Local community cleanup

NTT Group companies hold local community cleanups at their sites throughout Japan to raise the environmental awareness of their employees through participation in hands-on activities.

We have set a participation target of 100,000 people annually in this Operation Clean Environment initiative, and as a result of active campaigning, the number of participants is growing with every passing year. About 118,000 people participated in fiscal 2012, an increase of about 26,000 over the previous year.

The fiscal 2011 Mt. Fuji Cleanup, in which NTT Group companies covering various regions participated in as an activity symbolizing group cleanup efforts, was, in fiscal 2012, combined with Operation Clean Environment to be continued as a closely related activity.

To continue to develop Operation Clean Environment and achieve the annual target of 100,000 participants as well as share information on the status of the initiative, we plan to manage and monitor the cleanup activity records of major group companies as an environmental performance data item, and make this data available to group companies.

Tree planting

In March 2012, the NTT Group implemented the 3/11 Recovery Forest Project, a tree planting project organized as part of efforts to assist in the recovery of regions affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The aim of the project was to restore the coastal forest shelterbelt of the Kujukuri Tonoshita area in Chiba Prefecture. The forest was destroyed by the 3/11 tsunami, which toppled many trees and left many more to die from salt damage. With the cooperation of NPO Laboratory of Earth Conscious Life, 113 group employees, family members, former employees and others participated in the project, planting 1,260 black pine, Japanese pittosporum, Japanese spindle and other saplings on 1,200 m2 of coastal land.

Forest shelterbelts not only help to mitigate tsunamis, strong winds and drifting sand, but also provide habitat for forest insects and help create rich fishing grounds, and so restoring the shelterbelt will also contribute to biodiversity. The NTT Group will continue to work with employees, their families and members of local communities on environmental conservation activities for the way they serve as opportunities to think about environmental issues.