Recent Major Efforts Green NTT West Promotion Training
NTT West Group is advancing efforts to nurture human resources required to maintain the environmental protection measures, and has made this declaration in the NTT West Group Environmental Guidelines. This year, the Green NTT West Promotion Training that is participated by employees involved in the promotion of environmental protection activities was held at Maniwa City of Okayama Prefecture.
Ranges of mountains including Hiruzen Sanza can be found in Maniwa City, which make it an ideal location for growing timber. Currently, Maniwa City has launched a "Biomass (*1) Industrial City Plan" that is being jointly developed by the industry, academia and government. At the training session, participants joined the "Biomass Tour Maniwa" and visited the Maniwa City Government's main office building, Tsukida General Collection Site, Maniwa Biomass Collection Center Plant No. 2, Maniwa Biomass Hatsuden, and the CLT (*2) factory of Meiken Lamwood Corporation.
Maniwa City Government's main office building has installed a 100% wood-based biomass air-conditioning heat source system that uses wooden chips and pellets as the energy source. Replenishment of wooden chips and pellets is carried out using live cameras, and participants were shown how wooden chips are monitored remotely by the forest owners' cooperative and pellets by Meiken Lamwood Corporation, as well as how they are being delivered automatically from the respective locations. Participants watched enthusiastically how ICT is being effectively utilized, such as the use of QR codes in the Maniwa region to manage the traceability of unused timber. Through the entire study tour, they learned about Maniwa City's efforts to make use of unutilized local resources to resolve the challenges faced by the government, which at the same time contribute to resolving social issues such as the continued existence of nature and mankind. Maniwa's City determination to take up the challenge can also be felt from the attitude of the employees at the respective sites who provided detailed explanation of the operations with great enthusiasm.
Information on social trends such as SDGs, Paris Agreement and ESG investment was also shared, and participants exchanged views on how each of them can contribute to propel environmental management at NTT West Group. The participants had a meaningful day through sharing of their work-related issues and future endeavors.
This training has enabled participants to deepen their understanding in relation to protection of the global environment and solutions for social issues. We will strive to engage in activities to protect the global environment by making use of what we have learned from this training in our future day-to-day activities.
Training dates: October 30 to 31, 2017
Training venue: Okayama Prefecture, Maniwa City
No. of participants: 21
- *1: "Bio" refers to living organisms or life, while "mass" refers to a large body of matter. "Biomass" is therefore the quantity of organisms in a given area or volume, and is a collective term used to refer to plant and animal materials suitable for use as energy.
- *2: CLT is the abbreviation for "Cross Laminated Timber."
