ABOUT USPresident's Message
Contributing to Better Living and Cultural Progress
Promotion of Sustainability Management
In May 2021, we announced the 2030 Vision and presented the vision of being a comprehensive biomass company shaping the future with trees over the ten years leading up to 2030. Our business model consists of three circulations. Namely, they are circulation of sustainable forest resources, circulation of woody resources used for various purposes by using our technological abilities, and active product recycling. It is an excellent business model based on the idea that expanding the applications of recyclable woody resources while using them sustainably will lead to the establishment of a circulation-oriented society. By expanding and strengthening the three circulations, we will promote sustainability management in pursuit of social and environmental sustainability in conjunction with corporate growth.
Achieving business development as a comprehensive biomass company
In Medium-Term Business Plan 2025, our action plan for the first five years (2021 to 2025) on the way to 2030, we are tackling "Accelerate the business transformation" as a major theme. The founding business of NIPPON PAPER GROUP is the Paper and Paperboard Business. We will ensure that we bolster our earnings in this field as well. We position the Daily-Life Products Business as the growth engine. It consists mainly of the paper pack business, paperboard business, chemicals business, and household paper business. Regarding the paper pack business, where we have established a strong position in Japan, we aim to expand it globally, including Australia, by strengthening our partnership with Elopak ASA in Norway. In addition, our efforts to improve our development capability, to which we have been committed in recent years, have also produced results. For example, School POP® strawless milk cartons, which are increasingly being adopted for school lunches, are strawless paper carton products that we have pioneered. They make a major contribution to the shift from plastics and to environmental education. In the paperboard business, a new mill began operating in Australia in August 2023. We are steadily pursuing initiatives for growth. In the chemicals business, a plant in Hungary will begin operating in December 2024. This will be our first production base in Europe. We will produce materials for lithium ion batteries in response to demand for EVs in Europe. In the household paper business, long-lasting toilet paper rolls, which we released ahead of our industry peers, have been strong, and we are reinforcing our production structure. The No. 3 paper machine at the Fuji Mill of Crecia-Kasuga Co., Ltd., a Group company, began operating in August 2023, and the Miyagi Mill of Nippon Paper Crecia Co., Ltd. began operating in May 2024. We also aim to achieve early commercialization of new biomass materials, which are based on the research and development capabilities that we have been cultivating for many years from a long-term perspective. With the Biomass Material Business Division launched in 2021 playing a core role, we are strongly promoting initiatives to develop environment-related markets and expand applications of our products through open innovation.
At present, the Japanese economy is staging a modest recovery, seen for instance with progress in the normalization of social and economic activities following the reclassification of COVID-19 as Class 5 infectious diseases. The future outlook is still unclear. The prices of goods continue to rise around the world. The situation in Ukraine persists while tension is mounting in the Middle East. In addition, the foreign exchange rate of the Japanese yen is trending downward.
Under these circumstances, we believe the reconstruction of the overseas business is an urgent management issue in FY2025/3 as we look toward achieving the goals of Medium-Term Business Plan 2025. We will continue working on the priority tasks of improving the profitability of the Daily-Life Products Business, increasing the competitiveness of the Graphic Paper Business, accelerating the reduction of GHG emissions and improving our financial position under our basic strategy of accelerating the transformation of our business.
With NIPPON PAPER GROUP's mission to contribute to better living and cultural progress for people around the world serving as an unchanging guiding principle, we will strive to maximize the value of forests and expand biomass products in an effort to balance contributions to the formation of a recycling-oriented society with business growth.
Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd.
President and Representative Director
Toru Nozawa