Basic concepts and promotion system

Under the corporate philosophy of “continuing to contribute to fulfilling lives filled with smiles for all people,” the Suzuken Group believes that by carrying out our mission as social infrastructure in the business domain of health creation, as well as providing new value through our businesses that contributes to solving social issues, we will also improve our Group’s corporate value.

Partnering with a wide variety of stakeholders in the value chain is indispensable to value creation. We will aim for sustained growth as we nurture relationships of trust with stakeholders and produce great value to solve social issues.

The Suzuken Group has defined the achievement of its Group Corporate Philosophies, established in 2009, as its CSR Vision. We have identified stakeholders relevant to our business activities and management base, set priority themes and KPIs, and worked to ensure a shared understanding among all employees: to meet stakeholder expectations through continuous dialogue.

In response to a changing business environment and emerging social challenges, we launched the Sustainability Committee in April 2022. Upholding the principles of the previous CSR Vision, we formulated a Sustainability Policy that aims to increase corporate value while simultaneously contributing to greater social sustainability through value creation in our business activities.

Guided by this policy, we are enhancing transparency and communication both internally and externally. In FY2024, for instance, we held the “Integrated Report Reading Session”for Group employees to deepen their understanding of our initiatives.

Our Group is implementing a three-year medium-term management plan, “For your next heartbeat — Creating a movement toward tomorrow,” covering FY2023 through FY2025. Under this plan, we aim to become a “health creation enterprise” that continuously provides new solutions and hope to an evolving healthcare ecosystem.

Based on the business strategies outlined in the medium-term management plan, we are developing and delivering businesses and services that contribute to every stage of patients’ healthcare life cycles. Through these initiatives, our sustainability activities aim to both expand business opportunities and mitigate risks. We believe that our Group’s value creation process constitutes sustainable growth and the delivery of value to all stakeholders, including local communities and employees. By continuously creating new value, we will contribute to further enhancing corporate value and solving social issues.

To enable the Suzuken Group as a whole to promote sustainability management, in April 2022, the Group established a Sustainability Committee under the direct control of the president. The Sustainability Committee is chaired by the head of the Planning Division, and the committee consists of the senior general managers of the control division and of each business, as well as the heads of the supervising departments controlling each Group company. The Sustainability Committee meets at least once per year in principle. It studies and monitors progress in the social issues that a Group with so many diverse businesses should address, as well as the sustainability activities in the Group and the numerical targets for our critical ESG themes (materiality).

The committee reports the content it discusses to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors then exchanges views on sustainability issues in the Group and oversees the implementation of the sustainability activities of the Group as a whole.

The Suzuken Group operates numerous businesses spanning pharmaceutical manufacturing, distribution, pharmacies, and nursing care. Through these businesses, we provide various functions and services to society and have built diverse supply chains. As a key participant in these supply chains, we announced our “Declaration of Partnership Building” in March 2024. This initiative aims to establish new partnerships by fostering collaboration and mutual prosperity with partners within the supply chain and businesses focused on value creation.

As part of efforts to achieve mutual prosperity, we are promoting “Smart Logistics,” which incorporates digital technology into a proprietary healthcare distribution platform that reaches from pharmaceutical companies to medical institutions and patients. By adjusting supply and demand, this initiative helps to prevent maldistribution of pharmaceuticals and reduce waste. In addition, we are striving to maintain safe, secure, and reliable pharmaceutical distribution through quality control in accordance with the Good Distribution Practice (GDP) guidelines for pharmaceuticals, and by building a nationwide BCP network for disaster response.

We recognize environmental and social risks within the supply chain and will practice sustainable pharmaceutical distribution by contributing to solving related supply chain challenges through our business activities.