Blue Value™ / Rose Value™

The Mitsui Chemicals Group, which includes “promoting human well-being” as one of the five social contribution areas in its Corporate Mission, lists “a comfortable society in which people can enjoy healthy lives and well-being” and “an inclusive society creating diverse value” as its ideal future society and aims to realize this through its business activities. In VISION 2030, we have established the building of solutions-based business models as a basic strategy. This involves expanding the social issue perspective across all our businesses and offering solutions that combine services beyond just material supply. Through this approach, we aim to contribute to improving quality of life by addressing areas such as “health and livelihood,” “highly livable communities,” and “food security,” alongside business growth.

As a tool to track progress, we have defined the contributions that our products and services make to improving quality of life as Rose Value™, certifying those that meet our defined criteria through our assessment and review processes. By maximizing our contributions throughout the entire product life cycle through expanding and providing Rose Value™ products and services, we hope to achieve corporate growth for the Group and realize our ideal future society.

We evaluate the extent to which the Group’s products and services contribute to our approach to social challenges identified in the first stage of assessment. This evaluation considers not only the Company’s direct contributions, but also aims to visualize the broader impact across the supply chain, including processing by customers and the use of the final products.

In FY2023, a total of 24 products and services received Rose Value™ certification. New certifications included products like business service robots that support heavy lifting, which strains back muscles and materials used in solar power generation systems, which also serve as emergency power sources during disasters. Additionally, certain products that reached the review period for certification renewal, such as agricultural nonwoven fabrics, were re-certified.

On the other hand, seven products and services were not certified. For instance, some cases were found inappropriate due to insufficient quantitative evidence to demonstrate impact, such as products claiming to contribute to alleviating food shortages, but lacking information on the scale of their impact in the broader market. Other cases included products for which claims were made that they contribute to inclusivity and diversity, but only offered general explanations about enhancing convenience and comfort, such as materials improving the comfort of automobiles or daily life, without adequately addressing the social challenge aspect. Furthermore, in evaluation of our reasonable involvement, some products were deemed inappropriate because, while our materials were used in the manufacturing process of electronic devices aimed at solving social challenges through the functional improvement of electronic devices, the contribution of our materials to that end was not sufficiently explained.

By applying this two-step assessment—considering both the approach to social challenges and our reasonable involvement —we strive to evaluate as objectively as possible whether a product or service truly contributes to solving social challenges. Additionally, we base our reviews on the advice and views from external experts regarding the validity of certification in terms of the social contribution impact.

In the Rose Value™ products certification process, we design assessment methods and criteria for review based on advice from Eiichiro Adachi, Senior Counselor at the Japan Research Institute. We also ask him to present his opinions on the levels of contribution made by the products in question prior to the review board’s examination.