Message from the President
Always striving to create new value, and contributing to unceasing social progress.
Casio’s Heritage of Creativity: Making Something from Nothing, Going from “0” to “1”
Casio was founded with the invention of the world’s first compact, fully electric calculator in 1957. By completely revolutionizing the conventional technology of the time and offering overwhelmingly better performance, this product immediately penetrated the market. It was the first manifestation of Casio’s spirit of creativity, our unique capacity to make something from nothing, to go from “0” to “1”.
Then in 1972, the Casio Mini became a big hit as the world’s first personal calculator. It transformed the once costly electronic calculator into the now familiar pocket calculator, and contributed greatly to the dawn of the digital age. In 1983, the shock-resistant G-SHOCK watch was born from a completely new idea for the time, namely, to create a virtually indestructible wristwatch. This was followed by the QV-10 compact digital camera with LCD display in 1995, which gained popularity as a camera requiring no film. All of these types of products are taken for granted today, but they were unheard of when Casio introduced them. Casio has continued to produce products like these over the years. This heritage of providing the world with revolutionary products time and again was build by using technology to initiate paradigm shifts, and created repeated breakthroughs in thinking and engineering. Casio has also worked to re-invent products, to achieve new business growth even in existing product areas.
By developing completely new products and services that never existed before, Casio is providing the world with new value. As a result, people’s lives have become more convenient and rewarding. Also, when the value we provide is recognized by society, it gives rise to new markets and new cultural phenomena. This is nothing less than the realization of Casio’s corporate creed, “Creativity and Contribution.” Each and every employee at Casio strives to put this creed into practice. We pledge to continue to contribute to social progress by going from “0” to “1.”
Participating in International Initiatives and Pursuing CSR Management
In addition to the kinds of social contributions made through business activities, Casio aims to build a more sustainable world by helping to resolve social and environmental issues. Using our core technology competencies for making products compact, lightweight, slim, and energy efficient, we are reducing the environmental impact of Casio products. Not only that, we are managing our business sites using medium and long-term targets with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Casio is also curbing its negative impact on the environment by pursuing environmental activities such as biodiversity conservation. We are ensuring thorough environmental management in order to maintain and increase our positive contributions to the environment.
Casio makes over 100 million product units annually, and sells them in 140 countries, through worldwide logistics operations. We do this with the cooperation of not just our group companies, but many component makers and consignment manufacturers around the world. As a company with global operations, Casio respects international standards relating to human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. By fulfilling our corporate social responsibilities, Casio is promoting the ongoing development of the international community.
As part of these efforts, Casio joined the UN Global Compact in 2010. Along with declaring our support for the Compact’s ten principles in the four aforementioned areas, we have incorporated them into all of our corporate activities. We also identified CSR issues that affect all Casio Group companies worldwide, based on the international ISO 26000 standard, issued in November 2010 to offer guidance on socially responsible behavior. This serves as a framework for our pursuit of CSR, including dialogue with stakeholders for the resolution of CSR issues identified. Furthermore, by selecting disclosure items in reference to GRI guidelines and making improvements, Casio is striving to implement CSR management that meets the expectations of the international community.
On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake unleashed widespread destruction, including a catastrophic tsunami along the northeastern coastline of Japan, and a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Over a year has passed since the catastrophe, but the recovery and reconstruction have not proceeded as quickly as hoped. Many victims of the disaster are still enduring great difficulties and have not been able to rebuild or return to their homes. Casio will continue to accurately ascertain the needs of those in the disaster region and provide long-term support.
This report highlights the main initiatives taken by Casio in fiscal 2012. After reviewing it, please let us know what you think. We value the opinions of all of our stakeholders, and use them to improve our future efforts.
