Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest (Ibaraki)
At Hitachi High-Tech, we think that corporate management that is in harmony with the global environment is important in realizing sustainable development for society and the corporation.
As a part of this approach, we received the loan of approximately 2.3 hectares of national forest in Ishioka City, Ibaraki Prefecture, under the Corporate Forest Program of the Forestry Agency and named it the Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest. Since 2005, we have been engaged in a 60-year program of afforestation activities there.
Status of Activities
- News
Contributing to the Global Environment
Forests do not just produce the renewable natural resource known as lumber.
Cultivating forests contributes to the prevention of global warming by the absorption and storage of carbon dioxide, it acts to prevent disaster by the functions of water source cultivation* and water retention potential, it preserves ecosystems, and so on. Thus it brings about a whole variety of blessings.
At Hitachi High-Tech, we recognize the value for society that forests possess, and consider the long-term maintaining and sustaining of forests to be a matter of importance.
* Functions of water source cultivation: These are such functions as storing rainwater and regulating water volume, mitigating floods and other irregularities, and purifying the water.
| Heading | FY2022 | FY2006-2022 cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| Water source cultivation Number of 2-liter PET bottles, m3/year |
531,000 bottles (1,062 m3/year) |
5.746 million bottles' worth (11,488 m3) |
| Landslide prevention 10-ton dump truck, 5.5 m3/truck |
5 trucks' worth (29 m3/year) |
56 trucks' worth (317 m3) |
| Absorption and storage of carbon dioxide CO2 emission equivalent per person |
42 people's worth (13.3 tons/year) |
683 people's worth (CO2 219.0 tons) |
Everyone Joins in Cultivating the Forest for the Future of the Earth
The Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest started in April 2005, when employees and their families planted 5,600 seedlings of Japanese cypress and other trees.
The seedlings were about 30 cm high when planted, and now they have grown to heights of more than 10 m. From when they were planted up to the present, the weeding, brush removal, pruning, thinning*, and other such work required to nurture the forest has been carried on by employee volunteers and their families.
Going forward, we will continue nurturing the forest as the trees planted as seedlings grow until they are thinned. In doing so, we will continue contributing to the protection of the global environment and prevention of global warming.
** Thinning: This is the culling of trees from the forest when it becomes crowded. When trees grow so that they are crowded closely together, the sunlight no longer reaches the ground surface. Then weeds and brush stop growing so that the surface soil, which contains nutrients, is washed away by the rain. This prevents trees from growing in girth and height. Thinning is carried out to keep this from happening.
Initiatives Undertaken in the Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest
