Management Message
Leveraging the Asahi Kasei way for true sustainability
Contributing to solutions for societal challenges
For over a century since our founding in 1922, the Asahi Kasei Group has created a variety of businesses and products to meet the world’s needs. While society has certainly advanced during this period, challenges unfortunately continue to mount up in the world. As well as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, anywhere in the world can hold geopolitical risks that are a cause for concern. It is also becoming more difficult to forecast economic conditions, such as interest and exchange rates, and the market value of resources. The social and economic outlook is uncertain and unpredictable.
However, despite this environment, our company’s aims remain the same. Under our Group Mission to contribute to life and living for people around the world, we will work to solve various societal issues by understanding the world’s needs and seeking to interconnect both our “contributing to sustainable society” and “sustainable growth of corporate value” together in a mutually reinforcing cycle.
Striving to discover the essence
One of the world's most significant challenges is climate change, including global warming. Although recognized as an issue, the seriousness of climate change is increasing year by year. To address this issue, we are taking a two-pronged approach, which is to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in our own business activities and contribute to reducing GHG emissions in society.
To reduce GHG emissions in our own business activities, we are reducing energy use, decarbonizing energy, innovating production processes, and reviewing our business portfolio. Although we emit a considerable amount of GHGs in our business activities, particularly due to the nature of the Material sector, our aim is to become carbon neutral by 2050 to help achieve a sustainable society.
We contribute to reducing GHG emissions in society through our Environmental Contribution Products. Compared to standard products on the market, these are products and services that reduce GHG emissions and mitigate other environmental burdens along their overall lifecycle. With these Environmental Contribution Products, we aim to more than double our GHG reduction contribution in fiscal 2030 compared to fiscal 2020. With discussions now being held at government GX conferences on the importance of contributing to GHG reduction, as a company that has taken the lead in this area, we will continue to focus on our contribution to reducing GHG emissions in society. Of course, we will actively promote the development of new technologies and products, in addition to uncovering the value of existing products from the perspective of reducing GHG emissions.
We believe that the important thing in doing so is to strive to discover the essence of an issue. It means that we must have a strong desire to create something of value in the marketplace, and determine what are the intrinsic challenges we need to tackle for a sustainable society. For example, while plastic plays an important role in people's lives, marine plastic and microplastics have now become a major issue. There are also differences in the importance of plastic between developed countries, where goods are well distributed, and developing countries, where living standards need to be raised. In this context, how should plastic be positioned in society, what parts of the value chain should be changed to solve the problems of marine plastics and microplastics, and what can we contribute as a materials manufacturer? We believe it is important to prescribe a time frame for action while determining matters like these. In the future, we are going to be a society that recycles and reduces even more. In other words, we will place importance on an approach that continually asks the essential questions, such as what plastics should look like in 2050, and what we should do over what time frame when backcasting from the desired future end-point.
Sticking with the Asahi Kasei way
Besides discovering the essence, another important thing is the Asahi Kasei way. We are pursuing sustainability under the concept of “Care for People, Care for Earth” as our vision for 2050. For example, in the homes business, in relation to “Care for People,” we are actively expanding into North America and Australia based on the know-how and strengths we have honed in the contract-based housing business (Hebel Haus) in Japan. In the healthcare business, while there are a variety of growth strategy options, in the pharmaceutical business, we have decided to focus on specific fields with relatively low risk, based on our existing development areas and business model.
In alkaline water electrolysis systems for hydrogen production, which is one of the key businesses in “Care for Earth,” we are leveraging our knowledge gained over many years in the ion-exchange membranes business. We are also developing the catalyst technology we have cultivated in the petrochemicals business for CO2 chemistry which utilizes CO2 as a raw material for chemicals. In other words, though we have the potential to contribute in a variety of ways through our diverse businesses and technologies, in a society facing myriad challenges we will focus on sector areas, businesses, and business models that best demonstrate the Asahi Kasei way. The Asahi Kasei way cannot be expressed in a single word, but is something that we should think about according to the situation. Nevertheless, we believe that we can propose valuable solutions to achieve a sustainable society by sticking with the Asahi Kasei way.
Leveraging diversity
One feature of the Asahi Kasei way is diversity. Our company is made up of a diverse workforce that operates a wide range of businesses worldwide in the three areas of “Material,” “Homes,” and “Health Care.” Since human capital is a source of wisdom and action toward realizing a sustainable society, it is important that we work to enhance diversity as a strength, not simply as a characteristic of our company. Therefore, we believe it is important to develop various systems that let a diverse workforce play an active role, as well as to create an environment and workplace culture in which individual employees are comfortable conversing and consulting with each other. Equally important is team building. From my own experience, I believe that a group of personalities can often make a strong team. Each member's role should be clear and his or her place in the group should be distinct. In addition, the members should be able to function as a team, expressing their individuality while engaging in friendly competition. To this end, it is important for managers to share their ideas with their teams based on the group-wide policy, so I always say in the office, “Managers should speak in their own words to subordinates.” We will create value by realizing our diversity as a strength.
Making steady progress toward a sustainable society
None of the societal issues facing the world today can be solved overnight. Therefore, it is essential that we take on medium- to long-term challenges, and we will contribute to solving social issues in ways typical of the Asahi Kasei way by realizing the A-Spirit in our heritage, which includes ambitious motivation, a healthy sense of urgency, speed and decisiveness, and an enterprising spirit. We are up to the challenge of balancing both growth and stability as a company that combines Material, Homes, and Health Care.
As we have done for the past 100 years since our founding, we will always face societal issues head-on in our aim to earn the trust of our stakeholders and continue creating innovative technologies and businesses that are valuable to society.
President
Koshiro Kudo