Sustainability

Materiality

  • Overview
  • Priority Material Issues
  • Materiality process

Overview

Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues of most interest to our stakeholders empowers us to make better decisions - both as a business and as a member of the community. To better identify, understand, and prioritize these ESG issues, in 2019, we conducted our inaugural materiality analysis. The analysis focused on issues that are especially relevant to us as a renewable power generator.

As a result, we identified three sustainability priorities that we will aim to leverage as differentiators for our sustainability approach, which will utilize our unique strengths to create social value. We also identified three management fundamentals that will serve as a foundation to our sustainable business management. The sustainability priorities we identified were: Stable supply of renewable energy and contribution to GHG emissions reduction; Harmony with community and society; and Stable growth through expansion of our energy generation business. The management fundamentals that we identified were: Environmental protection; Health and safety and human capital investment; and Sound governance.

By achieving a balanced approach between our sustainability priorities and our management fundamentals, we hope to maintain a strategic and effective sustainability program in the long term. We will commit to making progress on our material issues by continuously implementing progressive initiatives and reporting publically on these issues in a transparent, timely manner.

Priority Material Issues

Materiality Definition Relevant
SDGs
Environment

Renewable energy will play a central role in providing stable, economical and low carbon power, thereby helping to tackle the global challenge of climate change.

Minimizing our overall environmental footprint in terms of emissions, water and effluents, energy, waste, and natural resource consumption. We must also preserve local biodiversity around our sites.

Society

We must continuously engage with and invest in our local communities to create long-term relationships and maintain our social license.

Our employees are our most valuable asset. We can only accomplish our corporate mission by ensuring the safety of our employees and by continuously investing in employees to attract and retain top talent, such as by investing in employee trainings, promoting diversity in the workplace, and implementing career development initiatives.

Economy and governance

By building a robust financial base and enhancing our fund raising capacity, we anticipate a sustainable development for our business, allowing us to contribute to the solving of social concerns in Japan, and developing Japan’s energy landscape.

A strong, effective corporate governance structure is essential to sustainable business management and implementing our mid-term business plans. Strong and transparent corporate governance keeps us accountable to the interests of our stakeholders, including shareholders.

Priority Material Issues

Environment
Society
Economy and governance

Materiality process

Step 1:
Identification of ESG Issues

In consultation with external subject matter experts, we identified ESG issues potentially relevant to our business. To determine these issues, we referred to widely recognized ESG reporting standards, such as those issued by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), as well as sector relevant issues referenced by ESG ratings, such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and the MSCI ESG Select Leaders Index.

Step 2:
Prioritization

Based on the list of issues identified in Step 1, we conducted desktop research examining media articles, leading practice sustainability reports, relevant sustainability studies, and subject matter expert input to prioritize issues from a stakeholder perspective. We also prioritized these issues in terms of their potential business impact, by reviewing our existing policies and commitments, survey results from an employee workshop on ESG issues, and opinions from a cross-functional project team, including members from corporate planning, risk management, human resources, corporate communications and CSR. Finally, we mapped all of the issues along the two axes to determine topics that were important from both perspectives.

Step 3:
Validation

A preliminary validation round was held with our senior management team. As a result, the top material issues were consolidated into six priority areas, noted below. These six material priorities were validated at the Executive Committee and finally approved by the CEO.

Step 4:
Monitoring and reporting

To manage each of the material issues we assigned key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable us to monitor, track, and publically report on our performance. The data reported in our current disclosure covers Japan Renewable Energy Corporation and JRE Operations Corporation, and does not include Eco Green Holdings Co., Ltd. We aim to expand the scope of our data in the near future. We will continue to monitor the relevance of our material issues, and will make timely updates when necessary.

Sustainability

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