All of SMK's Japan and overseas sites have formulated targets for environmental preservation activities, and are pushing ahead with efforts to make improvements. The table below presents the actual results of SMK's major activities in fiscal 2010, as well as targets for this fiscal year.

● Reduction of CO2 Emissions

We have made improvements, such as introducing energysaving lighting fixtures and increasing the heat efficiency of our molding processes in order to reduce CO2 emissions, but because we have increased the clean room spaces in our overseas works, which are used in the manufacture of touch panels (demand for which is expected to increase), we have seen an increase in CO2 emissions in terms of both CO2 emissions per unit of production value and total CO2 emissions.

● Reduction of Waste

SMK has made efforts to reduce waste through a more efficient use of materials, based on figures for industrial waste discharge per unit of production value and total industrial waste discharge amount. However, we failed to realize our waste-reduction goals because of an exceptional release of sludge-waste due to maintenance work on wastewater treatment equipment at some of our production facilities, designed to enable us to manage wastewater at a higher standard, in addition to the scrapping of unnecessary production facilities and equipment. The amount of landfill waste increased beyond our expectations. The reason for this was an increase in touch panel production, which resulted in an increase in hard-to-recycle sludge and glass scrap at one of our overseas works.

● Control of Environmentally Hazardous Substances Contained in Products

We are responding to the revision of the EU-RoHS regulations (exemptions) and the additions made to substances controlled under the EU REACH regulations. In fiscal 2011, we are moving ahead with the standardization of our survey method and its integration into our company system.

● Strengthening of Environmentally Friendly Design

Continuing from last year, we conducted trial Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) for standard connectors. In the future, our challenge will be to formulate benchmarks.

At SMK, we view the preservation of the environment as an important management objective, one element of our corporate social responsibility. We have taken up the issue in our 8th Mediumterm Business Plan (FY2011-FY2013), which begins this fiscal year, and we are making efforts to raise the level of our environmental preservation activities throughout the Group as a whole.

Concerning efforts to prevent global warming, our most important area of focus, we are attempting to understand and reduce the amount of energy used in the supply chain during the manufacture of our products through the application of LCA, in addition to continuing to reduce CO2 emissions throughout the Group.

SMK will continue to respond to the increasingly stringent requirements of laws and regulations and demands for environmental awareness from the market in our management of environmentally related substances and in our environmentally friendly designs.

We will also begin activities aimed at the presevation of biological diversity as a new initiative based on our latest medium-term environmental targets.