President's Message

People's lives are becoming more prosperous as the global economy develops and the world becomes more borderless. Meanwhile, the stability of our daily lives as well as of economies and markets is being significantly affected by climate change, resource depletion, economic disparity, poverty, human rights issues, and other risks and societal issues on a global scale, such as infectious diseases (pandemics) and geopolitical issues, so that the future looks uncertain. These issues have a great impact not only on our daily lives, but also on the management of the Hitachi High-Tech Group. In other words, to increase corporate value, a company must not only pursue economic value such as revenues and profits, but also provide social and environmental value that contributes to solving social issues through its products, services, and other business activities. And as a result, the company will contribute to making the entire society sustainable. That is the kind of company we want to be.

In this world of such uncertainty, our capabilities in Observation, Measurement, and Analysis—which are our strengths—produce data from measurement and analysis that is vitally needed in society. We expect those needs to continue growing. With our business making advantageous use of our strengths, we have capabilities to resolve our customers' and society's issues. With our global business expansion and our employees with a diversity of work styles, we have organizational capabilities. With our response to the demands and expectations of society, we have the capability to fulfill our social responsibility. As I see it, readying our capabilities to respond to these changes in society and continuing to strengthen our capabilities is necessary in order to realize not only sustainable growth as a corporation, but also sustainability for society as a whole. In environmental initiatives, for example, we are responding to demands from society for measures addressing climate change by promoting reduction of CO₂ emissions throughout our value chain and other such actions for decarbonization. We are also promoting initiatives to improve efficiency in use of resources for realization of a water and resource recycling-oriented society, and to conserve ecosystems and forests with the aim of realizing a society in harmony with nature. In addition, we are tackling solutions to the loss of interest in science, which is an issue on the education front, through outreach activities to support science education with online courses or lectures on visiting at elementary and junior high schools using tabletop electron microscopes, which are among our Group's products.

Our Group has identified five areas of materiality in light of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which serve as common rules for the international community and as targets to be achieved. With them we are clarifying what kinds of societal issues we should direct our efforts toward resolving, and how we can best be of use in the world, by making advantageous use of the Group's business characteristics and business models to respond to demands from society. The 2024 Mid-Term Management Plan seeks to accelerate this materiality initiative by announcing “Sustainability 2030” declaration and making it our management policy to work from societal issues as our starting point for value creation. Sustainability 2030 is the clear statement of our stance of working from societal issues as a starting point for value creation. The 2024 Mid-Term Management Plan is a plan for directions for the Group to pursue over these three years, formulated by back-casting from our vision for what we want the Group to be in 2030. We will steadily implement the focal initiatives the 2024 Mid-Term Management Plan sets for us, and in doing so, we set our goal to be a corporation that solves societal issues through our Observation, Measurement, and Analysis capabilities, that links together all our businesses with sustainability as a growth strategy, that contributes to the realization of a sustainable society, and that continues to be a corporation that is needed by society into the future.