The business activities of the TEPCO Group are supported by local communities. As a member of these communities, we contribute to their development by collaborating with local residents and sponsoring activities related to local safety, education support, welfare, and culture.
We organize and sponsor producer-consumer exchange activities to promote mutual understanding between communities where our nuclear power plants are located (electricity producing regions), such as Fukushima Prefecture, Niigata Prefecture, and Aomori Prefecture (under construction preparation), and the Tokyo metropolitan area, a major electricity consuming region.
For example, in the Tokyo metropolitan area, we sponsor special campaign events that introduce local tourist attractions and specialties of these electricity producing regions, publicize the regions through active use of television, radio, and other mass media, and hold face-to-face exchange events that bring together our regional TEPCO offices and customers.
We hold a "Home of Electricity" exchange event every year with the aim of communicating the importance of global environmental issues and energy conservation, and to promote exchanges between energy producing and consuming regions through sales of local specialty products from Fukushima and Niigata Prefectures, where our nuclear power plants are located, and introduction of folk crafts and tourist attractions in those regions. The event is held every late October in the Shinjuku Station West Exit Plaza.
"Home of Electricity" exchange event
We sponsor a TV program, which features topics related to foods produced in Aomori Prefecture. It includes interviews with producers and introductions of restaurants in Tokyo that use those local food ingredients.
(BS Fuji: Saturdays 9:54 - 10:00 pm)
As a member of various local communities, the TEPCO Group takes an active part in promoting local safety.
TEPCO's Utsunomiya Branch hosts a conference called "11 Municipalities and TEPCO Disaster Prevention Summit" to discuss disaster responses and preliminary countermeasures with municipalities in the region it serves. The branch office launched this initiative based on the awareness that cooperation among local communities, government offices, and private companies is indispensable when faced with a large-scale disaster.
The Road Supporters initiative is a public-private cooperation framework born from the conference. All staff members of the Utsunomiya Branch Office act as "road supporters" and help prevent traffic accidents by always carrying with them a "supporter card" listing contact offices in each municipality and promptly reporting any dangerous areas they discover to the relevant office.
Prompt communication of danger areas to relevant municipal contact offices
We collaborate with various local organizations to ensure safe and secure usage of electricity. TEPCO's Fuji Branch visits the homes of elderly people living alone and performs a safety inspection of electric facilities (insulation inspection, voltage measurement, confirmation of terminals and other parts, etc.) at the request of the Shibakawa Town Fire Department in Fujinomiya City. Many customers expressed their appreciation of the service, saying that it has relieved them of worries about electricity in their homes.
Wiring diagnosis for fire prevention (photo provided by Gakunan Asahi Newspaper)
The TEPCO Group utilizes the knowledge it has cultivated through its business activities to help promote the development and training of people who will support local communities in the future.
Food education is an important part of our social contribution activities in local communities. In FY2009, we held TEPCO Food Classes on 28 different occasions, and provided cooking lessons from the environment and energy perspective.
We also make ongoing efforts to provide food information, such as by creating and distributing "Paku-paku Recipes," a booklet containing a collection of vegetable-based recipes for elementary school children, and producing a CD of recipes that junior school teachers could use as supplementary teaching material in home economics cooking classes at school.
"Paku-paku Recipes"
Science and technology play an indispensable role in our lives and in the development of industries. TEPCO, as a company that is deeply related to science and technology by producing energy and delivering electricity to customers, has held a Science Grand Prix since FY1995, with the desire to contribute to science education for the next generation.
Science Grand Prix is a contest of independent science projects for elementary and junior high school students in Tokyo and the eight prefectures that make up the TEPCO service area. It is held annually under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, prefectural boards of education, and national elementary and junior high school science education councils.
We hope that the contest will encourage children to become more aware of various phenomena and occurrences in their daily lives, and will deepen their interest in science by pursuing those phenomena through experiments and observation. We will continue to host the contest in the future, to foster a spirit of technical innovation among children who will lead the 21st century.
Science Grand Prix
TEPCO's Koto Branch takes an active part in "Waku-waku Week Tokyo," an event sponsored by Tokyo Prefecture for junior high school students. In cooperation with the boards of education of Tokyo and Koto Ward, we provide lectures on energy to students in the region, as well as offer hands-on experience in TEPCO's electricity meter-reading activities, cooking using IH cooking heaters, and riding a maintenance vehicle used for work in high places.
Through such work experiences in actual working environments, we aim to foster social skills and work values in children. On the last day of the event, we present a certificate of completion to each participant.
Work experience event
TEPCO Partners Co., Inc., a member of the TEPCO Group, applies the expertise it has cultivated in the field of nursing services to promoting awareness of the unavoidable issue of nursing care. It arranges student visits to elderly daycare facilities and otherwise provides elementary and junior high school students various opportunities to interact with senior citizens and to experience work at nursing homes. It also teaches people about basic nursing care that would be useful to know should the need arise. These initiatives contribute to creating communities where people can age comfortably, safe in the knowledge that the issue of nursing care is supported by the entire community.
Visits to elderly daycare facilities by elementary school students
Nursing care training
TEPCO Partners Co., Inc. : www.tepco-partners.co.jp (Japanese only)
Toden-Life Support Co., Ltd. operates private nursing homes and provides use of the homes as a place for practical training to students studying welfare at the Tokyo Metropolitan Eifuku Gakuen School, a school for students with special needs.
Every year since FY2008, the company has provided a 3-day employment experience to first grade students and a 2-week employment experience to second grade students of the school at its nursing homes, to set an example to other nursing service businesses and promote their employment of handicapped students.
Through exchanges of views with the teachers of the school, Toden-Life Support tries to provide the best possible assistance and guidance program in response to the needs of the students.
A trainee from Eifuku Gakuen School interacting with a nursing home resident
Toden-Life Support Co., Ltd. : www.toden-lifesupport.co.jp (Japanese only)
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited (JNFL), a member of the TEPCO Group, offers monthly Nuclear Fuel Eco Schools to local residents, to provide information on the mechanism and safety of radiation.
To facilitate proper understanding of radiation, a topic that few people are exposed to in their daily lives, Nuclear Fuel Eco Schools are held in combination with various types of culture classes. Participants' evaluations of the Nuclear Fuel Eco School have shown that the school has had a large impact on them, with many participants noting that it has dispelled the negative image they originally had of radiation and turned it to a positive image based on proper knowledge.
Part 1: Nuclear Fuel Eco School lecture on "radiation around us"
Part 2: Culture school lesson
Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited : www.jnfl.co.jp/english/index-html
The TEPCO Group contributes to society through collaborative initiatives with local communities and organizations.
Office Chonai-kai (Office Neighborhood Association) is an environmental NPO, which engages in the Morino Chonai-kai (Forest Neighborhood Association) initiative to promote proper forest thinning. By encouraging member companies to use "forest thinning support paper," which costs 10% more than conventional paper, and contributing that 10% to promoting forest thinning, the initiative aims to achieve an economic balance between forest thinning and the utilization of products made from thinned trees.
In April 2010, the Kanagawa Prefecture Corporate Agency and the environmental NPO Morino Chonai-kai jointly launched the Kanagawa Morino Chonai-kai initiative at the proposal of TEPCO's Kanagawa Branch.
The Kanagawa Branch provides lateral support in inviting local companies to become supporters, and works closely with the prefecture and NPO to promote the growth of healthy forests in Kanagawa.
Kanagawa Morino Chonai-kai
Morino Chonai-kai logo
Morino Chonai-kai: www.mori-cho.org/index-en.html
At all offices of TEPCO Group companies, staff members collectively participate in the beautification and cleanup of their communities, such as around train stations, public streets, and even river basins, as members of their local community.
The TEPCO Group will continue to do its part in creating beautiful cityscapes in cooperation with local residents.
Members of TEPCO's Toukatsu Branch cleaning a road lined with cherry blossom trees
© Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc.
