Management policy
artience group 's Brand Promise and Philosophy System
Management plan
artience2027/2030 “GROWTH”
artience group has set a management plan artience2027/2030 "GROWTH" with the goal of 2030. Throughout the period from January 2024 to December 2029, we will work to transform our business portfolio, maximize capital efficiency and cash flow, build a corporate foundation, and engage in sustainability management, thereby contributing to the realization of a society where people can live fulfilling lives.
Medium-Term Management Plan artience2027
- Background of Formulation
- Medium-Term Management Plan artience2027
- artience2027 Basic Policy
- Capital policies
Formulation of the New Medium-Term Management Plan "artience 2027"(PDF: 626KB)
Medium-Term Management Plan artience2027/2030(PDF:1,611KB)
Notice Regarding Development of New Medium-Term Management Plan artience 2027（PDF：598KB）
Medium-Term Management Plan artience 2027/2030（PDF：1,611KB）
1. Background of Formulation
Under the previous medium-term management plan, the Company made some progress in activities for future growth, including the launch of a business of carbon nanotube (CNT) dispersions for lithium-ion batteries (LiB), amid significant changes in circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, rapid price hikes of raw materials and the prolongation of the Ukraine conflict. Meanwhile, some shortfalls in financial results and in the business foundation remained, such as the earnings capacity of existing businesses and cash flows.
Under these conditions, the Company changed its name to artience Co., Ltd. and developed a new medium-term management plan with a view to offering value that resonates with the senses in response to changes in value sought by society and to become a company that helps build enriched and sustainable societies.
To place the Group on a growth track and show its presence in the market, the Company will carry out reforms with a strong determination in the primary pursuit of GROWTH.
2. Medium-Term Management Plan artience2027
The Plan sets a target of reaching a Group return on equity (ROE) of at least 10% by the fiscal year ending December 31, 2029. It also sets an interim ROE target of 7.0% or more in the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026. Numerical targets include a net sales target of 400 billion yen and operating profit target of 25 billion yen for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2026.
The Plan specifies three key management issues: business portfolio transformation, maximizing capital efficiency and cash flow, and establishment of corporate foundations and sustainability management practices.
3. artience2027 Basic Policy
The Plan has three basic policies mentioned below. The Company aims to accomplish its business portfolio transformation by following both policies 1 and 2.
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| Basic Policy 2 |
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Basic Policy 1: Transforming of existing businesses groups into highly profitable ones
(Net sales of 305 billion yen and operating profit of 14 billion yen for FY2026)
We will classify our existing businesses into growth business, stable earnings base business, and business of restructuring and rebuilding strategy, and aim to increase profitability by promoting reforms, including product and market portfolio transformations.
- Achieve high profitability through growth especially in the area of packaging, such as liquid inks, pressure sensitive adhesives and laminating adhesives.
- Capture growth in the global markets, with particular focus on the Asia (Southeast Asia and India).
Basic Policy 2: Creation of strategic priority businesses
(Net sales of 95 billion yen and operating profit of 11 billion yen for FY2026)
The Company will allocate the Group’s resources to two areas strategically to create new bases of earnings.
Business portfolio transformation with basic policy 1 & 2
- Expand business in global and other growth markets (overseas sales ratio: 53.7% in FY23 → 60% or more in FY26)
- Create a pillar of earnings in strategic, high priority business groups (strategic, high priority business groups to exceed 40% of total company operating profit)
Basic Policy 3: Reform of business foundation
The Company will review its conventional ways of working and carrying out its duties from scratch and will boldly introduce new ways to create an attractive organization and culture with vigor and discipline as well as sternness. We will put particular emphasis on human resources and culture and on cash since they are starting points of the transformation.
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| S | Reforms of personnel, culture and organization
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Information/DX |
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Technology & intellectual property |
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- Create an attractive organization and a culture with vigor and discipline as well as sternness.
- Increase productivity and create value with the use of digital technologies and AI.
- Meet social responsibility based on asv2050/2030.
- Construct an artience brand based on the new philosophy system.
4. Capital policies
1. Actions to realize management with an awareness of capital costs and share price
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Business portfolio transformation |
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Increase capital efficiency |
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Capital policies |
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Efforts to lower capital costs |
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2. Investment plan and cash allocations
With a view towards medium- and long-term growth based on the basic policies, the Company is planning to positively invest around 60 billion yen in total, exceeding the amount of investment of 46.8 billion yen under the previous medium-term management plan. The total amount consists of around 30 billion yen to be invested mainly in existing businesses and another 30 billion yen or so in the business of CNT dispersions for LiB.
While prioritizing these investments for the future, the Company will also positively consider paying shareholder returns.
Allocation of capital investment plan
Cash allocation
3. Shareholder return policy
Value Creation Model
The Group works to provide value through products and services created through its business activities, with the aim of sustainable growth of the Group and society. We recognize and understand the many different social and environmental issues around the world. We will continue, without interruption, our business model of creating ways to help solve these issues in collaboration with our partners by demonstrating the Group’s technological strengths. As a company that delivers pioneering value using leading-edge technology to people around the world, we will push forward the upward spiral of the value creation process.
(From Integrated Report 2024)
Sustainability Vision
asv2050/2030
artience group implements our group's CSR/sustainability activities in order to respond to recent global trends in climate change response, carbon neutrality, and SDGs initiatives, as well as to the social situation where demands on companies are becoming more active. In January 2022, we formulated the sustainability vision "ASV2050/2030" as a long-term goal (renamed from TSV2050/2030 in January 2024).
The sustainability vision "ASV2050/2030" consists of two parts: "ASV2050", which sets 2050 as the target year, and "ASV2030", which sets 2030 as the milestone year.
ASV2050 is a basic vision for promoting various sustainability activities centered on the goal of ``achieving carbon neutrality in 2050,'' which our group declared in its previous medium-term management plan (2021-2023). On the other hand, ASV2030 is a milestone on the timeline of ASV2050, and promotes the contribution of the corporate group to the achievement of the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) proposed by the United Nations with 2030 as the target year. This is an intermediate goal.
ASV2050/2030, which consists of these two goals, is the direction of our group's value provision: ``Providing products and services that realize a sustainable society,'' ``Reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing,'' and ``A trusted corporate foundation.'' It consists of three pillars: 1. Establishment of a 100% sustainable society, and serves as the basis for all of our group's CSR, sustainability, and ESG initiatives.
1. Providing products and services that realize a sustainable society
| asv2030 | asv2050 |
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1-1. Make all products sustainability-contributing products
artience group has been working to improve the environmental friendliness of its products from an early stage, and has released a variety of environmentally-friendly products to the world since the 1990s. In recent years, our group's product development has not only focused on such "environmental value," but also on aspects such as the comfort of people's lives, health and welfare, and safety and security. We are launching a diverse group of products that can contribute to improving the sustainability of society (life value).
Therefore, in line with the formulation of ASV2050/2030, we added the standard for "products with living value" to the conventional standards for environmentally-friendly products, and redefined them as "artience group Sustainability Contributing Products." By expanding this definition, we have created a variety of lifestyle value products, including digital-related materials for IoT and high-speed communications, sensor materials (safety of autonomous driving, comfort of living environments), and bio-medical-related materials (medical care, drug discovery, and healthcare). A product group with functions and features will be added.
Our group aims to increase the sales composition ratio of these sustainability-contributing products to 100% of the group's sales in Japan and overseas by 2050, and as an intermediate step, we aim to increase the sales composition ratio to 80% by 2030. Our quantitative goals are to achieve these goals.
| Value provided | Direction | keyword | Examples of initiatives |
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| environmental value | Containers and packaging area | reduce | Reduction/replacement of petroleum raw material ratio (biomass, water-based based, UV/EB) |
| Realizing a society that coexists with the environment | replace | Simplification of product composition, replacement with paper (biodegradable materials, functional coatings) | |
| recycling | Development of materials and systems that support plastic circulation (materials and systems that support horizontal recycling) | ||
| Mobility/Energy field | EVization of transportation | Proposal and advance development of materials/technologies that contribute to the acceleration of EVs (LiB materials, thermal control components) | |
| Clean energy/new energy | Development and material proposals for new environmentally friendly power generation systems | ||
| carbon recycling | Challenge to CCUS (CO 2 capture, effective utilization and storage) technology, utilization of CO 2 derived raw materials | ||
| life value | Medical/Healthcare field | Prevention/diagnosis | Development of diagnostic materials and systems that lead to early detection and prevention of diseases and reduction of morbidity risk |
| Realizing a comfortable, healthy, and safe society | treatment | Development of pharmaceuticals and medical materials that contribute to advanced treatment and self-care | |
| safe and secure | Providing safe and secure products that have no effect on living organisms (products that do not contain harmful substances) | ||
| Communication/electronics/digital area | High speed/large capacity communication | Development of next-generation materials that support photonics, high-speed large-capacity transmission, and high-speed calculations | |
| advanced sensing | Providing key materials to realize a sensor society and a society connected by IoT | ||
| big data | Taking on the challenge of technology that will lead to the realization of a convenient society through the use of data | ||
1-2. Contributing to customers' decarbonization
Another goal, ``Contribute to customers' decarbonization,'' is a commitment to customer companies that, like artience group, are aiming for low carbonization, decarbonization, and reduction of CO 2 emissions. Looking at the products sold by our group, which is a BtoB materials manufacturer, from an overview of the product life cycle or supply chain, we see that our group is located upstream in the supply chain from the customer's perspective, and our group's production activities and corporate activities The CO 2 emissions caused by this have a large impact on the CO 2 emissions for customers, especially the CO 2 emissions related to raw materials (Scope 3 Category 1).
In order to support and cooperate with our customers in their efforts to achieve low carbonization, decarbonization, and carbon neutrality as a supplier, our group is working to reduce CO2 emissions from the products themselves (selecting low-carbon raw materials, energy use during production, etc.). (e.g., lower carbon emissions, etc.), product development takes into consideration factors such as improved transportation efficiency and lower carbon emissions, reduction of energy and fuel during product manufacturing on the customer side, and ease of recycling when disposing of the product on the consumer side. We will promote the reduction of CO 2 emissions throughout the supply chain.
2. Reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing
| asv2030 | asv2050 |
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2-1. Reduce CO 2 emissions from production activities to virtually zero and minimize environmental impact
Since artience group launched the "CO 2 Reduction Project" in 2010, we have been working to reduce CO 2 at our domestic and overseas production sites. In fiscal 2018, we established new medium- to long-term environmental goals, which aim to reduce domestic CO 2 emissions by 26% by fiscal 2030 (compared to fiscal 2013), and which are based on scientific backing. Through casting, intermediate target values were set for the final year of the medium-term management plan every three years.
Through comprehensive reforms aimed at achieving our goals, we achieved domestic CO 2 emissions in fiscal 2020 of 76,843t-CO 2, far below the fiscal 2026 target of 78,600t-CO 2. Therefore, in fiscal 2021, we declared "achieving carbon neutrality in fiscal 2050" as a more stringent goal, and this became the central goal when formulating ASV2050/2030.
The milestone ASV2030 sets domestic CO 2 emissions at 50,000t-CO 2, a 35% reduction compared to FY 2020 (50% reduction compared to FY 2013). To achieve this, we will take various measures in three areas: reducing energy consumption, reducing carbon emissions from energy, and reducing carbon emissions from electricity. We are also preparing carbon offsets through emissions trading as one of our cards, and are also considering negative emissions (initiatives to make emissions negative) for the future.
| Direction of measures | Example of measures |
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| Reduce energy usage | Energy saving (elimination of energy loss during the process), production process reform from an energy saving perspective |
| Low carbon energy | Preparation and investigation for electrification of production equipment (reducing direct emissions) and utilization of LNG alternative fuels |
| Low-carbon electricity | Introduction of low-carbon electricity and renewable energy equipment |
| carbon offset | Offsetting emissions through emissions trading |
| negative emissions | Preparation and research for technology development and utilization such as CCUS |
On the other hand, we have set CO 2 emissions at our overseas bases, where we aim to grow and expand our business in the future, to 95,000 t-CO 2, a 35% reduction compared to the 2030 BAU*. Overseas, the ratio of indirect emissions is higher than in Japan (the energy mix has shifted to electricity rather than fuel), so we will promote measures centered on reducing the carbon emissions of electricity.
- BAU ratio: Comparison with emissions if no measures were taken to address the increase in CO2 emissions associated with business growth (Business as usual)
2-2. Minimize waste generation
Since the 1970s, when the Waste Management and Public Cleansing Law (Waste Management and Public Cleansing Law) was enacted in Japan, artience group has been promoting the reduction and recycling of waste in our business activities, and reducing the amount of waste generated. We have strived to reduce emissions and achieve zero emissions* at all business locations.
In fiscal 2020, domestic waste discharged externally* was 10,822 tons, of which the top three types accounted for approximately 80%: 55% waste oil, 12% waste plastic, and 10% wastewater. By focusing on these and implementing effective measures, we will reduce external waste emissions by 50% by 2030 compared to 2020.
Breakdown of waste (domestic 2020)
Our group is a chemical manufacturer, and as long as we continue to expand our production activities, the generation of waste will be inevitable. However, we aim to minimize the amount of waste discharged externally by developing production processes that generate less waste, examining waste treatment methods, promoting resource circulation such as reuse and recycling, and sharing waste reduction know-how globally. I am.
- Zero emissions: Our group defines the final disposal amount of waste at business sites as 1% or less of the amount of waste generated. In fiscal 2020, the final disposal rate for the total amount of waste generated in Japan was 0.03%, and all business sites achieved zero emissions.
- Amount of waste discharged externally: The amount of waste sold as valuable materials and waste generated within the business site that is not recycled within the site or discharged outside the business site to be entrusted with disposal to a waste disposal company. amount moved to
2-3. Realizing sustainable water use
artience group uses a lot of water as process water (water used for water-based chemical reactions, product cleaning, etc.), cooling water, and cleaning water. Water resources are an important natural capital for our group, and we recognize improving the sustainability of water use as an important issue. Approximately 73% of water intake sources in fiscal 2020 were from terrestrial freshwater systems, such as groundwater or industrial water (water intake from rivers and lakes). Up until now, we have strived to reduce water consumption and purify wastewater through thorough circulation cooling, reuse and recycling after use, and in the future we will further develop production processes that do not require water and introduce new water technology. We will reduce overall water usage and use water based on the premise of environmental conservation and biodiversity conservation.
Regarding wastewater purification, as our group is a chemical manufacturer, we have been working to manage and reduce the amount of hazardous chemical substances* released. The amount of chemical substances released in FY2020 was 68.2 tons, but we will thoroughly prevent leaks and direct emissions, as well as promote optimization of the cost performance of wastewater treatment facilities, and reduce the amount of harmful chemical substances released in FY2030 compared to FY2020. 30% reduction.
- Hazardous chemical substances: Here, we are targeting substance groups that include the PRTR Law Class 1 designated chemical substances and the Japan Chemical Industry Association designated substance group.
3. Building a trusted corporate foundation
| asv2030 | asv2050 |
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As a supporter of all industries and markets, artience group promotes corporate activities aimed at improving the sustainability of people's lives, the global environment, and all life forms that live there. In order to continue to be such a corporate group, we have constantly reformed our corporate governance and strived to improve our sustainability as a company.
ASV2050/2030 aims to ``continuously reform and transform supply chains, human resources, local activities, and governance from an environmental and social perspective'' over the long term until 2050, with the pillar of ``building a trusted corporate foundation.'' Our goal is to continue. In addition, we have set interim goals for fiscal 2030 of ``realizing raw material procurement that is in harmony with the environment and society,'' ``respecting the diversity of our employees and coexisting with nature and local communities,'' and ``continuously rebuilding our governance system.'' We are promoting short- and medium-term measures.
At the root of these goals and measures is the “artience group likeness.” It is a sense of responsibility to lead in ``environmental contribution'' that we must continue to pursue because we are a chemical manufacturer. We believe that "diversity" must be respected as an important entity, and we have inherited the idea of "the importance of communication" from our founder, who started manufacturing printing inks to spread academic education. This is the foundation of this pillar.
| Realizing raw material procurement that is in harmony with the environment and society |
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| Respecting employee diversity and coexisting with nature and the local community |
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| Continuously building a governance system |
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4. Promotion system
As a system to steadily promote ASV2050/2030, in January 2022, artience group renamed the CSR General Committee to the "Sustainability Committee" with the aim of strengthening sustainability activities at the group company level. We have reorganized and established ESG Promotion Subcommittee under it.
Sustainability Committee is under the supervision of Board of Directors through the Representative Director (Group CEO). Chaired by the officer in charge of sustainability, this committee formulates, promotes, evaluates, and follows up on all CSR/sustainability-related activities across the company, and reports to management through Group Management Committee and other means.
ESG Promotion Subcommittee, with the ESG Promotion Department and Public Relations Department of the Group Headquarters (artience Co., Ltd.) as its secretariat, promotes company-wide sustainability activities based on ASV2050/2030, and practices and promotes climate change response (including TCFD disclosure). Our mission is to identify materiality and promote problem solving in various ESG fields.
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