CEO MESSAGE

Creating the Joy of Living with a Joy of Driving that is matched to the times to Contribute to a Sustainable Society

The automotive industry currently finds itself at a once-in-a-century turning point. Amid this uncertainty, Mazda established a corporate philosophy in 2023 to clarify our purpose and objectives and guide us as our North Star in our ongoing quest to practice consistent brand value management and to become a company deemed necessary by future generations. One element of this philosophy is our Purpose of “enrich life-in-motion for those we serve.” To fulfill this purpose, we are committed to extending the value of creating moving experiences through the joy of driving to create the joy of living. We thereby aim to help enrich people’s lives and contribute to the realization of a sustainability society.

As a milestone toward accomplishing these objectives, Mazda established the 2030 Vision, which describes the goal for the Company in 2030. We are working toward this vision by advancing the Management Policy up to 2030, which is underpinned by three pillars: contribution to curbing of global warming, realization of an automotive society that offers safety and peace of mind, and creation of unique value. In addition, we are revising our sustainability promotion systems to better facilitate initiatives for contributing to the realization of a sustainability society.

Environment
 

Contribution to curbing of global warming has been identified as an important task. Accordingly, Mazda is focused on promoting electrification and achieving carbon neutrality. The Company has declared its intent to endeavor to achieve carbon neutrality across its supply chain by 2050, and we are working to achieve carbon neutrality at Mazda factories around the globe by 2035. As a milestone on the way toward these targets, we have set the medium-term target of reducing, by FY March 2031, CO₂ emissions at domestic plants and operational sites by 69% in comparison to the level in FY March 2014. For reference, the reduction as of March 31, 2024, was 22%.

In our initiatives to promote electrification, we are advancing our multi-solution approach through which we utilize Mazda’s technology assets to offer combinations of high-efficiency internal combustion engines and electrified devices. This approach has been deemed effective for reducing total CO₂ emissions by helping as many customers as possible embrace low-emissions solutions through the provision of diverse solutions based on the energy sources and regulations of the regions we serve. Furthermore, we unveiled our new Mazda EZ-6 EV in China in 2024. This model is designed to enhance our lineup of electrified vehicles for the Chinese market, where the electrification trend is advancing most rapidly.

Social

The realization of an automotive society that offers safety and peace of mind is an incredibly important task. Mazda will continue developing technologies and collaborating with communities and the greater society in order to contribute to the realization of an automotive society that offers safety and peace of mind with the goal of achieving zero deaths resulting from new vehicles. To this end, we continue to develop sophisticated driving support technologies based on our human-centric research and to expand our lineup of large products equipped with various advanced safety technologies such as our Driver Emergency Assist system.

People, meanwhile, are Mazda’s most important asset, and the sum total of the improvement and growth of each person’s abilities is also the source of the Company’s growth. People are also our most important resource when it comes to adapting to the trends toward carbon neutrality and electrification and other massive changes. The starting point for Mazda’s development of people can be found in the Mazda Way. The Mazda Way is a summary of our approach toward work, i.e., our code of conduct, passed down within the Company since it was founded. This code helps ensure that employees can continue to demonstrate their unique talents while the organization maintains a consistent direction and that these values can be faithfully passed on to future employees. At the moment, we are endeavoring to encourage employees to act based on greater consideration for the feelings of others while respecting the growth and diversity of all employees and cherishing the code of conduct that is the Mazda Way. To facilitate these efforts, we launched the Blueprint organizational culture reform program in 2023. All of our roughly 11,000 back-office employees have taken part in this program, and we plan to expand the program to include employees involved in production going forward. Through this program, we aim to develop a workplace environment that is home to a culture of supporting the front lines and that allows for the exercise of creativity. Furthermore, we established the Mazda Human Rights Policy and organized an internal human rights due diligence project team in 2023. Mazda is currently in the process of identifying important human rights-related themes based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other international standards.

Governance

In order to respond to the current times of great change, where both risks and opportunities are emerging, we introduced a new Team Management approach and Chief Officer system in 2023. These frameworks are anticipated to help management be more attentive to the front lines while incorporating input from customers in order to accelerate operations through swift and flexible responses to such input. We also revised officer remuneration systems to drive changes in management’s perspectives and actions as part of our brand value management efforts. Specifically, we have defined evaluation indicators for performance-based remuneration that include return on equity and greenhouse gas emissions reductions amounts as well as indicators related to employee engagement and customer-oriented mindsets. The new systems are expected to contribute to medium- to long-term improvements in corporate value through higher shareholder value, increased employee engagement, greater emphasis on the customer, and stronger action to address social issues.

Mazda is a company that is dedicated to providing the joy of driving and creating the joy of living by adapting its technology innovation and business operation activities to match the times. We thereby aim to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society.

With our focus on people, we will unite our diverse technologies with the knowledge and passion of our various co-creation partners in order to contribute to the realization of a carbon-neutral society where everyone feels safe to move freely. In doing so, we aim to bring emotion in motion and excitement to everyday life, sharing happiness with family, friends, and those around us.