Tanaka Whether you're implementing CSR as a single company or as a group, I think the most important element is your basic CSR philosophy. What is the NTT Group's thinking in this respect?

Kanazawa The NTT Group adopted its CSR Charter in 2006, and it incorporates three key concepts. The first is that we should contribute to the resolution of environmental issues and social issues such as declining birthrate and aging population through leveraging our business strengths. The second is that we should communicate with our stakeholders, listen to them, and address their wishes and views as part of our management policy. Remember, though, that different stakeholders have different interests, and so it's important to strike the right balance. The third concept is compliance with international standards and rules. Driving the sustainable development both of society and our Group through these three concepts — hat's essentially the kind of the CSR that we seek to implement.

Tanaka Speaking as someone who's served on the Japanese National Committee for ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility now for eight years, I feel strongly that what you just said shows that the NTT Group has a very solid understanding of the essence of CSR and international CSR trends. What is your approach to CSR management as a Group?

Kanazawa NTT views the “group” concept as being very important, and not just from the CSR perspective. With the recent advances in information and telecommunications technology and shift to IP networks, we're seeing more and more convergence between broadcasting and communications, and between fixed line and mobile communications. As such, generating synergy as a Group is vital to expanding and improving our services. And due to increasing focus on internal controls, consolidated accounting and so forth, companies have come to be treated as groups too, and we need to earn trust as a Group from the corporate governance and compliance perspective. That's why we need to address CSR too as a Group and aim for overall optimization.

Tanaka The NTT Group includes large companies that each have different attributes, but even so, most people see them all simply as NTT, don't they? Given this situation, you really do need, as you say, a Group philosophy and shared rules of conduct to ensure that individual companies also earn the public's trust.

Tateno Yes, addressing customer needs and social issues that are broader than the concerns of individual companies does, I think, require actions based on a Group policy rather than each company optimizing its efforts independently.

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Tanaka In that respect, you established the NTT Group CSR Priority Activities last year to serve as a guide, didn't you? How do you all of you at the business frontline view these Priority Activities?

Morishita CSR covers so many different areas that the toughest part is deciding what to focus on, and then how to proceed. The Priority Activities have, I think, helped a lot to guide discussion on how to carry out CSR activities that make the most of your company's business strengths.

Tateno I belong to a section that provides monitoring, operation, and data center services for the private networks of customers, and so our work is very closely related to the Priority Activity of “ensuring stable and reliable services as critical infrastructure.” I feel that establishing the Priority Activities has made me more aware of the role I should play to implement CSR through my work.

Tanaka So it would appear that the Priority Activities are indeed serving as guiding principles at the frontline. Have you come across any issues in putting them into operation?

Iwahori Well, it's not necessarily an issue, but as someone at the frontline of operations, I find the term “CSR management” a somewhat strange concept, actually. The telephone business goes back over 100 years, and I'm proud of my work and feel a tremendous responsibility too, but in a way, that's only natural, and so I've never really made a big thing of it. As a result, I find it difficult at times to know exactly how to speak to my juniors on CSR.

Kanazawa You're right. For example, we've done our utmost over the years to provide absolutely reliable services, and I like to think that those efforts have led to the brand image we enjoy today, but if we keep quiet about our achievements in the traditional Japanese way, which views modesty as a virtue, we might fail to get across important information, and so I think we need to communicate our efforts properly.

Tanaka Yes, earning trust depends on cultivating understanding by telling people what exactly the NTT Group is doing about this and that, and so explaining those activities in easy-to-grasp terms is very important.

Morishita I think the first step is to re-examine how our work contributes to society, and explain that to customers. The next step is to consider ways of increasing the value for customers. If you take such an approach, I think that implementing CSR can be really exciting.

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Tanaka Looking ahead, what kind of plans does the NTT Group have for CSR, and what issues exist?

Kanazawa Basically each company will continue to conduct activities in line with the Group's Priority Activities and targets. The important thing is to practice good PDCA management and ensure one's activities are contributing as intended to the sustainable development of both the enterprise and society.

Tanaka That's a very important concept. Enterprises aren't charities. Their basic mission is to provide outstanding products and services, and this in turn contributes to the development of society and results in profits for the company. This is also the United Nations' stance, and I think the NTT Group's approach is right on target.
What about specific issues, though? There must be some issues particularly relevant to the NTT Group, such as ensuring safety when a disaster occurs, or ensuring network security.

Kanazawa Where disaster preparedness is concerned, we recognize that we manage infrastructure that serves as a vital lifeline, and so if anything happens to it, it could have a huge impact on society. That's why we try to ensure the continuity of our business at all times.

Iwahori Right from the start, we employees see it as our mission to keep people connected around the clock every day of the year, and to keep any impacts to an absolute minimum, no matter what happens.

Tanaka No matter what happens — that's a great attitude. I know that the NTT Group discusses various aspects of disaster preparedness with the government and also participates in various committees. I'm a member of a government working group too, and so I know how important it is for an enterprise like NTT to provide sound opinion based on its public role and its knowledge and experience in the field.

Iwahori Regarding security, there are customers who have suffered despite the precautions taken by the NTT Group, and so we can't afford to assume that we're doing enough. We really do need to go all out to address emerging needs in society.

Tateno I think that ensuring information security is crucial, and as one of our security solutions at NTT Communications, we have a dedicated team- our Security Operations Center — that monitors customer networks on a 24/7 basis.

Kanazawa Something that's become a really serious issue is ‘underground’ and other problematic sites posting illegal or harmful information through i-mode or the Internet. The posting of illegal information is of course a problem in itself, but telecommunications providers too need to do what they can to protect society from such sites. NTT DOCOMO now provides filtering and various other services to protect users.

Morishita At NTT Resonant too, we provide a search service for children on our Kids' goo portal site that hides any harmful information. We also support the activities of the Information Ethics Education Study Group^*. I think that getting involved in such activities also helps to foster understanding for the services and initiatives of the NTT Group.

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Tanaka We've touched on a lot of what an enterprise needs to do to earn the trust of society in this discussion, but I'd just like to sum up the key points. First, take measures to ensure that everyone in the organization shares top management's message. Second, offer quality products and services. Today's discussion showed that you clearly regard disaster preparedness and security as part of that mission. Third, fulfill your corporate social responsibility through your business. In this respect, I think the NTT Group is very much aware of the public nature of its business and is indeed contributing through it to the sustainable development of society. Fourth, be conscious of stakeholder engagement, and this too is something that NTT is already putting a lot of effort into. Fifth, address environmental issues no matter what section you belong to. This barely came up in our discussion, but it's wellcovered in the report. I feel that if you take all of these perspectives to heart in your CSR activities, you'll get even more out of those activities and get closer and closer to the ideal that you're pursuing as the NTT Group.

Kanazawa Thank you very much. We'll continue to do our best to hone our awareness of social issues and work as one to tackle them.