Sumitomo Chemical Enhances Employee Awards System for Greater Contribution to Realizing a Sustainable Society

Jun. 25, 2019

Sumitomo Chemical has recently expanded its employee awards system by newly creating the “President’s Award Special Prize” and the “President’s Award Rita^*1 Prize” aimed at encouraging employees' initiatives for realizing a sustainable society. The new Prizes are granted to projects that are recognized as creating socially high values.

Sumitomo Chemical established the Basic Principles for Promoting Sustainability in January 2019, as positioned next to its Business Philosophy in importance, to express its firm commitment to promoting Group-wide initiatives toward sustainability. In addition, the Company's latest three-year Corporate Business Plan, which started in the current fiscal year, carries the slogan "Change and Innovation 3.0: For a Sustainable Future", under which Sumitomo Chemical further advances its efforts to accelerate innovation and elevate productivity significantly through digital innovation, thereby contributing ultimately to the realization of a sustainable society.

Sumitomo Chemical has thus far recognized and rewarded employees' such achievements as inventions, improvements and work restructuring by assessing their contribution to the Company's business performance, technological uniqueness, or ingenuity. In order to boost its employees' sustainability-related initiatives, the Company has enhanced its employee awards system by expanding the assessment criteria to include social values to be created, such as contribution to the Company's material issues that should be addressed for sustainable value creation. Under the new employee awards system, projects that satisfy the assessment criteria are eligible for the “President’s Award,” the “President’s Award Special Prize,” or the “President’s Award Rita Prize”.

In accord with a credo of the Sumitomo Spirit that our business must benefit ourselves and society as one and the same,*² Sumitomo Chemical will continue to expend efforts for creating both economic value and social value, thereby further enhancing its corporate value*³.

*1 The "Rita" is a concept deriving from Buddihsm, meaning literally "benefiting others", i.e. benefiting society.

*2 This concept emphasizes the importance of maintaining harmony between the interests of a business and those of the public.

*3 Conceptual illustration of how corporate value should be enhanced

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