Promoting biodiversity activities in our surroundings and leaving a better natural environment for the future

Conservation of the natural environment is an important factor in corporate activities

There is a growing sense of urgency worldwide regarding the loss and degradation of natural capital, including biodiversity. The business activities of the Hitachi High-Tech Group benefit from natural capital (ecosystem services) while exerting some impact on the environment. As the deterioration of natural capital becomes more serious, the potential for increased risk in the Hitachi High-Tech Group’s value chain increases. As such the Group is strengthening its natural capital initiatives.
With “Contributing to a sustainable global environment” identified as a materiality, the Hitachi High-Tech Group is promoting biodiversity conservation initiatives with the aim of creating a future in which people and nature can prosper together. We have been conducting forest conservation activities at the Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest, a national forest that we have leased since 2005, with an eye toward the next 60 years. Also, in 2015, we established the Woodlands of Hitachi High-Tech Science on the premises of the Hitachi High-Tech Science Fuji Oyama Works, where we are engaged in various activities to restore the ecosystem and conserve biodiversity by introducing plant species native to the area.

Hitachi High-Tech Yasato Forest

Deepening the understanding of more people is a key element of biodiversity conservation activities

It takes a long time to restore native ecosystems. For this reason, Hitachi High-Tech’s biodiversity conservation activities invite employees of various generations and their families to participate, while nurturing the next generation of interested individuals. In FY2023, employees and their families worked together in the forest maintenance area of the Takao Forest Nature School managed by the Seven-Eleven Foundation to conduct forest maintenance, observe the insect hotel, and create craft work using bamboo and other materials collected from the area. Expanding the on-site activities using tree branches and other materials collected at the Takao Forest Nature School, we are introducing initiatives that allow people in areas distant from the forest to participate in biodiversity conservation activities online. As one facet of this, in FY2023 employee volunteers from Hitachi High-Tech Group companies in Japan made lampshades.

To pass down a better natural environment to the next generation

In 2024, the Woodlands of Hitachi High-Tech Science was certified by the Ministry of the Environment as a Natural Symbiosis Site—an area where “biodiversity is protected through private initiatives”—and will also be registered in an international database as OECM (Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures). This was in recognition of our ongoing initiatives with our employees.
Furthermore, the Woodlands of Hitachi High-Tech Science is focused on establishing insect hotels (places for insects to nest in winter). Members of a nature observation group comprising of employee volunteers observed the insect hotels and were able to confirm evidence of insects. Hitachi High-Tech Group will continue to accelerate its initiatives to achieve a future in which people and nature can prosper together.

Insect hotel