France

ATOFINA Vice President Jean-Bernard Lartigue remains firmly committed to Japan and environmental protection.

ATOFINA is the world's fifth largest chemical company, born out of the friendly merger of Total Fina and Elf Aquitaine two years ago. It is the wholly owned chemical subsidiary of TotalFinaElf, the world's fourth largest oil group. The company is number one worldwide in sulphur chemicals and engineering polymers; holds positions number two and three in polypropylene, hydrogen peroxide, resins and adhesives; and is number four in polystyrene.

"We could be number 10 in the world for chemicals, as long as we are number one in the segments in which we participate," says Jean-Bernard Lartigue, executive vice-president for ATOFINA, and Chairman and CEO of ATOFINA's rubber subsidiary, Hutchinson.

The company has achieved worldwide standing through extensive research and development. "We spend the same amount of money on research as the leaders in the chemical industry. We don't cut research to save money because research is a long term issue," Lartigue adds.

ATOFINA, along with its parent company TotalFinaElf, has a long-standing commitment to sustainable development. It was one of the first companies -- in fact the first in Europe -- to produce CFC substitutes that did not harm the ozone layer.

Today, it is the world leader in fluorocarbons, albeit with a clear conscience. The company states that its policy of sustainable development is the essence of what they believe in: profit and progress while being gentle to the planet.

Unlike some other chemical and oil companies, ATOFINA and TotalFinaElf are totally forthcoming when speaking of their sustainable development policy: "When we say we will do something, we do it. The commitment to the environment and having actions in place to protect it is more important than getting front-page coverage about it," Lartigue states.

That commitment is actually a company-wide policy, starting from very top with Thierry Desmaret, chairman and CEO of TotalFinaElf, who with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about the subject last May.

In some of its Japanese operations, ATOFINA remains the 100-percent owner -- a sign of how well the organization has integrated into local markets. "We have joint ventures with Japanese companies outside of Japan," Lartigue comments on the company's Franco-Japanese cooperation, "and our relationship with them is excellent. We need to accept and respect each other's culture, in order to work well together. We are different, and these differences are what make the end product better."

"Japan has to be handled by itself, and not just as part of Asia," he adds. "Japan is large, high-quality, innovative and market-leading. We have our technical service center in Kyoto because if we want to understand what is happening in Japan we have to be there. You can not learn this from a laboratory in France."

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