Fiscal 2024 Message to New Employees from the President

UACJ Corporation announced today that President Shinji Tanaka has given the following fiscal 2024 message to new employees of the UACJ Group.

Hello, everyone. I am extremely delighted to welcome you here today. As president of UACJ Corporation, I would like to congratulate all of you for joining the UACJ Group.

UACJ marked its 10th anniversary in October last year, which was also the 125th year since one of the Company’s founders began producing flat-rolled aluminum in Japan. Members of the UACJ Group from around the world came together to celebrate on October 10, and we renewed our resolve to take the Group into the future. And now today, I would like to invite all of you to work with us as members of the Group to build a new future, not only over the next 10 years but many more years beyond that.

Unfortunately, 2023 was also a year of international strife, and the way forward is unpredictable. On a positive note, however, socioeconomic activities have returned to normal here in Japan following the downgrading of COVID-19 to the same level as seasonal influenza. Japan’s economy has been making a moderate recovery, but we still face challenges in our operating environment, especially rising prices for goods and services. Nevertheless, the UACJ Group’s products are indespensable for industries and the livelihoods of people around the world, so we must continue to conduct our business with a sense of responsibility. Therefore, I want all of you to work together with your colleagues to help fulfill this responsibility.

I would like focus my talk today on three key topics: the UACJ Group Philosophy, UACJ Vision 2030, and the importance of safety and compliance.

Beginning with the UACJ Group Philosophy, we renewed it in February 2020 after dealing with various changes in our operating environment, because we wanted to establish a framework for the Group’s employees to work collectively towards the same goals, regardless of how the operating environment changes in the future. Indeed, we strongly believe that all employees should have a common purpose and share the same vision and core values in their workplace.

The UACJ Group Philosophy is comprised of three components: Our Purpose, Our Vision, and Our Values. Our Purpose is to “contribute to society by using raw materials to manufacture products that enhance prosperity and sustainability.” Our Vision is stated as follows: “Aluminum is our passion. It inspires our work in building a better world and a healthier environment.” Our Values is a set of three values that form the UACJ Way, which we created as a means to put our philosophy into practice and provide basic guidelines for all of the Group’s members to follow. I believe that each of you will grow and succeed by taking these values to heart while applying your abilities and youthful energy in the workplace where you have been assigned. In your everyday work, if you are unsure when making a decision, starting something new, or dealing with difficulties, please look to the UACJ Way for guidance and take the next step based on whichever values are relevant. I would like to talk about each of these three values in more detail.

The first is to respect and understand your associates. Your workplace is made up of diverse groups of people who have a wide range of backgrounds and viewpoints. We promote diversity, equity, and inclusion to encourage our diverse members to mutually accept each other’s values and individuality, as well as to foster each employee’s personal growth and strengthen our organizations. In your workplace, please interact with your colleagues in a positive manner, and be open to broadening your own viewpoints and activities. In that way, you can develop as well-rounded individuals.

The second value is to embrace honesty and foresight. Over the long history of UACJ’s forerunners, their members were sincere about meeting customers’ expectations for quality, delivery times, and costs, based on a belief that businesses should serve society. By following this path, the UACJ Group has earned a reputation for manufacturing products in an honest manner and gained the trust of its customers. To continue this, we believe it is essential to follow five basic principles of action: understand how our factories operate, know our products inside and out, recognize how everything actually works, act rationally, and make decisions based on established rules. Accordingly, you should always be sincere when dealing with people and our products, and strive to learn more and more about aluminum until you fully understand this material.

The third value is to be curious and challenging. As the world tackles major issues, such as overcoming the pandemic and combatting climate change, advances in technology and changes in people’s lifestyles have been moving at a faster pace than ever. Therefore, we can expect all kinds of new technologies, products, and services to appear over the next decade. To effectively adapt to such changes, we must always maintain a sense of curiosity and go beyond conventional wisdom and past precedents. Only then can we devise solutions needed by the world today. Therefore, you should continuously pursue innovations rather than just recycling old ideas and draw on your passion and imagination in your new jobs. Then we can look forward to expanding the possibilities of aluminum products.

The UACJ Way offers a path for building your character and strengthening the organizations where you work. There may be times, however, when you believe that none of its three values are relevant to the situation you face. In such cases, it is important to discuss the issue and find a solution together with a team of your colleagues. Rest assured, problems that are too difficult for individuals to solve alone can always be handled as a team.

Next, I would like to talk about UACJ Vision 2030. With a view to realizing Our Purpose, UACJ created this vision as a long-term roadmap for contributing to society in the years leading up to 2030. By applying technologies and know-how accumulated over the long history of UACJ’s forerunners, we want to expand the possibilities of aluminum products and contribute to building a better world and a healthier environment. Toward these ends, management has created four key policies.

The first is to focus on growth markets and industries. That means expanding our businesses in the growing North American and Southeast Asian markets, specifically in the aluminum can stock and automotive industries. The second policy is to enhance value-added materials. By adding new value to these materials, we intend to boost the Group’s earnings capacity. The third is to create and develop new businesses. Specifically, we have specified three areas for expanding these businesses: mobility, lifestyles and healthcare, and environment and energy. Our fourth policy is to reduce environmental impacts. Through measures like increasing recycling rates, we intend to lower environmental impacts across the entire supply chain. To successfully implement these policies, your contributions will be essential. Therefore, I want you to keep building on your achievements, refine your skills, and grow as individuals.

Finally, I would like to discuss safety and compliance, which we have positioned as basic principles of the UACJ Way. Indeed, ensuring safety and compliance are fundamental approaches and principles of conduct for any manufacturer.

Safety is so fundamental that people routinely convey it with a greeting in some countries. In Germany, for example, the word, glückauf, was originally used as a greeting by miners to express their desire to return safely from the mine. Similarly, members of the manufacturing industry in Japan often greet each other with the phrase, go-anzen ni, which literally means “stay safe.” At UACJ, too, employees greet each other with this phrase every day as a way of maintaining a shared awareness of safety. I would like all of you, as well, to wholeheartedly greet your co-workers this way in your workplace, as it reflects our long-standing tradition of giving priority to safety in everything we do while also taking responsibility for one’s own safety.

Compliance is a minimum requirement of any organization operating in society. Accordingly, we do our best to fully comply with laws concerning health and safety, the environment, and product quality. We also follow various rules, including our internal regulations along with requirements specified by customers. Starting from now, all of you should start learning these rules and make sure to follow them in the future.

All of you are new employees, but from today, I would like you to make the most of your abilities and help fulfill our responsibility to society as members of the UACJ Group. In the spirit of the Group’s slogan, “Aluminum lightens the world,” let’s work together to create outstanding aluminum products and devise solutions needed by people around the world.

I hope you never forget the significance of this day in your lives. I wish you great success in your careers as members of the UACJ Group and as working adults.