The Founding Spirit of Alps Electric is embodied in the Alps Precepts, and includes concepts such as “confidence building” and “societal contribution,” which have formed the fundamentals of management and activity the company has proceeded with since its establishment.
In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of our founding, we formulated a Corporate Vision to succeed these Precepts. The Corporate Vision includes the Alps Philosophy, which states, “Alps creates new values that satisfy stakeholders and are friendly to the Earth,” where “stakeholders” refers to all parties with interests in our company. The Philosophy recognizes that Alps takes pleasure in satisfying stakeholders and conducting activity that is friendly to the Earth. In other words, it advocates coexistence between companies, people, and the Earth, which is exactly the spirit of CSR today.
To realize the Alps Philosophy, we analyzed stakeholder expectations and then set five principles for a Business Approach, each with a decision-making standard formulated to meet the expectations of those stakeholders surrounding the company. Thus, for Alps Electric, CSR is realizing our Philosophy through business activities based on this Business Approach - it is management itself.
We set fiscal 2006 as the initial year for our CSR initiatives, established the CSR Committee and formulated the CSR Mid-Term Plan under this idea. Alps Electric aims to build trust with all the stakeholders by integrating both business and CSR initiatives.

Integrating CSR Activities with Business Direction

Alps Electric believes “CSR is management itself,” and that it is important to integrate CSR and business initiatives. We set fiscal 2006 as the initial year of our CSR initiatives, and integrated independent activities that had been carried out by each base and department into our FY2006 - 2008 CSR Mid-Term Plan (see pages 8 and 9), and in turn incorporated this into the company's 5th Mid-Term Business Plan. Our CSR initiatives are conducted in alignment with our business plans through using the PDCA (plan-do-check-action) cycle, and also in accordance with our CSR mid-term goals of: arranging a structure in fiscal 2006 for implementing CSR activity; promoting CSR activity globally during fiscal 2007; and developing the structure into a Group-wide system in fiscal 2008.
In April of fiscal 2006, we established a CSR Committee, and to act as its Secretariat together with promoting CSR activity throughout Group companies we also established a CSR Group within our Corporate Planning Office. In October the same year, we arranged a global CSR management structure by appointing a CSR Representative and CSR Officer at each business base in Japan and overseas.
In fiscal 2007, we conducted CSR self-evaluations at business bases in Japan and overseas in an effort to ascertain their CSR activity. Based on the results of the self-evaluation, CSR policies and initiative plans for each business base were established and implemented by their CSR Representatives and Officers. In following, we will now conduct this CSR self-evaluation annually to assess the progress that each business base is making in CSR activity. The CSR Committee's role is to examine priority issues and company-wide policies, while each subcommittee within the Committee formulates specific measures concerning the areas under their charge.
In April of fiscal 2008, the CSR Committee was reorganized in order to improve employee CSR training and to transfer compliance and information disclosure responsibilities, which have become regular business operations, to fixed departments. From fiscal 2008 onwards, we will reinforce our Group-wide CSR structure by holding annual Group CSR Committee meetings, attended by CSR Committee Chairpersons and Secretariats from the other Alps Group core companies, namely Alpine Electronics and Alps Logistics. Secretariat Liaison Meetings will also be held between these companies on a regular basis.