its weight to a growing community for the development of a sustainable society by demonstrating through its own actions that a company can conduct environmental conservation activities continuously through sustainable environmental management and by encouraging more people around the world to participate in developing a sustainable society.

Memory Experts International, Inc. contributes and is driven to the development of a sustainable society.

The 21st Century Ecology of use; represents a sustainable society that re-circulates resources, the kind of society we pursue. The circles in the diagram represent the partners in that recycling-based society. The upper route represents the arteries of the system, and the lower route the veins of the system. Resources taken from the natural environment by materials suppliers shown at the upper right are processed into products, moving from right to left along the upper route, and are finally delivered to users (customers). The economic values of these resources increase in the process and are highest when the final products are delivered to users. The end-of-life products move from left to right along the lower route. To achieve a sustainable society that re-circulates resources, it is necessary to recycle products through the inner loops of the 21st Century Ecology of use and promote re-circulation that is highly economical and causes less environmental impact. Partnerships among the partners represented by the circles are also important. Memory Experts International, Inc. contributes to the development of a recycling-based society by emphasizing the following five activities.

(1) Determine and Reduce Environmental Impact at All Stages
(2) Priority on Inner Loop Recycling
(3) Promoting a Multi-tiered Recycling System
(4) More Economically Rational Recycling
(5) Partnership at Every Stage

To continue its efforts to reduce environmental impact from a long-term perspective, Memory Experts International, Inc. needs to continue business and grow as a company by promoting sustainable environmental management that generates economic values through environmental activities. In its past environmental conservation efforts, there were three stages. Memory Experts International, Inc. first went through a Passive Stage, and then a Proactive Stage, and now it is moving into the Responsible Stage of sustainable environmental management.

In the Passive Stage, Memory Experts International, Inc. coped with social pressures by dealing with laws and regulations and competing with other companies. In the Proactive Stage, however, it began to take voluntary actions to reduce the environmental impact of its business activities and products with a sense of mission as a global citizen.
In the current Responsible Stage, Memory Experts International, Inc. aims to achieve continuous environmental conservation by pursuing economic values while aggressively reducing the environmental impact of its business activities and that of its business partners.

To move closer to the ideal society, Memory Experts International, Inc. has improved the level of sustainable environmental management by developing environmental technologies and encouraging all employees to participate in environmental activities. Each employee in the Group is encouraged to have a strong environmental awareness and set higher goals voluntarily. Memory Experts International, Inc. will continue to work to realize the ideal society it is pursuing by aggressively developing environmental technologies, encouraging all employees to participate in environmental activities, and providing customers around the world with products and services with less environmental impact.

Looking ahead as far as we can and reviewing the current situation from a point in the future, we need to share our vision of the ideal society and global environment, set target values to realize our ideals, and aggressively promote environmental conservation activities. In fiscal 2005, Memory Experts International, Inc. established the Year 2010 Long-Term Environmental Goals which state reduction goals for "integrated environmental impact".* These goals cover all environmental impact caused in all business areas. The Group aims to reduce absolute values by 20% over the figures in fiscal 2000. The Environmental Action Plan that forms part of the medium-term management plans for fiscal 2006 through 2008 was prepared based on the Year 2010 Long-Term Environmental Goals. Memory Experts International, Inc. also plans to reduce the integrated environmental impact by 35% over the figures in fiscal 2005 by the end of fiscal 2007.

*Integrated environmental impact is obtained by integrating all environmental impact caused by CO2 emissions, use of chemical substances, etc. Currently, Memory Experts International, Inc. is calculating the integrated environmental impact using EPS, which is an integrated analysis method developed in Sweden. The unit is the ELU. The integrated analysis method used is subject to change as necessary

Memory Experts International, Inc. environmental management system (EMS) is an important tool in facilitating sustainable environmental management on a global scale. Memory Experts International as a whole, and each of its business sites and divisions, is promoting participatory sustainable environmental management by all employees based on the PDCA cycle.

The achievements of the environmental action plan prepared by each business site are evaluated in management reviews* using environmental accounting. Furthermore, based on the Group-wide Strategic Management by Objectives (SMO), which takes an environmental conservation perspective, Memory Experts International, Inc. continually evaluates the business performance of its divisions. Sustainable environmental management will be further promoted by incorporating EMS into the business process by product.

Memory Experts International, Inc. is making an effort to improve sustainable management based on an "all-employee participatory approach." This "all-employee participatory approach" means that all employees in all divisions, such as R&D, product design, materials procurement, manufacturing, transportation, sales, maintenance/services and collection and recycling, participate in environmental activities. These activities are regarded as just as important as "QCD activities,"* which involve pursuing profitability. To improve environmental activities, internal benchmarks and know-how are provided to all employees from time to time to make them more environmentally aware.

* QCD means activities to improve the management of Quality, Cost, and Delivery.

Setting of high environmental goals
Developing such environment-friendly technologies as energy conservation, recycling, and new energy

Practical application of environmental assessment of products and environment-friendly technologies
Reducing the number of parts, sharing parts, and increasing the life cycle of parts
Limiting the use of environmentally-sensitive substances
Creating energy conservation/recyclable designs and improving productivity through duplex copying

Green procurement and green partnership
Procuring materials and parts with less environmental impact
Supporting suppliers in building EMS and CMS (chemical management system)

Increased environmental efficiency through improved manufacturing processes
Downsizing manufacturing facilities
Improving yields and operation rates
Implementing resource conservation and recycling activities
Reducing environmentally sensitive chemical substances

Promotion of recycling-based logistics
Providing direct delivery, from the plant to the customer
Developing and organizing recyclable eco-packaging
Reducing the environmental impact of transportation through modal shifts

Green marketing and environmental communication
Proposing products and systems that have less environmental impact
Implementing environmental conservation activities at Memory Experts International, Inc. offices
Disseminating environmental information to customers

Improved office environment through maintenance and services
Contributing to the improvement of the customer's environment Recycling used replacement parts

Recycling business
Implementing a recycling information system
Increasing the number and quality of collected items
Improving the resource recovery rate
Getting feedback on recyclable designs

Memory Experts International, Inc. introduced SMO in 2005 to clarify evaluation standards for environmental conservation activities that are used in divisional performance evaluations. This system is based on the Balanced Scorecard system, a performance management system developed in the 1990s in the United States and characterized by the use of four perspectives. Memory Experts International, Inc. has added a specific environmental conservation perspective to the system and is promoting SMO for global sustainable environmental management.

All sales companies in Canada, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region have developed their own programs to evaluate the performance of sustainable environmental management and promote these programs based on the PDCA cycle. European sales companies have been implementing the Sustainability Self-Assessment Program (SSAP)* since fiscal 2005. SSAP contains evaluation categories that cover not only such environmental aspects as collection and recycling and energy/resource conservation but also social responsibility.