Introduction

To be a Group that solves social issues in a wide range of fields through our business activities

Looking back on the term

From a sustainability perspective, there are many things we have worked on, which have resulted in two major changes.

First, orders for products that contribute to the achievement of our Sustainable Development Goals, such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions food waste reduction, and pharmaceutical emissions , have increased.　While this has been a long-standing initiative, I feel that the growth of these product groups as a percentage of total orders received this fiscal year was remarkable.

The second is the introduction of an employee incentive plan (RS Trust) for all employees of the Company.  We had previously introduced a stock compensation plan for directors and executive officers, but by introducing an incentive plan for employees as well, we hope to further raise their awareness of the need to improve our business performance and corporate value.

Medium- to long-term social issues related to the Group

One of our strategic objectives is to be carbon neutral by 2050. For industries, such as our Group, that use ferrous materials, we believe that the key to achieving carbon neutrality lies not only in our own efforts but also in those of our entire supply chain.  Although the road to achieving this goal will be difficult, we will continue to partner with our suppliers to work on continuous improvement in this area. 

In addition to carbon neutrality, we believe that our Group can contribute in a wide range of other areas through our business activities. Powder technology is used in a broad variety of product fields, including batteries, food products, and building materials (particleboard), to name just a few familiar examples.

Furthermore, we are also focusing on the maintenance service business, to further increase the long-term use of our Group's products which helps to avoid resource depletion and reduce waste.

Fostering Human Resources to Solve Environmental and Social Issues

Since our Group maintains approximately 200 types of production equipment in Japan and the types of raw materials for which powder technology is used amount to about 1,200 different types , expertise and experience are required for their use and handling. In the past, work tended to be assigned to a specific person, posing a challenge for systematic training of employees. Recently, we created a system of creating and archiving various training programs , that allows employees to learn independently and at their own pace. 

In addition, over the past 40 years, we have established our own "Special Professionals System," which provides incentives for learning and encourages employees to submit "reports" on the results of their self-improvement.

The number of "reports" submitted to us is about 70 per year. The content is not limited to our products and technologies, but also includes human resource strategies, health and safety management initiatives.  The directors read the reports and commend the best ones. In addition, past "reports" are archived so that employees can access them at any time, which provides them with access to a library which contains a broad range of knowledge.

Thoughts on Corporate Governance

We emphasize the following two key points to make governance work.

The first is diversity in terms of age, ethnicity and gender.  I feel that it is meaningful to have candid opinions from each perspective.

Although the Group has four major bases in Europe and the United States, the top management of each company is not Japanese. As a result of respecting the history of each company, we practice "fusion management" to ensure diversity.

The second is the establishment of appropriate issues based on the Company's situation. For example, we believe that governance is inadequate if there is no discussion on how to respond to unforeseen events in order to minimize the impact on society, shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders.

Finally

In promoting sustainability management, we believe that the most important thing is to solve social issues through our business activities.

To this end, it is essential for each employee to implement innovation through his/her daily activities with an emphasis on our continuing leading edge technological development.  We believe it is important to think about what we can do by our own initiative , without waiting for requests from customers.

Our Group will continue to provide products that contribute to solving various social issues faced by our customers.

Representative Director, President
Chief Executive Officer

Kohei HOSOKAWA