III Organized an Event Celebrating World Food Day

In October 2023, ITOCHU International Inc. (“III”) held an event around World Food Day that promotes awareness and actions to combat world hunger and malnutrition. In collaboration with TABLE FOR TWO (“TFT”) USA, a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing both hunger and obesity through promoting Japanese food, III celebrated TFT’s annual #OnigiriAction campaign to provide 1 million school meals to children around the world with the photos of Japanese rice balls, onigiri, on social media.

The event at III’s HQ involved a presentation by President of TFT USA on its mission and various onigiri for employees to take pictures in support of the campaign. III Food Division helped more employees to join the cause through proving free giveaways of bags of Tamaki Rice, a brand of premium rice distributed in the United States by its subsidiary, ICREST International LLC.

Over 80 III employees joined the event, sampled onigiri and posted onigiri-related photos on social media or TFT’s designated website for the campaign to help the organization donate more meals to children in need.

Participation in the Bazaar at “Ikoi No Sono”, a Nursing Home for Japanese Descent in Brazil

We have been participating in the annual bazaar held at the “Ikoi no Sono”, which is a nursing home for mainly Japanese descent that opened in São Paulo in 1958. Staff and their families participate in the bazaar and operate a dumpling stall during 2 days. We purchase ingredients with donations from our employees and donate all the proceeds from the stall. This year, we were able to donate R$8,549 (approximately US$1,696).

Donation of Secondhand Clothing to Help the Homeless People

Continuing from the previous year, in July 2023, we donated secondhand winter clothing through the group that provides support for the homeless people in Guarulhos, São Paulo. In São Paulo it is cold in winter and homeless people without sufficient clothing frequently fall ill or die. We sent the clothes donated by our employees to the organization, and representative person also participated in activities to deliver supplies to homeless living areas.

Afforestation Activity at Pululahua Volcano, Quito, ECUADOR

ITOCHU Ecuador staff and their family participated in a volunteer afforestation activity, organized together with the municipality of Quito and “Mingas por el Mar”, a non-profit environmental organization. We planted 200 young native trees in a wasteland at the foot of the Pululahua volcano located in the northern area of Quito, and then cleaned up the site. We consider these trees will grow quickly and healthily to help not only the environment but also the life quality of the people living on the outskirts of the volcano. ITOCHU Ecuador will keep participating in these activities.

Support for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association

Since 2022, ITOCHU Europe has been supporting the “Name a Puppy” program and sponsoring a puppy dog that would become a potential guide dog for the blind. The name of the puppy is chosen by the employees, and following “MIRAI” last year, the puppy was named “SORA” this year. The training as a guide dog is conducted for 20 weeks from the age of one. We look forward to the day that the guide dogs we have supported become paired with someone in need of help.

Food Bank

Since 2023, ITOCHU Europe has been supporting the less fortunate in the London Borough of Hackney with the provision of food and daily supplies. We have set up a box in our office to collect donations of food and daily supplies from our employees and deliver them to the charity organization Hackney Food Bank, on a regular basis.

Providing Infrastructure to Sesame Producing Areas in Malawi

Malawi’s main industry is agriculture, and it is one of the production areas where sesame production has been increasing in recent years due to rising demand. However, Malawi is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, and improvement of the living conditions of local farmers is essential for stable production.

ITOCHU, together with Takemoto Oil & Fat Co., Ltd. has established a system to support the improvement of the country’s livelihood infrastructure through local suppliers and NGOs. As a first step, ITOCHU provided emergency vehicles and medical equipment to a newly established health center in the Chikwawa district in FYE 2023. In FYE 2024, we are constructing 9 wells to provide access to safe water. We will continue to promote our initiatives in the future.

Desert Clean Up

In October 2023, a total of 51 employees and family members from Hitachi Construction Machinery Middle East Corp. FZE and ITOCHU Middle East LLC picked up trash in the desert of Jebel Ali Industrial Area in Dubai. The organizer is a local recycling organization called “DGRADE”, and the plastic bottles collected are turned into thread and eventually clothing. It was a good opportunity to keep the desert clean and raise awareness about recycling. Collaboration with Hitachi Construction Machinery also provided a good opportunity to deepen mutual communication. We will continue to deepen our collaboration with local partners and actively engage in social contribution activities.

Tokyo Metropolitan High School Students Visited Dubai EfW Construction Site

On Wednesday, November 1, ITOCHU Corporation accepted a group of Metropolitan High School students for an inspection tour of Dubai EfW (“Energy-from-Waste” －waste treatment and power generation facility) construction site. The tour is as part of Tokyo Metropolitan Office of Education‘s multicultural overseas training program. This is the second time ITOCHU has hosted the students, following last year, and this time 23 people participated. Dubai EfW is one of the world’s largest EfW that ITOCHU has been contracted by Dubai government to construct and operate. Construction of the facility is currently underway, and when completed, it will process approximately 1.9 million tons of waste per year, or less than half of Dubai’s general waste, and generate electricity using the heat generated by the incineration process. During the visit, after an explanation of the project in the conference room, we showed them the control room of the plant, which is now partially open for business. The students asked many questions and had a lot of fun.

SDGs Photo Contest

In March 2023, the first SDGs Photo Contest was held at all of our subsidiaries in China. Employees took pictures of SDGs-related scenery in their immediate surroundings. The purpose of the contest was to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable improvement of the global environment. We received a total of more than 70 submissions, including photos depicting healthy lifestyles, the great outdoors, urban development, and environmental and ecological conservation. In addition to continuing to educate our employees on sustainability, we will continue to create opportunities like this one for employees to proactively think about sustainability and take action to raise awareness of the SDGs.

Picking up Trash along the Coast of Hualien

In June 2023, a total of 92 ITOCHU Taiwan employees and their families went to Taroko, located in Hualien County in eastern Taiwan, for the first time in several years on a company trip, and picked up trash along the coast as part of the program. Taroko is a tourist destination with a national park famous for its canyon that rises more than 1,000 meters. And the coast where the mountain stream flows out is all white and beautiful, so that is popular as a photo spot. Unfortunately, the day was cloudy, but everyone, including the children, picked up driftwood, plastic pieces, plastic bottles, and other trash that had fallen on the beach, making the trip a very rewarding experience for the employees.

Hand-stitched and Donated Baby Cuddle Pillows

33 employees of ITOCHU Korea Ltd. hand-sewed baby hugging pillows and donated 37 pillows to babies and children in facilities for unwed mothers and daycare facilities. The hug pillows are support products with the hope that the children will be able to sleep peacefully without their mothers. The request for something that could be used by children of any age led us to make hug pillows. We also packaged them individually so that they would be happy to receive them as gifts for themselves.

Support for KnK (Children Without Borders)

In 2009, the youth independence assistance facility of Kokkyo naki Kodomotachi (KnK: Children Without Borders) on the outskirts of Manila reopened after renovations with the support of ITOCHU Corporation. Since then, ITOCHU Manila Branch has been continuing to carry out activities such as participating in the Christmas party in that facility. In 2022, the party was cancelled due to the continued impact of COVID-19. Therefore, we visited to give Christmas presents (food, school supplies, etc.) on December 14.

Coaching and Support for the Bangladeshi National Baseball Team, and Interaction with Street Children

ITOCHU local expatiate supported online coaching by Yomiuri Giants coaches for the Bangladeshi national baseball team and invited them to Bangladesh to provide coaching to the team. In January 2023, The expatiate accompanied the team to the Southwest Asian Games in Pakistan as an official coach, and the team’s world baseball ranking improved from 76th to 60th. Every weekend, he coaches the national team to promote interaction with the local community. In addition, in cooperation with a local NGO, he provide advice to street children on how to improve their lives and rehabilitate them, through interaction.

Sponsored Ceremony by Town of Port Hedland

To contribute to the local community, we sponsored a ceremony by the Town of Port Hedland to confer annual Junior Sports Awards (male and female categories). The town is a shipping point for Western Australia's iron ore industry where we operate.

Donated Funds for Construction of EXPO 2025 Site

EXPO2025 OSAKA, KANSAI, JAPAN will open in April 2025. In preparation for this, ITOCHU Corporation, on behalf of ITOCHU group companies, donated funds for the construction of the Expo site in 2021. Part of the 185 billion yen (estimated at the time) budget for the construction was covered by the ITOCHU Group's donation. In 2022, ITOCHU was entrusted by Japan Association for the 2025 World Exposition, the organizer of the Expo, with the task of managing the official logo, characters, and other items licensed by the association, and is promoting activities that will help build momentum for the Expo throughout Japan, particularly in the Kansai region.

Picture Book Delivery Project

The Chubu Branch participates in the “Picture Book Delivery Project” through ITOCHU Foundation. This is an activity to deliver Japanese picture books with local language translation stickers attached to countries and regions where picture books are in short supply, such as Laos and Myanmar. In FYE 2024, a total of 17 employees participated and donated a total of 36 picture books. We will continue this activity to “bring smiles to children” from Nagoya to the world.

Cleanup around Nagoya ITOCHU Building

Once a year, we clean up around our branch building as part of our beautification activities. In FYE 2024, our cleanup was on January 11. A total of 22 people were divided into 2 groups and collected garbage around the building. Thanks to the daily beautification activities by local residents, the amount of garbage around the building seems to be decreasing year by year.

Hiroshima Men’s Ekiden Relay Race Cleanup Volunteers

In January 2024, 45 people from 13 Group companies donned ITOCHU blue caps and worked hard to clean up the area around Peace Memorial Park while also cheering on the athletes.

G7 Summit Cleanup Volunteers

From April to May 2023, we took a lunch break to conduct cleanup activities in anticipation of G7 Hiroshima Summit. Unlike regular cleanup, we were also able to take a commemorative photo in front of Peace Memorial Park.

Clean Ota River

In July 2023, we participated in the annual Clean Ota River. We and our families worked up a refreshing sweat from early in the morning.

Picture Book Delivery Project

Since 2020, we have been sending picture books to children in areas where they cannot get enough of them. In April 2021, we donated 20 picture books to a Myanmar refugee camp. In April 2022, we donated 20 picture books to Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
We recognized anew that although these are all countries in the same Indochina region which touch each other, they use different lettering and words. We also learned the reality that picture books are a novelty for children in some regions. We would like to continue our heartfelt activities to provide information to children around the world in the future.

Career Education

On October 7, 2021, we helped with a career research and learning project for first-year students at Hokkaido Sapporo Nishi High School. Four students visited our offices that day. After an introduction to the company, the high school students gave presentations about lessons that the Hokkaido Branch had assigned them beforehand. The Branch Manager and two other employees gave the students feedback. In addition to learning more about the world of work and gaining a professional perspective, the high schoolers got to watch and hear from actual working people. This provided a wonderful opportunity to really know how work shapes society.

Eco-cap Campaign

Tohoku Branch endorses the activities of the Japan Committee, Vaccines for the World’s Children certified NPO and is involved in the Eco-cap Campaign to collect PET bottle caps.
This office with 9 branch employees and 6 group company employees took three years to finally reach its target of collecting 10 kilograms in PET bottle caps. The work to sort the collected caps also leads to employment support because it is performed by people in social welfare facilities. This is not a glamorous activity. Nevertheless, we will continue this activity which may lead to people’s happiness by sorting discarded PET bottle containers and collecting caps.

Campaign to Provide Picture Books

We are participating in an activity to provide picture books to Southeast Asia where many children do not know about books through the ITOCHU Foundation. We cut out and paste stickers printed with translations into the recipient’s language to picture books written in Japanese. We provided children in a Myanmar refugee camp and Laos with such picture books this year. We will continue to carry out this activity in the future.

Food Sorting Volunteers at a Food Bank

The employees of Tohoku Branch have been participating as food sorting volunteers at the Miyagi Cooperative Food Bank on an ongoing basis since 2017. The Food Bank conducts its activities with the aim of promoting the creation of a community where everyone can live with peace of mind by reducing food loss and making effective use of foods that can be eaten. Branch employees worked to sort the food collected at the food bank by item and best-before date. We have been unable to actively participate in the activities of the food bank due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, we are aiming to continue participating in volunteer activities.