On October 2, NYK president Hitoshi Nagasawa marked the 135th anniversary of NYK’s founding. A summary of his speech is provided below.

We have overcome countless hardships over the years and have continued to operate the business for the entire 135-year period. The long history of the NYK Group is proof that we have successfully responded to society’s demands that are constantly changing depending on the era and current situation. Our current basic philosophy of “Bringing value to life.” expresses our determination to continue responding to the demands from society going forward.

What do you think society is demanding from companies right now? I feel the strongest demand is for ESG (Environment, Social, Governance). In other words, society is demanding that all companies must sincerely address major social issues such as climate change. I strongly believe that the companies unable to respond to this demand will certainly disappear.

We are formulating an “NYK Group ESG story.” It is planned for this story to detail our goals and direction as a company, but I have an extremely simple request for all of you today. I want you to add the use of ESG as a measure for assessing all actions.


I believe that if everyone in the NYK Group can share the awareness of applying ESG to all actions and act accordingly, we will be able to proudly proclaim that the NYK Group is responding to society’s demands. To repeat myself again, I want you to use economic factors and ESG as measures for assessing all actions.

Recently, we announced an upward revision to the financial results in the first half of FY2020. This year, COVID-19 has created a very opaque situation, and although we started this year with a strong determination to somehow achieve a profit, results to date are much better than initially expected. Despite the ongoing difficult work styles, the strong results have been achieved through the sacrifices and great effort of everyone working in the NYK Group. Let’s continue to combine our knowledge and work together to make it through this difficult year.