Message from the Director in Charge of Sustainability

Progressing Activities to Promote Sustainability

At the MEDIPAL Group, we believe that our business activities contribute to the realization of a sustainable society by supporting distribution in the Pharmaceuticals, Health, and Beauty fields. In October 2022, we released our Sustainability Policy, material sustainability tasks (materiality), and medium-to-long-term targets, which engage the entire Group in the drive to realize a sustainable society and boost corporate value, in line with our management philosophy. Now, we are finally moving on to the execution phase. For materiality, we have set KPIs for all tasks including medium-to-long-term targets. We are working together with all companies in the Group and providing regular progress reports to the CSR Committee.
The key points in the MEDIPAL Group’s Medium-Term Vision are the growth strategy and the human resources and financial strategies that underpin this growth strategy. For the human resources strategy, we have set up a specialized department that is taking on the extremely important role of determining how to link and are working to ensure our human resources strategy links with the business portfolio prioritizations.

Promotion of Diversity and Inclusion

To promote diversity and inclusion, we have set a target of at least 20% of managerial positions being filled by women by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2031. At present, we still only have just under 8% of managerial roles filled by women, and we need to take decisive action to reach our target. Our first priority is to change attitudes at the management level. We held an executive seminar on diversity and inclusion with a focus on promoting women’s workplace participation, targeting around 100 management personnel in the MEDIPAL Group including those on the Board of Directors. The managers then took this learning back to their companies and created opportunities for training sessions across the organization. We also ran an internal panel discussion with five panelists, including three outside directors and outside Audit & Supervisory Board members, to discuss women’s activity in the MEDIPAL Group. Through these activities, we are working to further the understanding of every individual employee. I think the promotion of diversity and inclusion represents a unique opportunity to foster a creative corporate culture at the MEDIPAL Group. We are taking an approach often described as sottaku in Japanese that involves small, deliberate actions to achieve a larger goal. We aim to foster a corporate culture where those who seek to learn and those who guide and teach can work in harmony, enabling each individual to shine with bright personalities.

Initiatives for Decarbonization

As a company working in distribution, the MEDIPAL Group is focusing on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our main activities involve working with customers to build new optimized pharmaceutical distribution models or introduce EVs, and switching to eco-friendly electric power. We are moving rapidly to install solar panels, increase the number of EV charging stations, and take other steps in order to reach our target of a 50% reduction in emissions by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2031 compared with the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021 and carbon neutrality by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2051.

Governance Initiatives

We are working to ensure sound and transparent corporate management by developing governance systems at each Group company that suit the company’s size and business, rather than taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach. The Board of Directors has engaged in multiple rounds of wide-ranging discussions to deepen governance while we work through the business portfolio prioritizations. We will continue our deep dive into governance matters as we work to develop more effective systems.

Creating a Future that is Healthier and Brighter for Everyone

We recognize that our efforts to promote sustainability management over the past few years have evolved from being mere formalities to include more substantial content, becoming increasingly significant for the MEDIPAL Group. To promote sustainability management even further, I think it will be important for every single employee to carefully consider what they can do as part of the Group to address social issues and to be proactive with a sense of ownership as we work towards resolving these issues.