Message

Striving towards a sustainable society
through social contribution activities andenvironmentally friendly product development

Masao Yoshida
President & Chief Operating Officer
Through tireless technological innovation revolving around ourcore material capabilities built up over more than a century, weat the Furukawa Electric Group have continued to work towards
our vision of becoming a highly profitable corporate group with astrong global presence whilst consistently basing our operations
on an underlying philosophy of contributing to the realization of agenuinely successful and sustainable society.
In the face of mounting global issues such as the environment and poverty, we recognize that our activities as a company
depend on the development of a sustainable, stable society.
We will therefore continue to contribute to society through thefurther advancement of Furukawa Electric’s technology and thedevelopment of products that will help preserve the environment
and enrich people’s lives.
As President, I have set out a five-pronged policy for theFurukawa Electric Group for fiscal 2008; (1) reinforcing our business foundations, (2) improving product capabilities to ensurethat we are our customers’ first choice, (3) restructuring our business portfolio, (4) stepping up environmental initiatives and social
contribution activities and (5) raising awareness of the Group
Philosophy and reforming our corporate culture. The first of thesegoals, reinforcing our business foundations, will include emphasizing underlying safety and quality, stepping up internal control
activities and prioritizing compliance and reflects my intention to
focus on the fundamental aspects of our business.
I have earmarked the process of stepping up environmental
initiatives and social contribution activities as one of my top priorities for this year in particular. In terms of environmental initiatives, we will continue to work towards reducing greenhouse gas
emissions and achieving zero emissions based on the 3Rs, whilst
also developing environmentally friendly products and promoting green procurement. As 2008 marks the beginning of the firstcommitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, we intend to tackle
the global issue of reducing greenhouse gases, with renewed
determination. In addition to stepping up the pace of the various
measures that we have implemented to date, this year we are also3

aiming to focus extensively on the promotion of new concepts
and more effective initiatives. We will ensure that all of our initiatives, including contributing to the development of energy efficient environmentally friendly products and participating in Team
Minus 6%, are implemented on a groupwide basis at all of ourmanufacturing and non-manufacturing bases.
In terms of social contribution activities, in May we set out
the Furukawa Electric Group Basic Policy on Social Contribution
Activities and outlined our commitment to consistently and tirelessly undertake social activities, revolving primarily around threecategories; nurturing future generations, promoting sport andculture and living side by side with local communities. In addition
to contributing to society through our core business activities, we
also intend to harness the extensive human resources and facilities at the Furukawa Electric Group’s disposal in order to help create a sustainable society and strengthen the bonds that we havebuilt up with local communities over more than a century.
Having set out a medium-term business plan in the form ofInnovations 09, the Furukawa Electric Group will continue to makeevery effort to sustain R&D and capital investment, particularly
in our four priority fields (the auto industry, electronic components, photonics/network technology and the environment),
and improve asset efficiency through initiatives such as reducing
inventory assets and accounts receivable, with our sights set on
the target of consolidated sales of ¥1.25 trillion in fiscal 2009.
Based on the notion that corporate value depends on the balance that a company strikes between profitability, environmental
protection and social contribution (the so-called “triple bottomline”), we intend to focus on communication with our customers,
employees, shareholders, members of local communities and allof our other stakeholders in an effort to develop our business andachieve our targets in line with the needs and expectations ofsociety as a whole.
We look forward to receiving your honest feedback regarding
our initiatives.

Expanding CSR activities so as to respondquickly and effectively to society’s needs andenvironmental changes

Tetsuya SatoDirector, Member of the Board, Chief Social Responsibility Officer
In light of a spate of product-related and corporate scandals,
earthquakes and other natural disasters and the increasing globalization of corporate activities, companies are facing stricter
requirements to fulfill their social responsibilities than ever before.
In addition to reliably carrying out their core business operations,
including guaranteeing the safety and quality of products andservices and ensuring compliance, companies also have a responsibility to protect the environment and contribute to their local
communities and society as a whole.
Based on an underlying desire to ensure that the Furukawa
Electric Group as a whole contributes to the realization of agenuinely successful and sustainable society in accordance with
our new Group Philosophy and Basic CSR Policy, we continue topromote business activities geared towards striking a three-way
balance between profitability, environmental protection andsocial contribution. We have therefore established a CSR and Risk
Management Committee (run by the CSR Division) consisting ofthe Chairman, President, Company Presidents and Chief Officers
under the supervision of the Board of Directors, the core of ourcorporate governance operations. This enables our management
staff to implement CSR and risk management activities based on agroupwide framework.
In addition to planning, implementing and providing support
for measures ranging from compliance, risk management andsafety through to environmental and social contribution activities, our CSR Division also monitors groupwide activities and takes
appropriate action as and when necessary to ensure that our CSR
activities run smoothly and effectively.
Our main initiatives at present include organizing training inareas such as legislation and corporate ethics, reinforcing compliance, assessing groupwide risks and formulating business contingency plans (BCP), ensuring quality control, managing key risks inareas such as information security, reducing energy consumption
and CO2 from production and shipping, contributing to life cycle
assessment (LCA) through initiatives such as the development oflightweight products, expanding our range of eco-products ona groupwide basis, putting the 3Rs into practice (e.g. reducingwaste), implementing groupwide soil pollution measures, promoting green supplier schemes and CSR procurement initiatives,
opening up our facilities for use by local communities, taking partin local events and actively promoting employment for people
with disabilities.
In addition to providing further details of these and other initiatives in this CSR Report, we make the most of every opportunity tomeet and discuss business activities with our stakeholders, including at events such as last year’s Furukawa Innovation Expo ’07 andvarious exhibitions and presentations. We also make every effort
to provide our overseas stakeholders with details of our activities
through the distribution of an English version of this CSR Report
via our overseas bases and other facilities. We hope you will allcontinue to provide us with feedback and keep us informed of anyrequests.
We will continue to improve communication with all of ourstakeholders, who represent the cornerstone of our CSR activities, and expand the Furukawa Electric Group’s CSR activities as awhole so as to respond quickly and effectively to society’s needs
and environmental changes in the future.

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