Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Machine Tool Performs a Host of Social Contribution Activities to Foster and Maintain Close Ties with its Local Communities

Environmental protection
Since 2011 MHI Machine Tool has cooperated in a project underway in its home city of Ritto aimed at protecting the local forest and realizing a low-carbon society. On April 24, a total of 19 employees took part as volunteers in a program designed to create a chestnut farm on land that had gone to a ruined state. The volunteers prepared the land by removing rubble, adding fertilizer around the chestnut saplings, and setting up nets to protect them from damage by invasive animals. Recently, some of the saplings have begun to produce fruit, a happy sign that the program is beginning to yield good results.

Company employees are also involved as volunteers in a program to protect the environment and ecological system of Lake Biwa. Every year they participate in exterminating black bass, a foreign species, from the lake's waters and fostering the development of reed growth so critical to maintaining the water environment and ecosystem. During the 1990s the area of natural reed beds had dwindled in size to only some 130 hectares, but now, according to a recent survey, it has recovered to approximately 170 hectares. The reeds are also harvested and used to make a special kind of beautiful paper. In this way, results are being reaped simultaneously in terms of protecting the ecosystem and making effective use of resources.

Support of development of the next generation
Since 2015, in a quest to enhance the learning abilities of local students in Ritto, MHI Machine Tool employees have volunteered as teachers helping them with their studies and conducting classes centering on scientific experiments. The program is targeted at students ranging from elementary school through high school.

In addition, the company also provides science magazines for children free of charge to the Ritto City Library. In doing so, it supports the local children's pursuit of greater knowledge.

Support of recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami
Since 2011, MHI Machine Tool has also been providing continuous support to recovery in the prefectures of Tohoku that suffered severe damage in the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami disaster of March 2011. Products from the region are sold at various company events, and since 2014 the company has been participating in a project to reconstruct the municipal library of Rikuzentakada City, in Iwate Prefecture, which was destroyed in the tsunami.

Besides the initiatives described above, MHI Machine Tool, as a member of the local community, regularly performs cleaning activities in the roads around its plant. The company is committed to continue deepening its ties to its local communities through a variety of social contribution activities.

Contact:
MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES MACHINE TOOL CO., LTD.
Corporate Planning & Administration Headquarters
Planning & Administration Department, General Affairs & Human Capital Group

About MITSUBISHI HEAVY INDUSTRIES MACHINE TOOL CO., LTD.

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Helping to protect local forests

Harvesting reeds at Lake Nishinoko

Helping students study

Magazines provided to the Ritto City Library