Shin-Etsu Group Key Sustainability Issues

Shin-Etsu Group Key Sustainability Issues

Specifying Shin-Etsu Group Key Sustainability Issues

We have been working on a wide variety of activities in order to practice our business principle, which states that "the Group strictly complies with all laws and regulations, conducts fair business practices and creates unrivaled value for society and industry through the provision of key materials and technologies."

The Sustainability Committee (former: ESG Promotion Committee) defined the matters as key sustainability issues (former: key ESG issues) through the following procedure in FY2015.

Process of Specifying Key Sustainability Issues

1. Clarifying key sustainability issues

In December 2015, the committee conducted the following investigations for all of the company's departments and major domestic Group companies.

1. The stakeholders for each department and each company are reconfirmed.
2. In reference to ISO 26000 core topics, key sustainability issues are listed for each department and each company.
3. The level of importance of each key issue for the Group as well as for stakeholders is scored.

2. Creating a scatter plot of key sustainability issues and organizing them

In January 2016, the committee created a scatter plot based on the key issues and the scores submitted by each department and each company. The result showed that the majority of key issues were very important.

The committee organized the listed key issues and created a draft of key sustainability issues that reflects the scatter plot.

Key ESG Issues Scatter Plot

3. Interviews with Outside Directors

In January 2016, individual interviews were conducted with all Outside Directors based on the prepared proposal. The followings are the suggestions and opinions from the interviews:

1. Compliance with laws and regulations is related to all issues.
2. All listed key sustainability issues are equally important to the Group, and it is difficult to prioritize them.
3. The Group should clarify its goals while specifying key sustainability issues.

4. Re-examination in the committee and approved by the management

In February 2016, the committee has re-examined the key issues based on the suggestions and opinions of the Outside Directors. The Managing Directors' Meeting, in which all Directors and Audit & Supervisory Board Members are involved in making decisions, also examined the key issues and has declared the items in the figure above to be key sustainability issues of the Group in 2015.

In December 2018, the Sustainability Committee discussed the key issues and their importance, which had been reviewed by all departments of the company and major Group companies in Japan, and decided to continue addressing the key issues identified in 2015.

The Group will work equally on all of these key sustainability issues in no particular order.