Material Issues
Our corporate group holds up a vision statement: "Endeavoring to realize sustainable development and realizing a comfortable society" in our management vision. Specifically, it means that we settle social issues in our four strategic business domains by making the most of the core technology we have developed. Creation of social value is essential for achieving our philosophy and management vision, and the keys to value creation are development of the strategic business domains, reconsideration of the business portfolio, and strengthening of the management base supporting our business activities by utilizing our corporate group's strengths and know-how. We believe that abilities to create value and formation of a solider management base are vital for our corporate group's sustainable growth and improvement of our corporate value.
Today, our corporate group has identified six material issues by taking into account the business environment and issues (including risks and opportunities) that we are facing, expected social and environmental issues, and major stakeholders.
Process of material issue identification
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- STEP1
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Extraction of candidates for material issues
Our corporate group has extracted candidates for material issues based on such matters as our business characteristics with reference to international indicators and guidance, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ISO26001, and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, and standards of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), such sustainability issues as global risks and business opportunities, and the ESG rating criteria.
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- STEP2
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Narrowing-down of and priority setting for material issues
Based on the 16 material issue candidates we chose, we interviewed our inside and outside directors. We narrowed down material issues and set an order of priority for them by making comprehensive judgment from the perspectives of "key issues to the Mitsubishi Kakoki group" and "issues in which our stakeholders have a high degree of interest" based on the results of the interviews.
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- STEP3
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Selection of material issues
We have determined six material issues through repeated discussions and assessment of the relevance to our corporate group's management vision and medium-term management plan.
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- STEP4
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Approval within our corporate group
We have identified six items as material issues we must tackle on a priority basis through a resolution at a meeting of the board of directors (in June 2023).
Description of each item
We have classified the material issues for realizing our vision into two groups, which are "enhancement of value creation abilities" that contributes to creating social value through our business and "the base that supports the business activities."
Enhancement of value creation abilities
We have considered promotion of business activities in the four strategic business domains specified in our corporate group's management vision to be a material issue for enhancing our abilities to create value.
[Creation of social value related to the four strategic business domains]： We create social value by promoting and contributing to the following four items:
- Promotion of a recycling-based society: We contribute to a recycling-based society by recycling waste plastics and capturing CO2 by utilizing our strengths, such as the separation technology and the filtration technology.
- Promotion of the spread of clean energy: We produce and generalize a wide variety of clean energy sources by developing a technology of producing blue and green hydrogen, which will be the core, and promoting use of biogas and biofuel.
- Contribution to labor and energy conservation: We contribute to saving labor and energy for customers and the society by promoting maintenance services for facilities and equipment we delivered by utilizing such technology as digital diagnosis.
- Mitigation and avoidance of water and food risks: We contribute not only to improvement of the water quality and effective water use, but also to mitigation of water and food risks and stabilization of water and food provision based on the technology of water treatment and sludge disposal we have developed.
Base that supports business activities
We have set five items as material issues for building a base that supports our corporate group's business activities. The details of each of the material issues are as follows:
| Formation of stronger trusting relationships with customers (quality and safety) | We make strenuous efforts to eliminate risks of losing customers' trust due to such reasons as poor quality and defects and take all possible measures. We forge strong trusting relationships with customers by accurately grasping their changing needs as well as providing them with high-quality and highly safe products and services in order to make our corporate base sounder. |
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| Promotion of development and use of personnel while valuing diversity | Transfer of technology forms the bedrock of our corporate group's development. At the same time, we promote development of human capital capable of meeting customers' needs that change constantly by making the most of our employees' diversity, including attributes, experience, skills, and values. |
| Reduction of environmental burden resulting from business activities | We strive to use energy and resources effectively so that the impact that our corporate group's business activities have on the environment will be as minimum as possible. |
| Formulation and promotion of manufacturing strategies | In order to formulate a strategy contributing to strengthening of the management base, we promote energy conservation, decarbonization, and zero-emission plants, make our manufacturing more sophisticated and efficient based on digital transformation, and enhance our production system. Furthermore, we promote development of products compatible with the strategic business domains using the know-how we have acquired through our manufacturing. |
| Enhancement of corporate governance | Bold risk-taking based on proper governance functions and proper risk management is essential for enhancing corporate value. Risk-taking is crucial for business and corporate transformation, and we improve the transparency of our management by separating business execution by the board of directors from supervision of it, and promote proactive dialogue with our stakeholders. |