Message from the President

The Nikon Group has been implementing a range of CSR-related measures since 2006, listing "CSR-oriented management" as one of its priorities in its Medium Term Management Plan. In 2007 we celebrated our 90th anniversary, and to mark this event announced a new management vision concept—"Meeting needs. Exceeding expectations." and formulated the Nikon Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Charter to show our basic attitude toward CSR. In July 2007, we participated in the United Nations Global Compact and expressed our support for its 10 principles regarding human rights, labor standards, the environment, and anti-corruption, thereby clearly showing our focus on CSR both inside and outside the Group.

In 2008, the Nikon Group faced a very severe business environment due to the rapidly unfolding economic depression. We will continue to face difficulties in 2009 and it is now absolutely essential that we make a concerted effort to implement structural reforms and put our business onto a sustainable growth track once again. Although the circumstances are severe, however, we will never change our CSR-oriented policies. For the Nikon Group, CSR means to remove waste and maximize efficiency, continue business in a sincere and sound manner, contribute to the sustainable development of society, and meet and exceed the expectations of our customers and society at large.
The Nikon Group is engaged in businesses that underpin the foundation of society and those that give inspiration and bring people excitement. In our CSR activities, we must give first priority to constantly providing society with useful products and services that are high in quality and safety by utilizing the technologies that we have accumulated since our foundation.
To this end, each and every employee within the Nikon Group must carefully listen to the opinions of both customers and the general public to identify their needs, some of which customers themselves have yet to recognize, and to create new value that exceeds their expectations. This is precisely what I believe the Nikon Group should achieve in the future.

Prevention of global warming is one of the top challenges to be met for the sustainable development of global society. Accordingly, the Nikon Group launched a global warming prevention project in October 2007. Under this project, we set greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and have been implementing measures to achieve these targets across the Group. Anti-global warming measures also help us reduce our costs, and we will press forward with the reduction of CO₂ emissions at our manufacturing bases. In addition, we will promote the development of highly energy-efficient products, raise environmental awareness of our employees, and foster energy conservation at our offices as well.
The Nikon Group also attributes importance to compliance and diversity issues. In 2008, we established a compliance system for overseas Group companies, to expand the efforts that we had been making to raise compliance awareness among employees of Nikon Group companies in Japan. As a result, overseas Group companies are now also endeavoring to make their employees more aware of the Nikon CSR Charter, the Nikon Code of Conduct, and the United Nations Global Compact. With regard to diversity, we launched an activity to encourage female employees to display more of their abilities at Nikon Corporation and will expand this activity to include other domestic Group companies in 2009.
Moreover, we are conducting social contribution activities in cooperation with NGOs and the local communities near our business sites both inside and outside Japan. For example, we have established a scholarship program to support the education of the youth in Thailand and are participating in the Mt. Fuji Reforestation Project in Japan. We are also fostering CSR activities across our supply chain, including not only Nikon Group companies but also our suppliers.

In 2008, two years after announcing our CSR-oriented policies both inside and outside the Group in 2006, we conducted an opinion survey on CSR and global warming, targeting employees of Nikon Group companies in Japan. The survey results show that employees are becoming more aware of the issues, but that there is still room for improvement. We will continue to conduct our CSR-oriented business activities to contribute to the sustainable development of society, based on our corporate philosophy: "Trustworthiness & Creativity" and on our management vision: "Meeting needs. Exceeding expectations."
The Nikon Group is committed to proactively and honestly disclosing its corporate information and communicating with its stakeholders, including customers, shareholders and investors, business partners, society at large, and employees. We have created Nikon CSR REPORT 2009 to outline the results of our activities in the year ended March 31, 2009 in an even more intelligible manner with reference to international CSR guidelines. For our future activities, we welcome and would greatly appreciate your opinions and comments on the report.