Murata has appointed an executive in charge of environmental affairs who is responsible for environmental activities throughout the Group. The Environmental Management Department takes the role of promoting Murata's environmental activities. As a consultative body to the president, the Murata Environmental Committee examines and deliberates environmental issues facing each company of the Murata Group. Furthermore, as subordinate organizations of the Environmental Committee, subcommittees address specific themes. Each of these subcommittees identifies pertinent issues and proposes concrete measures to address related problems.
From fiscal 2007, the Environmental Committee has been supplemented by divisional staff to bolster investigations into and to determine measures for reducing the environmental burden from the planning and development stages.
Murata has three types of internal audits at its manufacturing plants and production subsidiaries.
The results of our fiscal 2006 internal audit showed four cases of nonconformance and 298 cases in need of improvement for the Murata Group in Japan. Remedial action was completed for 290 cases by the end of fiscal 2006. The remaining eight cases were resolved by the end of July 2007.
| Audit Name |
Agenda |
Plant Internal
Self-Audit |
We have established a management standard for day-to-day business, which forms the basis for the monitoring of operations and identification and correction of noncompliance. In addition, an audit is conducted once a year by the Internal Environment Audit Team to investigate whether various prescribed rules can be followed correctly. |
Functional Staff Audit
by the Environmental
Management Department |
This audit is conducted regularly to complement inspections by the external auditing entity to compensate for specialist areas not covered by plants' internal self-audits. |
| Audit by Auditors |
This annual audit spans inspecting and verifying from an auditor's standpoint whether environmental management system construction and operation are being appropriately implemented and checking for overall consistency. If necessary, the auditors provide their comments as feedback. |
Our in-house publication, Journal Murata, includes an annual environmental feature, facilitating sharing of information by showcasing the progress of and case studies for environmental measures throughout the Company.
Courses for staff to train as internal environmental auditors include intensive drills and training to foster practical expertise.
Murata provides various educational opportunities to enhance understanding by all employees of environmental vision and policies set forth by corporate management and the initiatives implemented by the respective divisions.
Specifically, we organize dedicated environmental education programs for new, existing and managerial staff members and offer training courses to cultivate internal environmental auditors and individual education programs for employees in roles with potential high environmental impact.
Murata had gained ISO 14001 certification for all its manufacturing sites in Japan and overseas by 2002.
Moreover, we developed environmental management systems and obtained ISO 14001 certification for such non-manufacturing sites as the Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Head Office, Tokyo Branch and domestic sales offices in fiscal 2005. Subsequently, we incorporated the environmental management systems of subsidiaries with our sites in Japan to achieve multisite ISO 14001 certification in fiscal 2006.
In the future, the Company is targeting to expand this to overseas subsidiaries. We are promoting effective ISO 14001 operation by revising our environmental management system working rules, sharing information and educational tools, and developing laterally toward sites that record notable cases of improvement.
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