New eyes for industry

CSR Report
Corporate Social Responsibility ReportMessage from the President

Strengthening Our Management System and Addressing
CSR through Our Primary BusinessIn 2009, as part of our work to increase our CSR management eﬃciency, we integrated ourquality (ISO 9001) and environment (ISO 14001) management systems at our head oﬃce
and three Aomori factories. We obtained authentication of the integrated management
system, and have been conducting our business based on linking quality and the environment since then. Our next step is to integrate the management systems of all group factories including Tamron Optical (Foshan) in China into one system by 2010. Globally integrating management systems will enable us to more easily track our CO₂ and waste emission
reductions, which are global tasks imposed on all of us as corporate citizens. In 2009, weestablished a three-year program to reduce CO₂ emissions by 15% compared to 2009 sales
units (index of CO₂ emissions per net sales). We are committed to continuing to reduce CO₂
emissions by introducing measures such as changing lighting systems to LEDs, shortening
development-to-production lead time through quality improvements from the design stage
to procurement, and enhancing production eﬃciency.
In 2009, we also obtained authentication of ISO/TS 16949, which is a quality management
system for the automobile industry. Our company started as a manufacturer of interchangeable lenses for single lens reﬂex (SLR) cameras, but we now produce a wide varietyof optical devices including surveillance camera lenses and vehicle built-in camera lenses as
eyes for industry, contributing to a safe society where people can live with a sense of security. We are committed to contributing to environmental conservation by combining energy
saving and imaging technologies.

Morio Ono
President & CEO
Tamron Co., Ltd.

Social Contribution Expected of Tamron as
Optics Manufacturer
At Tamron, we always consider how we can contribute to society through our primarybusiness operations. One successful example is our contribution to photographic culture.
We launched our Railroad Scenery Photo Contest in 2008 and have already held the contest
twice. In 2009, we received a wealth of photographic work from photographers, exceeding
the 2008 submissions. The fact came as a fresh reminder that many people from children
to adults are interested in and enjoy the world of photography by taking pictures related to
the familiar world of railroads. We also contribute to our community by holding a photography exhibition in Saitama City, which has strong ties with railroad transportation and iswhere our head oﬃce is located. In addition, we continued to hold the Tamron Macro PhotoContest and received a great number of impressive macro shots of nature, plant life,
insects and animals. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity (1). We are expected toplay an important role as a manufacturer of photographic lenses that serve as eyes fordiscovering and emphasizing the importance of biodiversity to people around the world.
We also continued to teach classes at elementary schools in Saitama City, using giant soap
bubbles, to stimulate interest in science and chemistry among school children. In 2008, westarted to use giant bubbles, each large enough to accommodate a child, serving as a tool todeliver the image of a lens and teach the wonder of science and chemistry. We willcontinue to implement these activities in 2010 and beyond to further contribute to society.

Participation in the United Nations Global Compact
In 2007, Tamron joined the Global Compact of the United Nations (2). Since then, we havecontinued to express our support of the ten principles of the Global Compact initiative thatserves as the basic code of conduct for all global companies. Strengthening our consciousness of human rights is particularly important when we deploy our business operations
around the globe. We have therefore included the ten principles in our Codes of Conduct
and have been enriching our organization with internal education following the ten principles. We have also continued to assert the importance of CSR procurement to our business
partners.
In compiling this CSR Report, we focused on communicating with our stakeholders. We
would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions for how we can further improve
our CSR management.

（1）International Year of Biodiversity
The United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity, a year to appreciate thediversity of life on Earth, learn more about the rich tapestry of life around us, discover why a healthy
environment is important and become involved in monitoring and conserving our local wildlife.
（2）The Global Compact of the United Nations is an international initiative of the United Nations, callingon participating companies and organizations to support ten fundamental principles of human rights,
labor, the environment, and anti-corruption.

1

Tamron CSR Report 2010

Tamron's CSR Management
For Enhancing Corporate Value

From the customer
perspective

From the society
perspective

From the employee
perspective

Enhancementof Corporate
Value

All ﬁve perspectives interlink with our environment.

Quality Products/Safety

Employment/Human Resources

The Action Declarations of Tamron●From the customer perspective●From the employee perspective
In order to become self-reliant, each employee at Tamron
works with a spirit of challenging diﬃculties, maintains
good communications with fellow workers for creating a
lively work environment, and strives to yield the best possible results at all times while observing the laws and regulations.
Each and every employee at Tamron respects human rights
to support a good society as a good corporate citizen.

Information Security

Society

Environment
Occupational Safety & Health

Human Rights

Private Information Protection

Relationships with
Employees

Recognizing that customer satisfaction is of the highest
importance, we will contribute to society by supplying safe,
high-quality original products and services.

Social Contribution

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

From the shareholder/investor perspective

Responsibility to Contribute toSocial and Environmental Issues

From the business partner
perspective

We have established twelve themes for being a company
acknowledged by stakeholders. Through addressing these
themes, we are discharging compliance responsibility, economic responsibility, and responsibility to contribute tosocial issues. The themes of compliance, corporate governance, risk management, and information disclosure are
essential for conducting sound business operations while
discharging compliance and economic responsibility. The
remaining themes are environmental conservation, quality,
product safety, occupational safety and health, employment and human resources, human rights, social contribution, information security, and private information protection.

Relationships with
Business Partners

Perspectives from Stakeholders Divided into Five Categories

Relationships with
Customers

Tamron's CSR management is conducted under our basic
corporate philosophy of contributing to the economy, society and environment by supplying customers with quality
products that serve as eyes for industry. Our basic corporate philosophy advocates performing all of our primarybusiness operations based on The Action Declarations,deﬁning the stance the company should take toward stakeholders divided into ﬁve categories, and The Action Codes,
showing how all Tamron employees should act while
dialoguing with our stakeholders.

Twelve Themes for Enhancing
CSR Management

Environment

EconomyInformation Disclosure
Risk Management

Corporate GovernanceCompliance

Economic Responsibility

All of us working at Tamron strive to enhance Tamronʼs
corporate value through faithful management, maintain
good communications with our stakeholders, and work onenhancing stakeholder conﬁdence to be a company worthyof stable investments.

For Protecting
Our Environment●From the shareholders/investor perspective
Twelve Themes for Enhancing CSR Management●From the business partner perspective
All of us working at Tamron observe the laws and regulations, aiming to establish relationships that ensure receiving a supply of quality materials and services from our partners through transparent transactions, working to grow andcontribute to society together with our partners.

Maintaining good communications with local communities,
we will strive to contribute to their growth while upholding
their tradition and culture as a good corporate citizen.
We will observe the laws and regulations, aiming at earning
conﬁdence from society as a good corporate citizen.
We will be up against all social anti-society forces andorganizations that pose threats to the public order andsafety of our civil society.
We will work hard in NGO and NPO projects to establish agood society.

Our CSR Committee meets monthly to closely watch theprogress of activities for pursuing the twelve themes. The
committee is an organization under the direct command of
our president. Representatives from all divisions at thehead oﬃce and factories at home and abroad meet monthly
through videoconferencing.

Tamron CSR Report 2010

Relationships withSociety●From the society perspective

CSR Committee

2Participation in the UN Global Compact
Tamron operates around the world, including a production base in China and subsidiary sales companies in Europe and America. Agreeing to the Global
Compact (GC), the international initiative proposedby the United Nations to support the Ten Principles
related to human rights, labor, environmental protection and preventing corruption, Tamron became asupporter of the initiative in August 2007. The Ten
GC Principles became pillars for establishing our CSR
promotion structure. We will continue to conduct ourbusiness following The Ten Principles, fulﬁlling oursocial responsibility.

For further details on the initiative, please
visit the United Nation website at
WEB http://www.unglobalcompact.org/.

COP Report (Communication on Progress)
The COP program of the Global Compact requires participants to submit Communication on Progress Reports (COP Reports)that describe the actions taken following the Ten Principles. The following table describes actions taken at Tamron during
2009 in line with the Ten Principles.

Human Rights
LabourEnvironment

Actions taken, implementation processes

Principle 1: Business should supportand respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights“As members of society, we at Tamron respect human rights and establish and support
good society” (Good citizens) (Quoted from our Action Declaration: Employeesʼ viewpoint)
We could promote the awareness of the importance of respecting human rights
among our employees by clearly stating it in our policy platform as stated above.

P2

Principle 2: Business should ensure that they
are not complicit in human rights abuses“We at Tamron will always work on maintaining sound working environment andrespecting human rights of all people, and will not conduct any deed that may leadto discrimination.” (Quoted from the Compliance Regulations of our company)

P2,9

Principle 3: Business should uphold thefreedom of association and the effective
recognition of the right to collective bargaining“The labor union of our company shall aim at conducting activities and operations
that are necessary to attain its objectives through solidarity and cooperationof its members.”(Quoted From “Objective” of the labor union bylaw.

̶

Principle 4: Business should support the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour“Our company will comply with labor-related laws and regulations in order tomaintain sound workplaces where employees are comfortable to work.”(Quoted From the Compliance Regulations)

P11

Principle 5: Business should support theeffective abolition of child labour“Our company will not employ persons under full 15 years of age.”(Quoted From the Rules of Employment of our company)̶

Principle 6: Business should support theelimination of discrimination in respectof employment and occupation

Our company advocates equality in employment and sets ourtarget ratios of employment of handicapped persons and female
managers, and we are deploying business operations aimed at
establishing workplaces valuing diversity.

Principle 7: Business should support aprecautionary approach to environmental challenges

In our Company-wide Environment Management Policy, we address the following
four actions as preventive measures against environment contamination:( i ) Reducing CO2 emissions,(ⅱ) Reducing Waste(iii) Alternating and reducing the harmful substances(ⅳ) Conservation of biodiversity.

Labor management negotiation meetings are held regularly between representatives
from the company and the labor union to discuss labor conditions.

̶

Environmental contamination accident : ZeroHarmful chemical substance discharge accident : Zero

Principle 8: Business should undertake
initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility
Principle 9: Business should encourage
the development and diffusion ofenvironmentally friendly technologies

AntiCorruption

3

Relevant
page

Principle

Principle 10: Businesses should work
against corruption in all its forms,
including extortion and bribery

Tamron CSR Report 2010

Our company set the 3rd environmental objectives and targets (for a three-year
period from 2007 through 2009):( i ) Integrated management systems for environment and quality;(ⅱ) Reduction of waste;(iii) Reduction of CO2 emissions;(iv) Promotion of DfE (“Designs for Environment”) (Product development based on the DfE concept);(ⅳ) Adequate administration of chemical substances;(vi) Prevention of environment pollution.

P13〜18We integrated our domestic management systems for grasping environmentalload as a whole and promoting reduction of the load.
Regulations regarding endowments, political contribution and brushing oﬀ
relations with antisocial organizations (Stipulated in the Compliance Regulations)P9

Table of Contents
Relationships with the Environment /Environmental Loads,…… １3

Tamronʼs CSR Management …………………………………………… 2

Environmental Management Structure, Education andParticipation in the UN Global Compact ……………………………３

Environmental Accounting …………………………………………… １4

Table of Contents, Company Outline …………………………………４

Environmental Objectives & Goals Achieved …………………… １5

Relationships with Customers …………………………………………５

Reducing CO2 Emissions & Water Consumption ……………… １7

Relationships with Business Partners ……………………………… 7

Reducing Waste ………………………………………………………… １8

Relationships with Shareholders & Investors ……………………… 9

Relationships with Society …………………………………………… １9Relationships with Employees ……………………………………… １１

Activities at Subsidiary Companies Overseas ………………… 21

Integrated Management System …………………………………… １2

Independent Third Party Assurance Report, Editorsʼ Postscript… 22

Relationships with
Customers

Message from the President …………………………………………… 1

Relationships with
Business Partners

Editorial Policy

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

1. This report is issued to inform our customers, employees, shareholders, investors, business partners, communities and other bodies (local communities, public bodies,NGOs and NPOs being our stakeholders) about Tamronʼs work and progress on environmental conservation and social responsibility.
2. This report covers the whole Tamron group including Tamron Co., Ltd and Tamron Optical (Foshan) Co., Ltd. and subsidiary sales companies overseas (except for some environmental data).
3. The guidelines referred to are the Environmental Report Guidelines (2007 Version),Greenhouse Eﬀect Gas Assessment & Reporting Manual (Ver.
2.4 2009) and Environmental Accounting Guidelines (2005), issued by the Ministry for the Environment.
4. The needs for disclosing information to stakeholders were determined in accordance with GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.
5. We strive to disclose information from the perspective of stakeholders by referring to the warranty processes in AA1000 Warranty Standards.
＊About the front cover design
We tried to express how our company works with lenses to contribute to the earth, the environment and harmony with people.

Company Outline
Employees Consolidated: 5,922(including 450 temporary
employees)
Non-consolidated: 1,489 (including 441 temporary employees)
Total Sales Consolidated: 49,892 billion yen (2009)
Non-consolidated: 45,369 billion yen (2009)
Stock Exchange: 1st Section, Tokyo Stock Exchange
Domestic Factories: Hirosaki, Namioka, Owani
Aﬃliated Companies: The United States, Germany, France,
Hong Kong, China (Shanghai, Foshan)

Summary of Business

Relationships with
Employees

Trade Name: Tamron Co., Ltd.
Head Oﬃce: 1385 Hasunuma, Minuma-ku,
Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture
337-8556 Japan
Tel: +81-48-694-9111
Founded: November 1, 1950
Established: October 27, 1952
Capital Amount: 6.923 billion yen
Representative Director: Morio Ono

Head oﬃce (Saitama)

Net Sales（billionyen）

70

Photographic lenses
59.0%

60

Consolidated

54.6

59.6

Non-consolidated
63.6

57.4

68.2

62.4

58.4

62.5

45.4

49.9

For Protecting
Our Environment

50

Industrial-use
optics15.0%

40
30

Opticalcomponents
26.0%

By-Category Sales
Composition(2009‒
consolidated)20
100Europe (Germany/France)
Asia(Hong Kong, China)

By-area Sales Composition is based on sales tocustomers in Japan and areas where Tamron's
subsidiary companies exist. Sales ﬁgures inoverseas
markets are primarily sales of interchangeable
lensesfor SLR cameras.

Consolidated (temporary employees)

4,000

2008

2009

Non-consolidated (temporary employees)
5,534
（470）

6,143
（572）

5,922
（450）

4,266
（594）

3,000
2,000

Domestic
67.8%

5,542
（518）

6,000
5,000

By-area Sales
Composition

2007

Relationships withSociety

6.1%

North America(United States)

2006

Numbers of Employees（person）

17.3%
8.8%

2005

1,446
（590）

1,386
（511）

1,381
（466）

1,569
（568）

1,489
（441）

1,000
0

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Tamron CSR Report 20104

Relationships with Customers
Tamron is committed to contributing to society by supplying customers with safe, uniqueand quality products and services, putting the highest priority on satisfying customers,
dealers and OEM customers.

Major accomplishments in 2009
・We enhanced the annual average satisfaction
points of dealers and OEM customers by 0.2%.
・We established our VC (Vibration Compensation) technology.
・We obtained TS 16949 certiﬁcation.

Improvement through Effectively
Using Customer Feedback

Tasks for 2010
・Developing high performance products
chosen by customers
・Launching products using recycled materials

Opportunities for Interacting with Customers

We work hard to develop and deliver quality products andservices that meet customer satisfaction, understanding
customer needs from the customer perspective. Tamron
asks users of photographic interchangeable lenses for
feedback through questionnaires included in our productdisplay boxes and in boxes of repaired lenses to understand the customer perspective on our products andrepair services. To shorten repair service periods for interchangeable lenses as requested by many customers, we
worked hard on improving our repair service structure forthe domestic market in order to complete repairs within
three days after receipt at our repair service points. We
met our target by 100% for the second year in a row inthe domestic market.

Tamron provides free maintenance services for Tamron
lenses at PIE (Photo Imaging Expo) every year at Tokyo
Big Site. We also provided services at our booth in 2009
to 460 users, up 20% from 2008. This is an important
opportunity for our repair service technicians to havedirect contact with our customers. We wish to make themost use of the valuable information received in order toimprove our services and develop new products that meetcustomer needs.

Valuing and Understanding
Customer Perspectives
In addition to including questionnaires in display boxes tounderstand the perspective of consumers using our photographic interchangeable lenses sold under our own
brand, we sent questionnaires to all our OEM customers.
We asked about the eight aspects of delivery, price, communications, development power, technical capability,
quality, response to complaints and repair handling capability. We improved our capabilities and services based on
the information gathered. As a result, we enhanced ourcommunications and capability to respond to complaints
as well as our overall capability by 0.2 points. Much still
remains for us to do. In 2010, we will continue to work onenhancing customer satisfaction.
Results of Customer Satisfaction Survey(Annual average points in 2007, 2008 and 2009 ‒ Dealers & OEM customers)

Overall
5

Handling repairs

2007

Delivery

4

2008
2009

3
2
1

Response tocomplaints

Price

0

QualityCommunications

Technical capability

Free maintenanceservices at PIE

For Developing Original High-quality Products
The SP AF17-50 mm F/2.8 XR Di II VC LD Aspherical (IF)(Model B005) launched in September 2009 may look likean improved version of the conventional model A16 (1) witha VC (2) mechanism, but the lens is entirely diﬀerent. It isa fast standard zoom lens newly developed for APS-C-size
DSLR cameras by thoroughly reviewing the optical designof the conventional model to deliver optical quality atleast equal to that of the A16 while incorporating the VC
mechanism. Thanks to the VC mechanism, the fast zoom
lens delivers sharp descriptive performance and stabilized
viewﬁnder images, even in handheld photography. The
zoom lens strikes a balance between high performanceand convenience. Tamron is committed to developing highperformance products that meet customer needs,
continuing work worthy of our reputation for
manufacturing quality interchangeable lenses. The SP
AF17-50 mm F/2.8 zoom lens won the Gold Prize in thethird-party interchangeable lens segment of the 2010
Digital Camera Grand Prix.

Development power

1: Dissatisfied, 2: Slightly dissatisfied, 3: Ordinary, 4: Satisfied to some degree, 5: Satisfied

5

Response tocomplaints Handling repairs

DeliveryPrice

Communications

Development
powerTechnical
capability

Quality

2007

3.6

3.4

4.5

3.9

4.3

3.9

4.2

3.8

3.9

2008

3.7

3.3

3.8

3.8

3.8

3.6

3.5

3.4

3.6

2009

4.0

3.3

4.0

4.0

4.0

3.7

3.7

3.6

3.8

Tamron CSR Report 2010

Overall

B005（1）
The A16 17-50 mm F/2/8 is one of
Tamronʼs fast standard zoom lenses
for DSLR cameras.
（2）
VC stands for Vibration Compensation, a mechanism to compensate
for image blur due to vibrations.

（1）The term core tool is a collective name of documents specifying technicalspeciﬁcations referenced by the ISO/TS 16949 standard. The term covers
speciﬁcations related to APQP (Advanced Production Quality Planning), PPAP
(Production Part Approval Planning), EMEA (Failure Mode Evaluation Analysis),
MSA (Measuring System Analysis) and SPC (Statistical Process Control)
technologies.

●Eﬀorts to Introduce Recycled Materials
Our engineers are working on using parts made from recycled plastic materials.
Interview with an engineer in charge of introducing recycled materials

interview

Satoshi Todani

Manager, Design ＆ Engineering Dept. #1,
Imaging Products Business UnitAt Tamron, we are developing products with the slogan of
DfE (Designs for Environment) under the leadership of theresource saving design promotion sub-committee ofcomposed of member s f r om the desi g n di v i si ons ofrespective business units. One major approach of the
sub-committee is promoting parts made from recycledplastic materials. In 2009, we used a photographic
interchangeable lens as a model case and used plastic
materials with recycled materials content ratios of 20 to
30% in injection-molding (2) plastic parts for the lens model.
We are repeating the evaluation processes to conﬁrm that
actual use is free of performance and quality problems. We
are also studying the possibility of using 100% recycledmaterials for rear caps for lenses. We will continue to workon introducing components made from recycled materials inclose cooperation with Hirosaki and Owani Factories inorder to promote DfE designs.

For Protecting
Our Environment

As a lens maker aspiring to contribute to society by creating eyes for industry, Tamron is committed to meeting
challenges in new ﬁelds including vehicle-built-in camera
lens units by using the ISO/TS 16949 certiﬁcation while
delivering quality products such as interchangeable
lenses, digital camera lens units and surveillance camera
lenses.

Tamron Eco Label design：
The label symbolizes an eye gently looking at our economy, society
and environment. The eyebrow symbolizes a ﬂowing stream of air
and water, the pupil the earth in green, and the tree in the pupil ourwork for the three Rʼs of reduce, reuse and recycle.

Relationships with
Employees

In August 2009, Tamron obtained ISO/TS 16949 certiﬁcation, an internationally recognized quality management
system for the automotive industry. The TS 16949 certiﬁcation is for the Tamron Optical (Foshan) factory in
China, Hirosaki and Namioka factories in Aomori and theheadquarters in Omiya. ISO/TS 16949 is a certiﬁcation
system that applies only to the supply chain of the automotive industry, a management system designed tosteadily satisfy customer requirements at actual manufacturing sites focused on processes. Compared to theISO 9001 standard, ISO/TS 16949 covers a wider rangeof requirements speciﬁc to the automotive industry, suchas the method called the core tool (1).

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

ISO/TS 16949 Certification●Tamron Eco LabelIn order to continue to develop products with designs forthe environment, Tamron enacted Product Assessment
Regulations. The regulations require each new productbe evaluated based on safety and environment impact
and meet the standards. In 2009, we reviewed all evaluation items used up to 2008 and included new evaluation
items related to using recycled materials. We plan toestablish methods for all the evaluation items including
the new criteria, developing more environmentally-friendly
products meeting social needs. Products satisfying thestandards set for the evaluation items will carry Tamron
Eco Labels.

Relationships with
Business Partners

Tamronʼs factories at home and abroad ﬁll diﬀerent roles.
The three domestic factories in Aomori are positioned as
the mother factories. They are responsible for ﬁnding
problems and solutions at pre-production stages before
establishing new assembly lines abroad, developing newtechnology for processing lens elements as well as engineering plastic parts. Tamron Optical (Foshan) Co., Ltd(TOF), Tamronʼs production base in China, is an integrated production facility that handles all manufacturing
operations ranging from assembling lenses to processing lens elements and injection-molding plastic components. In 2009, TOF also started painting and printing
processes as well as processing metallic parts, resulting
in the capability to handle all operations from processing
parts and elements to assembling them into ﬁnal products. Since manufacturing operations are performed withconsistent quality management, TOF can quickly reﬂect
customer requirements in processes from component
manufacturing to assembling, which is expected toenhance the speed of further improvements.

Tamronʼs DfE (Designs for Environment)
Relationships with
Customers

Enhancing Quality at Factories at Home andOverseas

Relationships withSociety

Rear cap

TS16949 certiﬁcation mark（2）The term injection-molded parts means plastic parts made from metallic molds.

Tamron CSR Report 2010

6

Relationships with Business Partners
Tamron respects human rights, ensures compliance with laws and regulations, andestablishes good relationships with business partners to grow and contribute to society
together.

Major accomplishments in 2009

Tasks for 2010

・We continued to work on CSR procurement,
addressing chemical substance controlling regulations
together with our business partners.

For Establishing Good Relationships with
Business Partners

CSR Procurement

As time goes on, criteria change for selecting business
partners and evaluating their capability to satisfy our
requirements. D (Delivery), Q (Quality) and C (Cost) were
the three basic requirements in the past, but environment
requirements are now just as important. To meet thedemands of our times, Tamron promptly started to work on
strengthening the management of harmful chemical
substances in products, requested the assistance ofbusiness partners to create an environment where joint
eﬀorts are made to that end and introduced green
procurement as well as the Tamron Eco Partner
Accreditation System. In 2008, Tamron called on business
partners to jointly pursue green procurement, establishedand distributed Tamron Supplier Codes of Conduct
covering aspects including labor safety, sanitation,
environment protection, administration systems and ethicalmanagement in addition to promoting environment quality
assurance systems, requesting the cooperation of all
business partners.
We regretfully found in 2009 that our conventional systemfor procuring materials and components was insuﬃcient to
respond to some customer requirements. We therefore
reviewed our criteria for selecting business partners andincluded additional requirements in our CSR procurement
system, carrying out repartition, review and re-selection ofbusiness partners. In 2009, we also started addressing
the REACH initiative together with our business partners.

Procedures to Select Suppliers

7

Tamron CSR Report 2010NG

Periodical evaluation

Product quality, environment quality andprocess audits, documentary examination

Implementation of CSR management by business partners
following the Tamron Supplier Codes of Conduct

We discovered that more than 90% of our business
partners were willing to work with us, attaching importanceto CSR management and incorporating the necessity of
paying attention to the environment, human rights andmore in their own internal regulations and policies asadvocated in our Codes of Conduct. We also discoveredthat while quality assurance, environment protection, labor
safety and sanitation were themes they had been working
on for many years, themes such as information
management, proper disclosure and social contributions
were regarded as themes to be pursued anew. We
therefore wish to educate our own procurement personnel
to ﬁrst clearly understand the actual conditions at ourbusiness partners so they may pursue approaches inclearly understandable terms, working together with us. We
are committed to maintaining suﬃcient communication towork on CSR procurement with our business partners.

Interview with Business Partnerinterview

President,
FOSHAN HUAGUO OPITCAL CO.,LTD.

Submission of reports by candidate business partners
describing results of voluntary evaluation ofwork to follow the Tamron Supplier Codes of Conduct

Appointment as selected business partners

In 2009, we administered a questionnaire survey on CSR,
sending questionnaires to all business partners as we didin 2008, and received voluntary evaluation reports from236 business partners at home and abroad. The reports
showed us our partnersʼ CSR recognition and their CSR
promotion work.

Mr. CHOU，LIANG−CHEN

Request suppliers follow Tamron Supplier Codes ofConduct covering aspects including labor safety,
sanitation, environment protection, administration
systems and ethical management in addition topromoting environment quality assurance systems

OK・We will continue to work on CSR
procurement, emphasizing the relevant points.
We will pursue suﬃcient information disclosure
as required by the REACH Initiative.

Since the establishment of our company, we have engaged
in business through our management creeds: advocating
human resources development ‒ the ﬁrst and foremost task
and contributing to society through business. Standing out
from the crowd, we introduced XRF (X-ray ﬂuorescent)analysis apparatuses at an early date to inspect and eliminate harmful substances included in raw materials and ﬁnal
products. In 2009, we started to respond to the REACH
Initiative and plan to address environmental requirementsthat are expected to become more demanding. In addition
to paying attention to environmental issues, we work on
educating children. We have built three elementary schools
in villages in mountainous areas of Gangsu and Guangxi
provinces and launched a foundation called the Huaguo
Scholarship to help junior high school students with limited
ﬁnancial resources who excel in their behavior and at theirschoolwork. We will continue to help to educate children inorder to contribute to society.
In the future, we wish to continue to call in the best brains
to command leading-edge technologies while strengthening
corporate governance. We are committed to striving to keep
our company a top-level optical company trusted by society
and all stakeholders.

Compliance with REACH Initiative(1) Percent by weight(2) SVHC means Substances of Very High Concern and includes suspected
endocrine disrupting chemicals. As of March 2010, 29 kinds of substances
are considered to be suspected substances. As many as 1,520 kinds ofchemical substances may be speciﬁed as SVHCs in the future.

Customers, OEM Clients
Information disclosure requests

Information disclosure

TamronDatabase

Chemical substance/
raw material information input

2010

Project was launched and chemical substance investigations
started.
Teams engaged in establishing internal management structuresand deﬁning the ﬂow of processes, ranging from collecting chemical substance data from business partners to reporting to theEuropean agency and information disclosure to customers andconsumers.
Requested business partners cooperate with our REACH-compliance (through brieﬁng sessions)
Compiled internal database.
Continued investigating chemical substances included in our
products.(As a result we conﬁrmed observance of the statutory
limit)
Plans include establishing and reﬁning our internal database andcontinued work to ﬁnd alternative SVHC-free materials.

Efforts to Increase Precision ofChemical Substance Analysis

Since 2003, our company has been closely watching lead,
mercury, cadmium, sexavalent chrome, PBB and PBDE,
which are chemical substances prohibited by the RoHS
initiative of the EU. All pre-production sample products areinspected at the Head Oﬃce with advanced equipment
including ICP-AES (Inductivity Coupled Plasma Atomic
Emission Spectrometry) and GC-MS (Gas Chromatography
Mass Spectrometry), and all procurement part samples andraw materials samples are inspected at our three Aomori
factories and Tamron Optical (Foshan) in China with XRF(X-Ray Fluorescent) analysis apparatuses in order toeliminate any RoHS substances. As for metal and plastic
hybrid materials, we outsourced analysis work up to 2009,
but established our own analysis technology. We are
expanding our own structure to promptly and accurately
analyze at our own facilities, which will contribute toshortening our companywide lead-time from development
to production.

Procurement
Group

Relationships withSocietyBusiness Units

2009

For Protecting
Our Environment

Database Positioning

2008

Relationships with
Employees●Database Formulation and Information Disclosure Flow
In order to promptly respond to customer and consumer
requests for information disclosure, establishing a
suﬃcient database on chemical substances used in our
products was essential. In 2009, our project teams
continued to work on reﬁning our database administeringsystems. In February 2010, we compiled our database andestablished a management system. We will continue towork on improving the database.

Project Teams Main Activities
Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors●Internal Structure
Upon enactment of the REACH Initiative, we recognized
the necessity of obtaining related information and datafrom all business partners in order to discharge thereporting and information disclosure obligations as requiredby the initiative. We launched a group-wide project withparticipating members from the Head Oﬃce, three Aomori
factories, Tamron Optical (Foshan) in China and Tamron
Europe GmbH. Since then, four project teams have beenworking on improving four diﬀerent systems: marketing,designing, procurement and coordination.

●For Supplying Customers with SVHC-free Products
As a result of our 2008 investigation to check harmful
substances used in our products, we found that SVHCs
exceeding 0.1% weight-ton, the criterion requiring oﬃcial
notice to the European Agency, were not in our products
exported to the EU in volumes of over 1 ton. We are notobligated to submit our report to the agency, but we
decided to keep a closer watch on SVHCs despite theresults. We are continuing to work to ﬁnd alternative
chemical substances and drugs so we may quickly act
when even a small amount of SVHCs are found in our
products. In 2009, a paint material used on lens surfaces
was found to contain a very small amount of SVHCs. We
were able to immediately select an alternative paintmaterial. The material test-coated on products is underﬁnal evaluation and is expected to replace the previous
material in 2010.

Relationships with
Business Partners

REACH is an international initiative proposed by theEuropean Chemicals Agency and enacted in 2007 tocontrol harmful chemical substances. REACH stands for
Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction ofChemicals. We must disclose related information tocustomers and consumers while submitting all related data
to the European Agency in case our products contain
SVHC ( 1 ) . Under the initiative, any manufacturers who
produce products containing 0.1 wt%(2) of SVHC amongproducts they manufacture must report when they export
more than 1 ton of such products to Europe annually.
Manufacturers must also disclose all information related tochemical substances used in their products within 45 days
when demanded by any NGO, NPO or consumer.

Relationships with
Customers

For Meeting Stricter Regulations on Harmful Chemical Substances

Part/weight data input

Chemical substanceinvestigation requests

Investigation reports

Business Partners

A scene ofinternal analysis
Tamron CSR Report 20108

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors
We strive to enhance the corporate value of our company by pursuing faithfulmanagement and maintaining communications with our stakeholders including
shareholders and investors.
Major accomplishments in 2009

Tasks for 2010

・Established organizational structure
for internal control
・Implemented risk management

・Enrooting risk management and thorough governance of everyday issues

Corporate Governance

For Thoroughgoing Compliance
The Compliance Committee at Tamron has met monthly
since 2006.

General Meeting of Shareholders
Election/dismissal

Election/dismissal

Board of Auditors
Audit

Coordination

Coordination

Election/dismissal

Accounting Auditor
Audit
Coordination

Board of Directors
CSR Promotion Board

President

CSR Committee

Management Meeting (MAC)

Compliance Committee

Executive Oﬃcers

Internal Audit Board

Respective Departments

Corporate Governance Framework

We at Tamron constantly pursue fair and highly transparent
management.
1.Separation of Management and Executive
Tamron introduced an executive oﬃcer system in January 2005.
Under the new system, directors focus on management decisions,working with strategies on a mid/long-term basis as well as ideas
for evolving new business, while executive oﬃcers ﬂexibly andpromptly superintend and carry out our daily business.
2. Organizational Structure for Internal Control(1)Tamron organized an Internal Audit Board in January 2004 as anorganization under direct supervision by our representative director.
The board audits our business operations based on our internal
audit regulations, independently reporting the state of compliancewith internal regulations to our president. The board also
implements follow-up audits after the initial audit to ascertain that
improvements have been made and ensure compliance with internal
regulations. Tamron also set up a CSR Promotion Oﬃce in January
2007 to put CSR management into practice. The CSR PromotionOﬃce is promoting work in line with our Twelve CSR Themes to put
CSR management into practice, in addition to reﬁning our quality
and environment management systems.
3. Internal Control through Committee Meetings
We regularly report business tasks such as budget changes andcountermeasures in monthly business performance discussion
meeting (MAC meetings) attended by all directors, full-time
corporate auditors and executive oﬃcers. External oﬃcers and a
representative of our Internal Audit Board also attend each meeting
to observe. At each meeting of our CSR Committee, which wasorganized in 2007, aspects related to CSR management are
discussed with an eye toward all divisions concerned, pursuing
uniﬁed business operations, and resolutions adopted are broughtup for discussion at MAC meetings.
(1) Organizational structure for internal control: A system to prevent actsof dishonesty by letting internal plural organizations and persons
monitor activities each other9

Tamron CSR Report 2010

●Activities in 2009
1.Workshop on Insider Transactions
In 2009, inviting a lecturer from the Tokyo Stock Exchange,
we held a workshop on insider transactions to better understand the regulations, learning more about transactions
running afoul of the regulations. We wish to hold similarworkshops again to prevent employees from violating insidertransactions regulations.
2.Workshop on Subcontracting Transactions
We also held a workshop to help employees working at
departments related to subcontracting to learn more about
the Subcontracting Law and related transactions.
3.Workshop on Security and Export Trade Control
Ordinance
We held a workshop to help employees working at
departments related to export trade control to learn
more about the Export Trade Control Ordinance.
4.Study Sessions on Compliance Regulations
We held study meetings to help all the members of
our CSR Committee to learn more about and eliminate
ambiguity over our Compliance Regulations.
5.Study Meetings on Compliance-related Laws andRegulations
We held study meetings to help all the members of our CSR
Committee to learn more about the Unfair Competition
Prevention Law as well as other laws related to copyrights,
rights of likeliness and our business.

For Stricter Internal Control
In line with the Corporate Law enforced in May 2005, we
resolved basic policies for strengthening our internal control
systems at a meeting of the board of directors held in thesame month. Since then, we instituted our Corporate
Philosophy, Action Declarations and Codes of Conduct as
prerequisites for all business at Tamron, requiring compliance and continuing to reﬁne our structure.
Based on the Financial Instruments Transaction Law
enacted in April 2008, an internal control reporting system(2) was introduced in Japan. We reported all aspects as
required by the end of December 2009 including the resultsof evaluating the eﬀectiveness of our systems, in accordance with our evaluation plan. We will continue to work on
reviewing our internal control systems, fulﬁlling our social
responsibility for reliable ﬁnancial statements.
(２) The Financial Instruments Transaction Law requires reﬁning corporate
frameworks to secure accuracy in ﬁnancial statements andinformation disclosed as well as creating and reporting internal control
reports evaluating the eﬀectiveness of the frameworks.

The importance of information disclosure (IR) (1) for
securing the soundness of management and transparency has been growing every year. Tamron adequately
discloses information as required on a timely basis,
while paying attention to fairness, in compliance withrelated laws and regulations, participating in seminars
the Tokyo Stock Exchange holds from time to time.
For instance, Tamron holds brieﬁng sessions twice ayear (intermediate stage and term end) for explaining
account settlement results to institutional investors
and security analysts, in addition to individual IR meetings. To eliminate discrepancies between our stakeholders, we also regularly insert explanatory materials
on account settlement and press releases in English
too. We also participate in IR events to explain ourbusiness and management philosophy to as many
individual investors as possible.
In 2009, we participated three times in brieﬁngs theTokyo Stock Exchange held for individual investors,
explaining about our optical technologies including our
new headlight optical systems, far infrared opticalsystems, liaison and representative oﬃces we opened
in Moscow and India, and our work to contribute tosociety and protect the environment. We will continue
to work on improving our IR system.

In January 2008, we assessed all risks in ourbusiness operations and established our risk management policies. Since then, we have been operating ourrisk management framework under the twelve themesof compliance, corporate governance, information
disclosure, labor safety and sanitation, employment,
human resources, human rights, social contribution,
information security, private information protection,
environment and quality assurance. We manage
important risks involved in our business with ourBusiness Continuity Plan (BCP), which was formulated
for ensuring smooth business recovery after natural
disasters such as large-scale earthquakes. Under the
BCP, we will organize a control committee chaired byour representative director to promptly respond toproblems if any emergency arises.

IR Sites http://www.tamron.co.jp/en/investors/top/index.html

At Tamron, recognizing all possible risks that
may aﬀect our business, we are committed to all
possible damage prevention in order to minimize
damage to the economy, our society and ourenvironment. In emergencies, we work tominimize damage and promptly recover by
actingresponsibly,
providingcontinuous
services to our customers for continuing
growth. We aim for safety and ease of mind forall stakeholders including our employees, shareholders, customers and business partners. We
will continue to provide opportunities for learning
about risk management to all employees so thatthey may work on risk management from a CSR
perspective built on properly recognizing theimportance of the policy and their missions.

Relationships withSociety

In 2009, we set zero information divulgence and zerovirus infection as two of our CSR objectives, and took
the following measures for all personal computersused by our employees:(1)Personal identiﬁcation with bio-authentication
devices(2)Encryption of all data on hard discs(3)Introducing anti-virus software and surveillance(4)Collecting mail and external access logs.
We use these countermeasures to prevent illegal
access, information leakage and virus infection, maintaining and improving our information security system.
Under the information security policy introduced, we
provide all directors, executive oﬃcers and employees
including temporary employees with opportunities tolearn more about information security.

Tamronʼs Risk Management Policy

For Protecting
Our Environment

Information Security

Relationships with
Employees

IR Event（Kono Vicepresident）●Training for Emergency Situations
Our risk management policies require immediate countermeasures to prevent damage from increasing
whenever any emergency situation aﬀecting themanagement of our company occurs, in accordancewith our emergency situation handling regulations. We
conduct training drills at our sites addressing possible situations. Since our head oﬃce is located in a
residential area, ensuring smooth evacuation andpreventing ﬁre hazards are essential as part of ourrisk management program. We held a ﬁre and evacuation drill in 2009 for all employees with the assistance of the ﬁre department of Saitama City. Our
employees learned about initial stage ﬁre ﬁghting andusing ﬁre extinguishers. We also held an initial stage
drill for earthquakes, using the governmentʼs preliminary earthquake ﬂash announcement program.

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors(1) IR stands for investor relations and means providing shareholders andinvestors with information such as ﬁnancial standing that is necessary
for investors to make investing decisions.

Relationships with
Business Partners

Risk Management

Relationships with
Customers

Communications with Shareholders and Investors

September 30, 2009
Morio Ono, Representative Director & President(CEO)

Tamron CSR Report 201010

Relationships with Employees
Tamron fosters self-disciplined employees with the spirit of rising to the challenge of creating
new ideas in a climate emphasizing ethics. Tamron strives to create a safe work environment thatencourages work, based on fair evaluations, respect for human rights and mutual understanding.
Major activities in 2009
・Expanded the area to provide amental health diagnosis program to
the Aomori area
・Introduced a new employee trainer
systemMental Health Diagnosis

We continued to provide mental health diagnosis services in order tohelp our employees ﬁnd any indications of possible mental healthdisorders at an early stage for early recovery. Finding that we could
increase the number of employees who needed long-term therapy withthe mental health diagnosis program introduced at our Omiya headoﬃce in 2008, we expanded the area to provide the diagnosis
services to our three Aomori factories in 2009. (The ratio of employees who underwent diagnosis reached 92%.) Employees can havetheir mental health diagnosed without worrying about private information since diagnosis results and other related information are directlysent to employees, not disclosed to the company. We will continue toprovide our employees with opportunities to receive diagnosis in orderto help them ﬁnd any possible indications and receive support fromexperts at an early stage. In addition to our mental health diagnosis
program, we established and introduced a program for supporting
employees undergoing long-term therapy to return to work under theguidance of an industrial physician we contracted with for employees
at our Omiya head oﬃce. We will continue to work on reﬁning our
pre-clinical diagnosis and follow-up care programs.

Direct report to employees

Mental health diagnosis

Feedback ofpre-clinical diagnosis
needed individual
diagnosis
When follow-up
diagnosis by an expert
physician is necessary

Follow-up diagnosis by an expert physician
and direct information feedback
Additional services when requested by theemployee:(1)Online consultation(2)In person consultation (with acounselor or a doctor)(3)Telephone consultation(4)Other services as necessary
such as introducing medical
institutions

Tasks for 2010
・Creating a comfortable work environment by further improving ourmental health diagnosis and humanresources nurturing systems

For Nurturing Human Resources●New Employee Trainer System
Nurturing new employees is a very important task for every company.
At Tamron, we introduced a new program in 2009 to educate trainers
who train new employees to work at their work sites as employees andmembers of society. The system is designed to appoint two senior
employees for each new employee to educate the employee withbasic knowledge on their work, including rules and manners, teach theskills required for now and be available to consult on relevant matterssuch as concerns and problems on and oﬀ site. The system works
well because it is more comfortable for new employees to consult withsenior employees who are closer to them in age than their immediate
superiors, helping them to ﬁnd solutions to their problems andconcerns. The system is also designed to ensure discussion among
trainers, department heads and personnel department members,
sharing the same information on consulting and ﬁnding solutions in
the initial stages before problems become too complicated.
●Commendations
Years ago Tamron instituted commendations to enhance employee
morale, energize organizations and improve productivity, holding
commendation ceremonies on the commemoration day of its
establishment in November at Tamron work sites. In 2009, six
Presidential Awards were given to six groups: one gold prize, one silver
prize, three bronze prizes and one award for eﬀort.
Interview with Presidential Gold Prize Winner Group

interview
Members of a development
team

For Creating a Safe and Comfortable Work
Environment
Tamron works hard to ensure security, maintain and enhance themental and physical health of employees and create a comfortable
work environment. In 2009, recognizing the importance of administering labor hours more strictly, we introduced coordinated lights
out at 21:00, in addition to our already existing two overtime-freework days each week, working to reduce overtime even more.
Based on our Labor Safety & Sanitation Regulations, we organized
a committee for preventing occupational accidents and started
patrolling employee work sites. We reduced the number of occupational accidents from six cases in 2008 to two cases in 2009. We
also reduced the number of accidents during commuting fromseven cases to four cases. Since the number of minor traﬃc
accidents when commuting by bicycle was large in 2008, we heldsafety seminars for employees who commute by bicycle. To be
prepared for the worse-case scenario of a serious accident, we held
seminars including an emergency treatment seminar on cardiopulmonary resuscitation to minimize risks. We set up a
consultation/suggestion oﬃce at our general aﬀairs department as
part of our eﬀorts to create a comfortable work environment. The
contact oﬃce received over 40 suggestions in 2009 for improving
facilities and premises and consultations on human relations andjobs. The oﬃce responded to each case, seeking solutions. We willcontinue to work on creating a safe and comfortable work environment.

11 Tamron CSR Report 2010

(Engineers Kitayama, Sugiyama,Moriya, Kudo and Yoshidafrom left to right)

Receiving the Presidential Gold Prize for developing
the LCU(1) for inspecting lens units for compact
digital cameras is a great honor. We started to work
on LCU development to comply with requests fromour OEM customers and enhance the optical
performance and precision of our own products. The
newly developed LCU is designed to display numerical values for centering errors previously judged byeye, contributing to quality assurance and enhancing production eﬃciency. We are pleased that ourcolleagues at production sites highly evaluate thenew equipment because they can adjust it by the
micrometer, which makes assembling operations
easier.
Being able to pursue technology exchange by
working on development between plural business
units because a valuable asset for all of us. As the
newly development equipment is highly versatile, wewish to communicate the know-how to the relevantbusiness units to apply it to many more lensmodels. We also wish to continue to strive so that
we may develop more new technology that leads toanother presidential award in the future.
(1) LCU stands for Lens Centering Unit, which measures centering
errors in lens elements.

Integrated Management System
Certiﬁcation of Management Integrating QMS and EMS

Triple Audit Systems for Surveillance and Finding

Integrated Management Policies

Problems

Consolidated Management
Representative❷Mutual audit❶Internal audit

Three
Aomorifactories

TamronOptical(Foshan)❶Internal audit❶Internal audit❸ E

xternal audit（President）

Overall Audit Results from External Auditing

Consolidated Administration Manager
Secretarial Oﬃce (CSR Promotion Board)

Omiya Consolidated
Administration
Manager

Aomori Consolidated
Administration Manager(representing consolidated administration
managers of three Aomori factories)

Tamron Optical (Foshan)
Consolidated Administration
Manager

Secretarial Oﬃce
(CSR Promotion
Board)

Secretarial Oﬃce
(Operation Promotion
Section)

Secretarial Oﬃce
(ISO Promotion
Board)

Hirosaki Namioka
Factory Factory

Owani
Factory

Tamron Optical(Foshan)Co., Ltd.

In 2009, we asked an external auditing organization
to audit our Omiya Head Oﬃce and three Aomori
factories where we obtained the certiﬁcation of theintegrated management system. As a result of theaudit, the eﬀectiveness of our administration
processes was rated as the 3rd grade of their valuation method rating achievement levels in ﬁve grades(1-2-3-4-5). The auditor suggested some observationand improvements for some minor shortcomings andcorrective actions are being taken. The points fromthe auditor are also shared by the CSR Committee forraising the level of the activities of our whole group.
Tamron CSR Report 2010

Relationships withSociety(From 2010)

Omiya
Head
Oﬃce

Omiya
Head
Oﬃce

For Protecting
Our Environment

Organizational Structure for Promoting Consolidated Management

Triple Audit System

Relationships with
Employees

December 7, 2009
Morio Ono, President & CEO

We annually audit the implementation of the integrated
management system at the Omiya Head Oﬃce and the three
Aomori factories to check the eﬀectiveness of the system andcontinually improve it, which are our internal quality and environment audits. From the auditing, internal auditors found somenonconformity cases and suggested improvements at theOmiya Head Oﬃce and three Aomori factories. In addition to theinternal audit, the Omiya Head Oﬃce and three Aomori factories
audit each other to check their systems and manufacturing
processes. We periodically audit with contracted external audit
organizations to maintain certiﬁcations while continually improving the integrated management system at Tamron. We study
problems and improvements suggested from these triple audits
and the follow up for further improvements. We introduce
improvements thus made to other sites within our group sothat the same information may be shared for improvements as
a whole group.

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

1.We will supply our customers with high quality andreliable products by using our originality, ingenuity
and technology, pursuing sustainable growth with
proﬁts arising out of delighting and satisfying ourcustomers.
2.In running our business, we will comply with all
related laws, standards and treaties at home andabroad, respecting the requests and demands
postulated by our customers and the local
community.
3.We will work on preventing environmental contamination through reducing CO2, waste emissions
and harmful chemicals while seeking alternatives
and keeping biodiversity intact.
4.We will continue to work on improving theeﬀectiveness of our integrated management
system.
5.To achieve this management policy, we will
speciﬁcally set up our objectives and targets,periodically evaluating our achievement level.
6.To enhance recognizing the importance of ourintegrated management, we will maintain goodcommunications while providing suﬃcient education and training to all people working for Tamron.
7.We will closely cooperate with society in all
countries and regions where we work and disclose
information as necessary on our quality assurance
and environment conservation.

Relationships with
Business Partners

As a member of the optical industry of the world, we
will continue to manufacture products meetingcustomer satisfaction and our goal of being
Tamron ? Contributing to Society by Creating Eyes
for Industry, while paying attention to environmental
conservation.

Quality/Environment Committee

Relationships with
Customers

At Tamron we have been working on reﬁning our Quality Management System (QMS) and Environmental Management System (EMS) since 2000 in accordance with ISO 90001 and ISO 14001 standards. In 2009, we obtained
uniﬁed certiﬁcation applicable to all domestic sites at our Omiya Head Oﬃce, Hirosaki Factory, Namioka Factory andOwani Factory with our management system integrating ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environment). We areworking to obtain certiﬁcation for the whole Tamron group including Tamron Optical (Foshan), our manufacturingbase overseas. We will strive to continue to produce high quality products that are safe and satisfy our customers,
while paying attention to the environment, under the integrated management system.

12

For Protecting Our Environment
We pay attention to protecting the environment in deploying our business
operations, working to be a company pursuing harmony with the environment.

Environmental Loads

We have the Omiya head oﬃce where products are designed,
metal molds are fabricated and prototypes are made. In Japan,
we also operate our Namioka Factory for manufacturing lenselements, Owani Factory for injection-molding plastic components and Hirosaki Factory for assembling ﬁnal products. We
operate Tamron Optical (Foshan) Co., Ltd as a manufacturingbase abroad. The factory in China is an integrated factory
performing all operations ranging from component production tosemi-assembling and assembling of ﬁnal products, which means
the factory has heavy environmental loads.
We use electricity, heavy oil, kerosene and other energy sourcesin the developing, designing and manufacturing stages. Our consumption of energy sources other than kerosene and LPG rose in2009; our CO 2 emissions accordingly grew 1% compared to2008. In processing lens elements, we use water for cleaning
after polishing. We reduced water consumption by 13% compared to 2008.
As for waste, we reduced the total waste volume from the Omiya

head oﬃce and three Aomori factories by 30% compared to2008. Metal waste was reduced by 45% compared to 2008, but
the total waste volume from Tamron Optical (Foshan) rose 42%.
We recognize the importance of reducing industrial waste fromthe factory in China by reducing the defect percentage in mass
production processes.
The contraction of ﬂeet operations following the reduction of thetotal production volume resulted in reduced energy consumption
for transporting products. We reduced CO2 emissions by 25%
compared to 2008. For more information on environmental loads
at our sites, please refer to pages 17 and 18.
Environmental Load Scope Covered: Omiya head oﬃce (including
sales oﬃces in Tokyo and Osaka), three Aomori factories andTamron Optical Foshan (TOF). However, the output data on recycled materials and waste entrusted for intermediate treatment
only cover data from domestic facilities. TOF data are only forreference since the calculation methods are diﬀerent.

INPUT
Water

EnergyElectric power 57,906,788kWh
194kℓ
Crude oil
Kerosene oil
10.3kℓDiesel oil
57.7k
LPG
4,000㎥
Natural gas
92,000㎥
Total
537,000GJ
Paper
Copy paper

20.5t

Manufacturing
raw materials/
parts at suppliers

Clean water
Sewage water
Total

Transportation energy(1)49.8万㎥
13.0万㎥
62.8万㎥

Diesel oil
Gasoline
Total

276.4kℓ
104.9kℓ381.3kℓ

Raw/auxiliary materials（1）The energy consumption data fortransportation cover energy usedby trucks for transporting partsand ﬁnal products and commercial
vehicles connecting ﬁve sales
oﬃces in Japan. The TOF data
covers company cars only.

Metal (brass, aluminum
Glass
Plastic
Chemicals (drugs, solvents, cleaners)Gas (nitrogen, oxygen, argon)
Electrical components
Cardboard

Development, design
and production
at Tamron

Scope of INPUT Items：
Omiya head oﬃce (including Tokyo/Osaka
sales oﬃces), three factories in Aomori,Tamron Optical (Foshan), China (excluding
Tamron Optical (Foshan) as for waste
entrusted for intermediate treatment)

Sites covered: 97.5%(based on the total number of employees)

Transportation between factories
and delivery to stores(logistics/business vehicles)

Customers

OUTPUT
CO2 Emissions
Electric power 29,077t-CO2
Crude oil
525t-CO2
Kerosene oil
26t-CO2
Diesel oil
151t-CO2
LPG
25t-CO2Natural gas
192t-CO2
Total
29,996t-CO2
Waste entrusted for intermediate treatment
598.0tIndustrial waste
165.3tGeneral waste
763.3tTotal（reference）TOF
Industrial waste 171.9t
General waste 789.6t

Recycled
36.5t
69.2t
71.4t
123.8t155.1t22.8t
175.0t7.0t660.8tPaper
Cardboard
Metal
Glass
Plastic
Grinding sludge
Waste fluid
Others
Total
Products
Total

CO2Emissions during Transportation(1)Diesel oil
Gasoline
Total

725.4t-CO2
243.8t-CO2
969.2t-CO2*22,092.0t

Reference Guideline
Greenhouse Eﬀect Gas Calculation/Reporting Manual（Ver. 2.4）issued by The Ministry for the Environment

13 Tamron CSR Report 2010

Tasks for 2010

・Reduced CO2 emissions by enhancing heating eﬃciency at theHirosaki Factory and changing the Namioka Factory s lighting
system from an overall control system to an individual control system.
・Reduced industrial waste emissions by starting torecycle waste oil and solvent at the Namioka Factory.

・Reducing CO2 and industrial
waste emissions at Tamron
Optical (Foshan) in China.

Environment Management Structure

Environmental Accounting

The total investment for environmental protection in 2009 was 7 million
yen while the total environmental expenses reached 244 million yen.
Investment decreased 13% from 2008. We saved 21.86 million yen fromreducing power consumption at the three Aomori factories while generatinga proﬁt of 0.38 million yen by selling valuable resources including metal waste.

Our environmental expenses in 2009 were reduced for all cost items,
except for community activities, compared to 2008. Earth environment
conservation costs decreased by 5.05 million yen from reviewing ouranalysis structure while resource recycling costs declined by 5.5
million yen (20%) compared to 2008. In 2010, we will continue towork on meeting environmental standards by maximizing the use of
these investments and expenses.
(1)IEC 62321 is an international standard for analyzing harmful chemical
substances in products as a uniform method to be employed by all nations.
（unit : thousand yen）

Category

Waste Reduction Sub-committee
Environment Specialty
Committee

Integrated Administration Manager

Each division（Member of Integrated Management
Promotion Committee）

Earth environment
Costwith inconservationPage

For introducing anti-noise,
8,944 anti-vibration measures, water
quality conservation systems

Environmental
conservation
eﬀect

―

Ensuring environmental standards―

invested Expense

3,602

cost

Preventing washout of harmful
For introducing analysis
chemical substances and their
31,484 equipment, energy-saving 21,862
use in products, reducing powermonitoring systems
consumption

business Resource
cyclingarea

0

20,045Sub-total

7,002

60,47322,2460

For enhancing green
23,154
procurement―0

For maintaining/
operating the45,474 environment management
system, educating andexpanding green spaces

cost

Environment Management Education

downstream costs

Management activity cost

R&D cost
Social activity cost
Cost to prevent Environmental damage
Total

For enhancing
0 115,105 environmentally-friendly
designs
740 For cleaning neighboring
0
areas
0
0
7,002 244,946

384

Promoting recycling of generalwaste from business,enhancing recycling ratios ofindustrial waste

P18

P7

Implementing environmental quality
audits at business partners〜8

Achieving environmental
objectives and targets

P14―

Enhancing product performancethrough DfE designs

P6―

Reducing disposed of garbage

P20―

Environment contamination accident free―

Relationships withSociety

In 2009, we held environment education seminars twice. The 1st
seminar was for integrated management promotion committee members
representing sites, and the objective was to promote environment
education to learn about waste sorting, energy saving methods andgreen procurement. The committee members then educated theircolleagues in the same way, leading the implementation of energy
saving and compiling records as required under the integrated
management system. The 2nd seminar was for managerial employees
including section managers, and they learned about the twelve CSR
themes (see page 2) and tasks involved. As knowledge necessaryfor each work site to achieve its environmental targets, they also
learned about global warming and speciﬁc methods to reduce CO2
emissions. The same education was provided for managerial employees
at the three Aomori factories via TV conferencing.

Upstream andFor reducing waste andpromoting recycling

P8,
P17

For Protecting
Our Environment

CSR Procurement Sub-committee

Main work

Economic
eﬀect

Environmental cost

Pollution
3,400
prevention cost

Resource Saving Design/
Production System Study Sub-committee

Quality/Environment Committee

Relationships with
Employees

Internal Quality/Environment Auditor

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

Major investments include 2.94 million yen for providing room dividers
around lens cleaning machines at the Namioka Factory, which wererequired for worker security and preventing harmful chemical
substance washout. We invested 3.4 million yen for installing new
facilities at the Omiya head office, including sound insulating walls
inside the test equipment room. Pre-process apparatuses including
freezing/grinding equipment were introduced to comply with IEC
6231(1), an international standard introducing methods to analyze
chemical substances in products to comply with the RoHS initiative.
The Omiya head office spent 0.66 million yen for those apparatuses.

Organizational Structure for Promoting Environment Management
Integrated Management Representative

Relationships with
Business Partners

At Tamron we have been enhancing product quality while paying attention
to the environmental impact from our oﬃces and factories with ourmanagement system integrating quality assurance and environmental
management. (For more information, please refer to page 12.)
We establish our environmental objectives and targets for the whole
Tamron group, reducing CO2 and industrial waste emissions, promoting
recycling and reducing substances applicable to the PRTR (Pollutant
Release & Transfer Register) program. Under the integrated management
system, the integrated administration manager of each site reports theaccomplishments toward meeting the site s environmental objectives
and targets to the CSR Committee for sharing information on tasks,
accomplishments and countermeasures. For activities requiring crosssectional eﬀorts or new approaches from the environmental protection
perspective, our Environment Specialty Committee leads the way. The
specialized committee consists of sub-committees responsible for
reducing waste, promoting resource saving designs/manufacturing
processes and pursuing CSR procurement, and the related departments
at the Omiya head oﬃce, factories in Japan and China and at subsidiarysales companies abroad act. Integrating management systems into
one enables us to study industrial waste emissions, which is an importanttask for people working at factories but diﬃcult to understand withindependent management systems, both from the overall standpointand from the design stage at the Omiya head oﬃce. System integration
also enables us to pursue cross-sectional approaches such as unifying
procurement methods.

Relationships with
Customers

Major accomplishments in 2009

22,246＊Scope of Environmental Accounting
Period: From January 1 through December 31, 2009
Premises covered: Omiya headquarters (including sales oﬃces in Tokyo and Osaka) and three Aomori factories.
＊Labor costs are calculated based on the average wage.
＊The economic eﬀect in comparison with Earth environment conservation costs is calculated
by comparing power consumption ﬁgures in 2008 and 2009, while the economic eﬀect incomparisonwith resource recycling costs is represented by a gain from metal waste sales.
＊Depreciation allowance is not calculated as an expense.
Tamron CSR Report 201014

Achievement of Phase-3
Environmental Objectives and Targets
In 2009, we worked on achieving the environmental objectives and targets for the last year of ourphase-3 environmental protection program. We achieved most of our objectives and targets. In
2010, we will continue to reduce CO 2 emissions by enhancing our production eﬃciency on a global
basis.
Achievement of Environmental Objectives and Targets for 2009
In 2009, our Omiya head oﬃce, three Aomori factories and Tamron
Optical (Foshan) jointly worked on environmental conservation,
establishing a common target for the Tamron group for reducing
CO 2 emissions. As for other factors, we established domestic
targets. We did not achieve the CO 2 emissions reduction target for
the group. CO 2 emissions from our domestic factories declined, but
the absolute emissions volume from Tamron Optical (Foshan) rose
48%. In order to reduce CO2 emissions from mass-production operations, we will enhance production eﬃciency of the factory in China
by working with designing and manufacturing engineering departments.
We had slight delays in resource saving design targets, but weﬁnished the quality evaluation of recycled materials and started
studying tasks from the mass production engineering perspective. In

2010, we will continue on the project under the lead of our resourcesaving design promotion sub-committee so we can release new
products using recycled materials.
We had no environmental contamination accidents in 2009. As forthe problem of soil contamination found on the premises of the
Omiya head oﬃce in 2003, we had completed necessary countermeasures in 2005. Monitoring in 2009 showed that the underground water quality improved to a level above the legal standard.
We will continue to work on preventing environment contamination
accidents.

Environmental Objectives & Goals Achieved
Environmental Objectives

A: Satisfactory B:Partly Unsatisfactory C:Unsatisfactory
Environmental Targets, Work & Achievement

Selfrating

Environmental Targets

Work & Achievement in 2010

Integrating ISO systems of the Omiya headoﬃce and three Aomori factories

Integrated management systems of the headoﬃce into one system and covered the three
Aomori factories. Worked closely with Tamron
Optical (Foshan) in China on reducing CO2
emissionsandpreventing
environmental
contamination accidents.

A（1）Achieving zero emissions target **Deﬁnition of zero emissions: The volume of waste
eventually sent to simple reclamation disposition
becomes 2% or less of the total volume ofindustrial waste (i.e., recycling ratio of 98% ormore)
Conﬁning the simple reclamation ratio of industrial
waste to 2% or less (i.e., recycling ratio of 98% ormore)

Conﬁning the simple reclamation ratio ofindustrial waste(2) to 2% or less (i.e.,
recycling ratio of 98% or more)

Simple reclamation rate: 0.2%
Recycling rate: 99.8%

A（2）Reducing industrial waste volume in basic unit**Basic unit: industrial waste volume/sales) Industrial wastefrom 3D Techno Center is to be managed based on its total
waste volume in 2007 and not included in the group target
management ﬁgure (to be included from 2008).

Reducing industrial waste emissions(2) by
5% compared to 2006 in speciﬁc productivity units (target management by
including 3D Techno Center)

Reducing CO2 emissions by 3% per speciﬁc
productivity unit, compared to 2007

A（3）Promoting recycling of general waste

Enhancing recycling ratio of general waste(2)(status quo analysis and promoting sorted
disposal)

Sites properly sorted garbage in accordancewith local government ordinances. (Checkedand conﬁrmed through eco-patrolling)(1)A（4）Reducing general waste5

Reducing general waste emissions(2) by
10% compared to 2006

Reduction rate: 42.6%(Omiya head oﬃce: 17.2%(Three Aomori factories: 51.4%)A

3 Promoting measures to reduce CO2

Reducing CO2 emissions(3) by 3% perspeciﬁc productivity unit, compared to2007

Growth rate: 62.1%(5)(Omiya head oﬃce : 20.2% reduction
Three Aomori factories : 22.6% reduction
TOF, China : 88.1% increase)C

4 Promoting DfE- positive sales（1）Steps for resource saving designs taken as planned(a) 100% pass ratio of inspection for longer serviceability(b) For lighter weight (2% reduction in product weight)(c) For more compactness (2% reduction)(d) For easier disassembly (2% reduction)(e) Better methods for utilizing LCA(f) Use of recycled materials in products（2）Complete elimination of harmful substances fromproducts (zero incidence)

1. Steps for resource saving designs taken as planned(1) For longer service life: Repeated parts reliability tests(2) For lighter weight: Reduced weight by 3.0%
(3) For more compactness: Reduced cubage by 7.5%
(4) For easier disassembling: Reduced diﬃculty by 1.6%
(5) LCA (Life cycle assessment) approach: Started(6) studying target products
Use of recycled materials: Started studying use inmass-production products
2. Worked on avoiding use of harmful chemical substances in
products: Zero incidence

B

Reducing ratio of chemical substances(2)used in products by 1% per speciﬁc
productivity unit, compared to 2007

Reduction rate: 11.1%(Omiya head oﬃce: 31.4%)(Three Aomori factories: 11.0%)

A(1) Suppressing contamination of groundwateroutside PRB(4) to a level better than theestablished environmental standard(2) No environmental contamination accidents(3)No environmental contamination accident at
any siteA

１ Integrating environmental

management and quality management
systems into one system, integrating ISO
systems of the Omiya head oﬃce and 3
factories in Aomori into one system

2 Reducing waste, promoting recycling

emissions *Basic unit: CO2
emissions/sales（1）Each implementation item is to be assesse on thebasis of cross-comparison with other products in
product development and design stages.
（2）Target achievement ratios in each year are to be
determined by compiling assessment results at
development and design stages (*Achievement
ratios for items with speciﬁc target ﬁgures are to
be assessed by comparing with other products insimilar speciﬁcations.)

5 Proper management of chemical

substances (PRTR applicable substances）**Basic unit: Volume of chemical substances used/sales

6 Preventing environmental contamination(1) Structure to evaluate if instructions for sorting waste materials as well as setting air-conditioner temperatures within the prescribed range are being complied with (evaluation through bimonthly
investigation by departments representatives )(2) Based on the volume of waste from the Omiya head oﬃce, Tokyo oﬃce and three Aomori factories.
(3) Based on the volume of waste from the Omiya head oﬃce, Tokyo oﬃce, Osaka oﬃce, three Aomori factories and Tamron Optical (Foshan).
(4) PRB facilities of walls and tanks are cleanup walls including neutralizing iron powder(5) CO2 emissions amount: Energy usage amount (GJ) x discharge coeﬃcient Omiya headquarters and branch oﬃces in Tokyo and Osaka: 0.000337
Three Aomori factories: 0.000441 TOF: 0.000555

15 Tamron CSR Report 2010

Objectives and Targets for 2010of the whole group including the factory in China under our integrated management system in order to reduce CO 2 emissions
on a global basis. For domestic operations we plan to appoint
personnel in management as energy management supervisors,
reﬁning our structure for energy saving. We plan to change thelighting system of the Omiya head oﬃce from conventional ﬂuorescent lamps to LED lighting while enhancing productivity andreducing defects at the three Aomori factories. We will continue to reduce waste and cut wasted expenses for power consumption while taking drastic countermeasures.

Relationships with
Customers

2010 is the ﬁrst year of our new three-year program. Reﬂecting upon our accomplishments in pursuing our objectives andtargets so far, we have decided to set more practical objectives and targets for 2010 and beyond. We have decided toreduce the total volume of CO2 emissions for the whole
Tamron group by 15% from the 2009 emissions volume per
net sales unit.
Looking at our CO2 emissions from a global perspective, morethan half of our total CO2 emissions volume in 2009 was from
Tamron Optical (Foshan). We will strengthen the administration

Per net sales unit, compared to 2009

2009

2010

2011

2012

Base year

- 5%

- 10%

- 15%

As for targets for factors other than CO2, target
ﬁgures were established for our factories, and we areworking on those targets. In order to reduce environmental loads, we organized a waste reduction

Relationships with
Business Partners

Three-year Plan for Reducing CO2 Emissions

sub-committee, a resource saving
design/engineering sub-committee and a CSR
procurement sub-committee with employees fromeach factory.

Objectives

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

Environmental Objectives for 2010
Targets and main measures
Head Oﬃce

5% reduction from the average emissions volume in 2007, 2008 and 2009 (in absolute value)

Hirosaki Factory
Namioka Factory
Reducing industrial waste

5% reduction from the emissions volume in 2009 (in absolute value)

Owani Factory
TOF in China

1% reduction from the emissions volume in 2009 (per net sales unit)● Measures to reuse or reduce waste plastic components ● Measures to reduce defective products and reduce residual materials when discontinuing production● Measure to reuse waste alkali and oil ● Measures to realize eco-spool and runner-less operations

Zero industrial
waste emissions

Namioka Factory

Relationships with
Employees

Head Oﬃce
Hirosaki Factory

Continuing zero-emissions

Owani Factory
TOF in China

To lower the ﬁnal processing ratio of industrial waste to 2% or less

For resource saving designs: (1) Use of recycled materials in ﬁnal products,
Promotion of DfE(2) Introduction of Tamron Eco-Label system, (3) Review of assessment methods
Elimination of harmful chemical substances in ﬁnal products: Zero non-conformity incidence

In October 2010, the 10th meeting of the signatory nations of
the International Biodiversity Treaty (Aichi-Nagoya COP10 CBD
Promotion Forum) will be held in Nagoya. Recognizing biodiversity
conservation as an important task under our integrated management system, as an internal step, we launched a biodiversity
e-learning program in January 2010 to educate our employees. We

also became a member of the Biodiversity Sub-committee of the
Global Compact of the United Nations, working on sharing information on the latest actions and activities of other member companies.

Relationships withSociety

Biodiversity refers collectively to the long-established terms ofspecies diversity, meaning that a variety of species exist adapting
themselves to environmental conditions, eco-system diversity,
meaning that the earth has various types of nature like tidal lands,
corral reefs and rivers, and genetic diversity, meaning that living
creatures have regional and individual diﬀerences even if they are of
the same species. In recent years, the number of species has been
decreasing at an unprecedented pace. Biodiversity disruption
reduces the number of species and is ecocide, which is the destruction of our natural environment. Environmental issues including
global warming, acid rain, forest destruction and seawatercontamination disrupt biodiversity.

For Protecting
Our Environment

Efforts to Conserve Biodiversity

Musashi-tomiyo

This small freshwater ﬁsh living only in a part of the Arakawa River in Kumagaya is a natural treasurespeciﬁed by Saitama Prefecture and is the ﬁsh of Saitama Prefecture. Musashi-tomiyo is speciﬁed
as a category A endangered species in the Red Data Book of the Ministry for the Environment.

Tamron CSR Report 201016

Efforts to Reduce CO2 Emissions
and Save Water Consumption
Tamron strives to reduce CO2 emissions and water consumption at factories basedon our integrated management.

CO2 Emissions

Water Consumption

The total volume of CO2 emissions from our Omiya headoﬃce, three Aomori factories and Tamron Optical (Foshan),our production base in China, was on the rise in terms ofunit per net sales along with the decline of sales, but emissions from the Omiya head oﬃce and three Aomori factories were on the decline. Looking at the sites, emissions
from the factory in China grew and accounted for 70% of
the total Tamron group volume, which was primarily
because the production operations of a number of mass
production items were shifted to the Chinese factory.
Twenty-three additional plastic injection molding machines
were installed there and those factors all contributed to theincreased operation rate.
Looking at
Omiya
Hirosaki
Namioka
Owani
FoshanBasic Unit
t-CO2/
e m i s s i o n （t-CO2）
sales
35,00030,427sources, elec0.61
29,997
tric power
0.60
30,000accounts for
0.50
23,69725,0000.50
95% of the
0.37
20,0000.40
total CO2
21,947
20,555emissions
0.30
15,00014,690v o l u m e ,0.20
10,000clearly show919
842
620
ing that is
0.10
5,000
5,001
5,501
5,013
the key.
891
987
987

The total water consumption volume at the Namioka
Factory in 2009 declined by 11% year-on-year, atTamron Optical (Foshan) 15% and the group volume
14% year-on-year. The Namioka Factoryʼs production
volume of lens elements declined by approximately
20% compared to 2008, and the factory stopped using
one lens cleaning machine. The number of times towash lens elements was also reduced by using glass
molding to form lens elements, which contributes toreducing water consumption.

0

2,177

2,035

1,956

2007

2008

2009

At Tamron Optical (Foshan) in China, the water volume
consumed for washing lens elements decreased mainly
because the monthly production volume of lens elements declined by approximately 50% in the threemonth period from March through May. The volume ofwater consumed at dormitories and dining facilities
declined mainly because the number of workers at thefactory decreased by approximately 15% compared to2008. We will continue to reduce water consumption bydevising means to save water so that we may reducewater consumption even when our factories increase
their proHirosaki
Namioka
Owani
FoshanBasic Unit
Omiya
duction vol- (thousand ㎥ )thousand ㎥ /
sales
700
umes in the635
549
future.
12
600
500
400

Electric Power Consumption

Electrical power consumption in 2009 declined at theOmiya head oﬃce and three Aomori factories. At the Omiya
head oﬃce, by common consent, employees switch oﬀ
almost all lighting ﬁxtures at 18:00 on two no-overtimework days per week. In addition, introducing a new lighting
system with higher eﬃciency is being studied. At the Hirosaki Factory, room-divider curtains were installed in theoﬃce space to enhance heating eﬃciency. Employees at
the Namioka Factory worked on stricter management of
individual lighting ﬁxtures by installing switches in many
places. Power consumption was watched through a demandsystem controller in order to operate the factory with saved
energy. In 2010, using this progress at domestic factories as an
informative
Omiya
Hirosaki
Namioka
Owani
Foshanguide, we（kWh）thousand kHh
will study
70,000and intro59,907
58,08260,000duce elec50,000
tricity con46,270
sumption
40,00026,168
reduction at
38,41638,92430,000T a m r o n
O p t i c a l
20,000
1,987
1,818
1,316
(Foshan) in
12,012
10,974
10,87010,000China.
1,255
1,224
1,500
0

17 Tamron CSR Report 2010

6,055

5,992

5,748

2007

2008

2009

300
200

525

10.7

11.0

10

8.3
456

386

342

8
6

0.9

0.5

0.4

100

169

166

149

0

6
7

6
6

6
8

2007

2008

2009

4
2

Interview with a Member of the Power Saving Project Sub-committee

interview

Tomoji Soma,
Manufacturing Engineering, Namioka Factory
At the Namioka Factory, we introduced a power demand system
controller in July 2009 to monitor and track the peak power
consumption in diﬀerent time zones. Based on the data obtained, werequested work sites set their peak levels as targets, adjust operating conditions of air-conditioners frequently and introduce a shiftoperating system for other facilities. In the initial stage, over 20
cases a month saw power consumption surpass the set targets, but
the number gradually declined. There are no such cases now. Introducing the power demand system controller resulted in power saving
consciousness growing among all of us at this factory, and we will
be able to expect further favorable eﬀects in the future.

Efforts to Reduce Waste

Reducing Waste Plastic Components●General Waste from Business（Domestic data）
The total
Omiya
Hirosaki
Namioka
Owani
Recycling ratio
volume of gen- （ t ）200100％eral waste from
166
180
159
our domestic
5
160
95％
4
business
140
50
operations in
110
120
90％
68
4
2009 was100
16
reduced by
80
85％
34% compared
78
60
60
53
to 2008. All
40
80％
82.7
sites reduced
34
20
78.0
waste, but the
33
30
0
75％
76.6
N a m i o k a
2007
2008
2009
Factoryʼs
performance was particularly noteworthy. The volume of
combustible waste was reduced by 65% (23 tons) and nonﬂammable waste by 72% (7.9 tons). Our colleagues at thefactory reduced cardboard boxes and cushioning materials
by providing returnable containers to all material suppliers,
while devising means to separate and reclaim aluminum foil
and metal from waste components containing metal.

Tamron manufactures plastic lens elements at its factories in Owani, Aomori and Foshan, China. Plastic
lens elements are manufactured by pouring liquidized
plastic resin materials into metal molds, injectionmolding and hardening them after cooling. Since plastic materials poured into the portion of the mold calledrunner portions are unnecessary, they were previously
discarded. Now, we have started to recycle them bymixing them with virgin materials. (Please also refer topage 6 about recycling runner materials.)(3)Volume of waste plastic generated
by the Mold Center and 3D Techno
Center

Runner

Runner-less Molds
Plastic parts made fromhot-runner (runner-less)molds (right) and parts
made with conventionalmolds (left)Relationships with
Employees

Interview with an Engineer on Hot-runner Molds

interview

Toshio Shinohara,

For Protecting
Our Environment

Manager,Manufacturing
Engineering, Metal Molds Center
We had worked on hot-runner technology a decade ago andfound that the technology was inadequate for small plastic
parts. We thought at that time the technology could only be
used for molds to make large parts. From experience, we knewthat a number of problems including precision, size and costproblems are involved, but we decided to face the challenge
again. We had a number of restraints, but managed to clear all
the problems one by one, ﬁnally succeeding in cutting thevolume of waste plastic in runner channels from approximately
3 grams per shot (5) with conventional molds to zero. We
veriﬁed that the hot-runner mold was capable of reducing
waste plastic by approximately 36% compared to conventional molds, when our eco-spool technology is combined.
Molds using the hot-runner technology are more expensive
than conventional molds, but their diﬀusion rates reach30-40% in Europe and the United States while they are notwidely used in our domestic market. At Tamron, we should
continue to work on this technology.

Relationships withSociety(1)General and industrial waste recycled by outside parties for delivery to
our company is excluded.
(2)The term mold-ascertained prototype products means pre-production
samples that are made from molds and conﬁrmed to meet the
speciﬁcations and quality standards.

To reduce runner ﬂow channels, our engineers at the
Mold Center and 3D Techno Center jointly designed
molds using eco spools and hot runner channels. The
eco spool method shortens runner channels and the
hot runner channel method prevents hardening of
liquidized plastic materials in runner channels so therequired plastic components alone can be removed
from the molds. In 2009, we converted 12 plastic
injection molds to runner-less molds, enabling us toreduce waste plastic by 35% compared to the volume
that would have been
generated from conventional molds(3).

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors●Industrial Waste（Domestic data）
The total
Omiya
Hirosaki
Namioka
Owani
Recycling ratio
volume of indus- （ t ）
598
100％
700
trial waste from623
99.8
our domestic
96％
600
98.8
123
business opera155
92％
500
tions declined
418
333
88％
400
30% year-on88
year (1) .
84％
300
318
The same as
83.8
232
80％
200
with generalwaste, all sites
76％
100
134
85
61
reduced indus33
40
37
0
trial waste.
(2)
2007
2008
2009
The Namioka
Factory started to ask contracted processors to distill waste
oil including IPA, methanol and xylene and procured processed
oil from them. This resulted in switching 14.5 tons of waste oil
to processed/recycled oil in 2009. Since IPA waste solvent
can be used as fuel for some heaters, the Namioka Factory
sold some of the solvent to other companies as recycled fuel.
Along with the production volume decrease, the industrial
waste volume also declined, but the volume of waste prototypes and discarded mold-ascertained prototype products (2)was increasing at Hirosaki Factory. The factory launched a
project to reduce inventory, strengthening administration toprevent unnecessary output.
From 2010, we plan to expand the scope of our Waste Reduction Sub-committee to Tamron Optical (Foshan) so that wemay start reducing industrial waste from the factory by introducing know-how from our three Aomori factories.

Relationships with
Business Partners

For Reducing Waste

Relationships with
Customers

We are working on reducing waste by enhancing production eﬃciency andimproving business operations.

(4) The term heaters used here means devices to heat runner channels.
(5) The term shot means one operation to inject liqueﬁed plastic into a mold tocast plastic components.

Tamron CSR Report 201018

Relationships with Society
To grow together with society and continue to be supported and patronized,
Tamron also works to support social events and cultural activities so photography
and imaging culture can develop and evolve.
Major accomplishments in 2009
・Continued photo contests
・Continued social contributions including teachingelementary school students and neighboring cleaning

Tasks for 2010
・Continuing eﬀorts to expand photographic
lens user base・Continuing participation in events forsocial contribution

For Contributing to Developing Photographic Culture●the Railroad Scenery Photo Contest
We hosted the Railroad Scenery Photo Contest again in2009 to contribute to revitalizing our local communityand developing photographic culture as a company with
our head oﬃce in Omiya, a city known as The Railroad
Town. We received 4,002 works altogether, up 7% from2008, from photographers ranging from entry-level toadvanced amateurs. We held a photo exhibition for
showing the award winning photos as well as works ofhonorable mention at the Omiya Sogo Department
Store, working together with Saitama City and The
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Saitama City tomake the exhibition an event rooted in the local community. To make the contest an event enjoyable for railroad photo enthusiasts and photographers in general,
we did not restrict photographic equipment, accepting
all photographic works as long as they were related to
the railroad. The contest was open to as many people
as possible with two divisions: one for students fromelementary school to high school and one for adults.

●Macro Lens Photo Contest
A macro lens is a lens that can take close-up picturesof small subjects such as ﬂowers and insects with ablurred background to emphasize the main subject.
Tamron is known as a manufacturer of quality macrolenses. For popularizing macro lenses further, Tamron
has hosted the Macro Lens Photo Contest annually
since 2004 for macro pictures alone. The Macro Lens
Photo Contest 2009 was open to macro photography
in general, including a non-genre sector so the contest can go beyond advanced photographers alone toinclude beginners who recently started to use digital
SLR cameras. We wish to expand the Tamron Macro
Lens Photo Contest in this way so that it may
become an even more interesting event to all photographers of close-up shots including portraits, tableshots and pet photos. In 2009, we received 4,139
works altogether, up 50% from 2008.

Interview with Grand Prize Winnerinterview

Grand Prize (For adults: Saitama City Mayor Prize)

Under a girder bridge by Yasuo Takeo

2009 Grand Prize Winner

Watching as an idle spectator by
Kikuo Yamamoto

Grand Prize (For students: Saitama City Mayor Prize)

Love letter by Mimi Ogata
19 Tamron CSR Report 2010

I visited Tamronʼs website to enter The Tamron Railroad
Scenery Photo Contest, saw that Tamron was hosting
the Macro Lens Photo Contest too, and entered themacro contest too. I was surprised to win the grandprize of the Macro Photo Contest as I failed to winanything with the pictures I submitted for the main
event, the Railroad Scenery Photo Content. I was
pleased Tamron accepted images taken by all lenses
from all manufacturers and expect that the company willcontinue to contribute to photographic culture.

●Cleaning Neighboring Areas
Cleaning we started in 2003 at the Omiya head oﬃce
and three Aomori factories for neighboring areas was
expanded to Tamron Optical (Foshan) in 2009. At theOmiya head oﬃce, Tamron employees clean-up company
premises and neighboring areas twice a month in a teamof twelve employees including oﬃcers on a rotationbasis, which becomes an important opportunity to think
about contributing to society and manners. To ourregret, no litter-free day has been reported up to now, but
we will continue cleaning litter from our neighborhood.

Relationships with
Business Partners

Tamron employees contribute to the local communities where our business sites are. At the Omiya
head oﬃce, we started to visit elementary schools
and teach children in 2008 and continued in 2009at elementary schools in Saitama City. The initial
objective was to teach children the wonder of science and chemistry, but in 2009 we added a classto teach children about environmental conservation
due to comments from teachers at schools where
we had taught in 2008. In 2009, we taught at threeelementary schools. We also participated in three
events held by communities at public halls. In total,
420 children participated in our educationalclasses, and the total number of participants since2008 exceeded 800.

Relationships with
Customers

Growing Together with Local Communities

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

Cleaning Neighboring Areas

An environmental education class・Environmental guessing gameGame designed to teach children about
eco-labels while answering questions(1)Assuming that the average employee commutes 20 km by car
round trip, a car discharges 3.46 kg CO2 daily since it discharges
173 g CO 2 per kilometer (Land, Infrastructure & Transportation
Ministryʼs Guideline). One hundred twenty employees used theircars at that time. Approximately 357 Japan cedar trees that are
50 years old are necessary to absorb 5 tons of CO2.

●Plastic Bottle Cap Collection
We continued to collect plastic bottle caps. The campaign wasstarted in 2007. The total volume of caps collected in 2009
weighed 220.6 kg; we sent the caps to the Eco Cap Promotion
Association for recycling. The association has been making
good use of them by donating gains on selling the metal in thecaps for procuring polio vaccine. The total volume of caps we
donated in 2009 was equivalent to 114 syringes of vaccine.
We will continue to collect plastic bottle caps to contribute toprotecting children in developing countries from polio.
Tamron CSR Report 2010

Relationships withSociety・CO2 emissions quiz gameGame designed to teach children about CO2
emissions volumes and reduction targets ofcountries while answering quiz questions●Car-free Day (Omiya Head Oﬃce)
Our Omiya head oﬃce participated in the Eco-car
Fair & Car-free Day Campaign held by Saitama Cityin 2008. With this as a start, in October 2008, we
introduced our own program to suggest our employees refrain from using their cars for commuting
on the third Friday of every month as a car-freeday. As a result of this program, we reduced CO 2
equivalent to 5 tons (1) compared to CO 2 that would
have been emitted otherwise. We will continue towork on this program.

For Protecting
Our Environment

・Vitamin C checker
Class where children examine if cookies and juicecontain Vitamin-C with test ﬂuid made byattenuating commercially available mouthwash

Relationships with
Employees

A soap bubble class(Class Content)
・Huge soap bubbles, bubbles that donʼt pop
Class where children experience how the nature ofsoap bubbles changes depending upon diﬀerencesin chemical substances●Eco-Life Days
Our employees at our business sites regularly participate
in activities organized by local communities, working
together. Saitama Prefecture hosts an eco life program
twice a year, once in summer and once in winter. In 2008
and 2009, we suggested employees at our Omiya headoﬃce participate in the program, using eco-life checklists,making it an opportunity to pay more attention to CO2emissions in our daily lives. As a result, 1,118 employees
participated in the program held in February 2008 andJuly 2009, reducing 1,107 kg CO 2 in total. We will continue to participate in such programs so that all employees at Tamron can compare their consciousness with
their actual behavior to reduce CO2 emissions.

20

Activities at Subsidiaries Abroad
In 2007, Tamron Optical (Foshan) started to address the twelve themes under
Tamronʼs CSR management philosophy. Subsidiary sales companies abroad also
started similar activities in 2009.
Tamron Europe GmbH (Germany)
Tamron Europe GmbH (TEG) has been contributing tosociety, responding to local community requests, including
activities to protect the environment by changing all papermaterial for packing products as well as oﬃce supplies suchas paper and envelopes to recycled paper. Anotherapproach we started is assisting education for the younger
generation. TEG regularly donates photographic lenses tothe photographic department of the School of Applied
Science in Dortmund where a number of young students
study photography, preparing to work in the photographic
industry in the future. Like other public schools, the school
always runs short of equipment since its budget is limited.
Interchangeable lenses donated by TEG are of great help tothe school. Also, since 2007, TEG has participated in theoccupational training program run by the Chamber ofCommerce & Industry of Cologne, educating a trainee every
year. We will continue to support the program in order toenable young people to experience business.
In December 2009, we started to support the fund the
Hospital of the University of Cologne established forsupporting children suﬀering from childhood cancer. Money
contributed to the hospital is used to let juvenile patients
joyfully spend hours other than treatment together with
their families or to allow their parents to take up lodgings
nearby to be with their children. Times thus spent are
extremely important for parents who have children suﬀeringfrom cancer.

An event held forchildren suﬀeringfrom cancer

by the Green New Deal policy of President Obama who
assumed oﬃce in January 2009, recognizing the importance of environmental protection has been growing morethan ever among our employees. In 2009 we focused on
basic matters such as reducing copy paper use andextinguishing unnecessary lamps. Some customers who
visited our oﬃce were surprised to see dark corridors. To
make a safe and healthy work environment for our employees, we regularly use assessment and advisory services ofoutside experts. Thanks to these eﬀorts, we have been freeof occupational accidents for the past several years. We willcontinue to work on discharging our social responsibility byusing ideas from our employees, in order to continue to be agood corporate citizen.

Tamron Optical (Foshan) Ltd. (Foshan, China)
At Tamron Optical (Foshan) (TOF), our business operates
under the philosophy of establishing a company treating
employees with warm aﬀection, by giving the highest priority
to the safety and health of employees. In 2009, welaunched a project for maintaining safe conditions at all
factory work sites to ensure safety on our premises. In the
project, we sought out problems at work sites and worked
on solving the problems. We became free of occupational
accidents and received the title of A-Class Company under
Foshan Cityʼs Norm for Safe Manufacturing Operations. We
also continued to contribute to the security of our local
community. In 2009, as in 2008, we donated crime prevention systems to our city while supporting security patrol
teams of our community and human resource development.
We also sent some employees to the Omiya head oﬃce tolearn Japanese. We have dispatched 44 employees during
the past ﬁve years. Those employees are ensuring smoothcommunications between TOF and the head oﬃce, contributing to enhancing work eﬃciency. We will continue to do
our best to educate our employees, realize a safe andcomfortable work environment and contribute to our local
community.
Interview with an Employee Who Participated in Training at Omiya

Tamron Optical (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (Shanghai,
China)

Tamron Optical (Shanghai) (TOS) contributes to the China
Education Development Foundation every year, supporting
high-achieving students who are economically disadvantaged and university professors who contribute to developing the security equipment industry of China. One serious
problem for education in China is a shortage of funds. TOS
donates to help reduce this problem. We will continue to doso.
When the great earthquake hit Szechuan in May 2008, we
donated funds through the Red Cross of Shanghai, wishing
Szechuan a speedy recovery. We will continue with social
contributions that match the needs of local communities.

Tamron USA Inc.
At Tamron USA Inc. (TUS), we strive to address issues inline with Tamronʼs CSR management philosophy. Prompted

21 Tamron CSR Report 2010

interview

Yi JiHui,Vice Oﬃce Manager,
ISO Promotion Oﬃce, TOF
I spent one year in Japan learning Japanese. I was very
pleased because I could learn the Japanese way of
doing business in person and directly from myJapanese trainer while experiencing the Japanese wayof enjoying life. I was very impressed with the diligenceand strong sense of responsibility of my Japanesecolleagues and superiors, which greatly helped getting
myself up for my work after returning to China. I am now
responsible for improving our quality and environment
management system. I wish to strive to learn more
about business administration so that I may contributeto improving our business operations at the TOF ISO
Promotion Oﬃce.

Independent Third Party
Assurance Report / Editorʼs Postscript
Masahiko Kawamura

Relationships with
Customers

Independent Third Party
Assurance Report(Current Position)
Senior Researcher, Insurance/Pension Research Division, NLI Research Institute(Academic Background)
Completed his masterʼs in engineering at the graduate school of Kyushu University in 1976 and entered MODEC (Mitsui
Ocean Development & Engineering Co., Ltd).
Entered NFL Research Institute in 1988 and working at his current position after engaging in projects for researching environmental management, environmental rating, corporate SRI (Social Responsibility Investment) and environmental business
operations in the Urban Development Department and Social Study Department.
(Academic Societies)
Organizer of the Network for Sustainability Communications (NSC), Director of the Sustainable Management Forum of Japan.

Relationships with
Business Partners(Oﬃces Committee Members Held)
Advisor to the secretariat oﬃce of Japan Environmental Management Grand Prize Award Committee (Mie Prefecture), a WG
member of the Environmental Communications Grand Prize Assessment Committee of Japanʼs Ministry for the Environment.

Tamron Has Achieved the 1st Phase

Enriching Social Aspects

of Environmental Management

Since the volume of production in China and sales in Europe
and the United States will expand further, eﬀorts to work onsocial issues will become even more important from the aspectof management risk administration. I hope that Tamron willcontinue to work on those social issues while positively
promoting activities in line with the Global Compact of theUnited Nations.

For Protecting
Our Environment

Aside from conventional three-year environmental protectionplans, Tamron will need to think how low-carbon society will
be in 2020 or even in 2050, envision its form and positionat that time and think about the actions it should take fromnow based on that recognition. Tamron will need to specify
a base year (as it thinks appropriate) when it maps out its
environmental load targets, while showing year-to-yearchanges for a period as long as possible.

ISO 26000, an international standard for social responsibility,
is expected to be formally issued at the end of this year. Its
fundamental objective is contributing to the sustainablegrowth of society through business operations. The concept is
diﬀerent from being a going concern or the sustainability ofbusiness enterprises. CSR management begins with recognizing social tasks including global issues as well as community
problems. If the management team and employees working at
the company seriously seek solutions for such issues andproblems while considering the company, their own tasks inpursuing CSR management will become evident.

Relationships with
Employees

Given the global trend toward a low-carbon society, Tamron,a global company, must work on carbon innovation, which isbusiness innovation pursuing technical renovation for reducing CO2 emissions. However, pursuing an environmental
management system based on ISO 14401 is insuﬃcient.
Pursuing carbon innovation is based on a long-term
perspective and must be part of its management strategy.

Tamron CSR Report 2010 is rich in content on environmental
aspects with data from past years, but further improvements
will be necessary on social aspects for both report content andquality together with eﬀorts to improve activities. For example,
when reporting on relationships with employees, it will be moredesirable to also report on aspects such as the exploitation of
female employees and work-life-balance ? social issues of ourcountry. It also reports on the consultation/suggestion
handling oﬃce. It will be more signiﬁcant if it reports analysis
results and countermeasures for the future.

Relationships with
Shareholders and Investors

A strong impression I had on visiting Tamronʼs head oﬃce inOmiya was that the 1st phase of its environmental management has been attained. Tamron seriously worked on
improving its basic factors for environmental management(policies, plans and structures) based on its management
system integrating quality assurance and environmental
protection. They really worked hard at it. The company
attained positive environmental performance results domestically but its accomplishments abroad (particularly CO2emissions from its factory in China) are not necessarily
satisfactory, although the importance of the task is properly
recognized.

Editorsʼ Postscript
In compiling this report, we tried to report our accomplishments, focusing on communications with our stakeholders. We allocated a page to each stakeholder
segment, reporting our accomplishments of important
themes. We also tried to include as many interviews as
possible to introduce unedited opinions. It will be ourgreat pleasures if opinions thus introduced help readersdeepen understanding of intervieweesʼ worksites. We willcontinue to work on social issues including CO2
emissions, listening to independent third parties. We
also wish to strive to make Tamron a company that is of
more and more help to society. We would greatly appreciate your comments and suggestions for how we canfurther improve our CSR reports.

Relationships withSociety

Editors at Omiya head oﬃce

Editors at three Aomori factories

Editors at Tamron Optical (Foshan)
Tamron CSR Report 201022

TAMRON CO., LTD.

CSR Implementation & Administration Board
1385 Hasunuma, Minuma-ku, Saitama-city, Saitama 337-8556
TEL (048)-684-9190 FAX (048)-684-9472
E-mail:e-report@tamron.co.jp URL http://www.tamron.co.jp
Issued date: March 2010
Responsible publisher: Acting General manager of CSR Implementation &Administration Board, Haruhisa Ikemura
Responsible planner/editor:
Omiya head oﬃce: CSR Implementation & Administration Board, Yoshie Usui
Factories in Aomori: Section Manager of Operations & Administration Section,
Factory Management Dept., Koyonori Imai
Tamron Oprical (Foshan): Deputy Managing Director , Zhang Kai
Issued unit: CSR Implementation & Administration Board