Promotional Activities and Support System

In fiscal 2008, the Panasonic CSR Board, the highest decisionmaking body for CSR management in Panasonic and chaired by President Fumio Ohtsubo, decided to conduct a general inspection of all CSR structures company-wide. As a result, Panasonic performed a company-wide inspection and then took action to strengthen the system in order to be able to respond to customer requests in a timely and accurate manner and be completely accountable. This effort was led by the device business domain, which has been engaging in CSR procurement with our business partners in the infocommunications industry in Europe and the United States.

For example, first we established a fulltime management structure in the Corporate Industrial Marketing & Sales Division that oversees the device business domain, and then exchanged information with the related marketing departments in each country and region.

Following this, the Corporate Legal Affairs Division, Corporate Personnel Group, Corporate Environmental Affairs Division, and Corporate Procurement Division, played a central role in indentifying the global CSR issues from several angles and began initiatives to implement self-assessments and internal audits at each business site. These actions were based on the Global CSR Checklist. Especially in China and the Asian region, where Panasonic has a great many production sites, there is a rapidly growing concern over human rights, labor and occupational health and safety, the environment, and compliance, and Panasonic is responding to these issues at a level that lives up to our management philosophy. The checklist is being provided to managers of each business location world-wide to enable them to perform self-evaluations on the progress of their initiatives within their division. In addition to defining standards and check points, the checklist provides examples of situations that may lead to violations; and we are using these and other methods to try to achieve a deeper, practical and concrete understanding of CSR.

In addition, as our business becomes more global, it is necessary to respond even more rapidly to the laws and regulations of each country around the world. In order to accelerate our efforts based on the cultures and laws of other regions and countries, we must work together on these efforts, even in the Global Legal Conference, which is attended by those in charge of legal affairs from each region.

These initiatives are not only an opportunity to strengthen internal CSR management but also an opportunity to objectively examine the CSR implementation demanded by our customers and to raise our level of accountability.