Communication with Stakeholders

Basic Policy

Principle 4 of the Sumitomo Chemical Group’s Basic Principles for Promoting Sustainability states, “We are committed to work closely with various stakeholders through promoting spontaneous disclosure of information and open dialogue on the targets of our sustainability promotion initiatives and the progress of their implementation.” Our efforts to communicate with shareholders based on this principle fall into the following two categories.

(1) Disclosure
We disclose necessary information and report on the progress of our various initiatives. We also make an analysis of the needs of society as appropriate and review external assessment results in order to improve our communication and ensure proper disclosure.
(2) Dialogue

In addition to proactive disclosure, we actively engage in two-way communication or dialogue with various stakeholders. Based on the feedback provided in dialogues, we work to improve our communication and implement new initiatives.

We will continue to fulfill our responsibility to all stakeholders on the two fronts of disclosure and dialogue by enhancing our communication through a variety of efforts. We will also align our future generations with a sustainable society, paying attention to the international community and global environment.

Stakeholder Engagement

  • Communication Opportunities with Each Stakeholder

Opportunities to Communicate with Stakeholders

StakeholdersSumitomo Chemical Group’s ResponsibilityMeasures
Shareholders and Investors

We communicate regularly, effectively and strategically with shareholders and investors with regard to management policies, business strategies, and earnings trends. We fulfill our accountability to shareholders to maintain and improve the market’s trust in the Sumitomo Chemical Group, while also promoting the market’s accurate understanding of the Company with a view to a fair market valuation of the Company’s shares and the improvement of our corporate value.

  • General meetings of shareholders
  • Corporate strategy briefing meetings
  • Financial results conference call
  • Briefing meetings for individual investors
  • Investor relations publications, including Annual Report
  • Disclosure via the Company’s website and social media
Customers We supply high-quality products and services that satisfy customers’ needs and ensure safety in use to establish long-term relations with customers that are built on trust.
  • Customer support including communication in sales activities and quality assurance
  • Providing information via the Company’s website and other communication media
  • Customer support by the customer support center
Business Partners We are committed to building mutually-beneficial sound relations with business partners based on our Basic Procurement Principles. We also conduct fair, equitable and transparent transactions, while also encouraging our business partners to engage in sustainability efforts, in order to promote sustainable procurement across our supply chain.
  • Communication through purchasing activities
  • Monitoring and providing feedback by using our Supplier Code of Conduct and Sustainable Procurement check sheets
  • A dedicated team to answer inquiries from business partners
Employees

We are committed to ensuring employees’ health and respecting employee diversity, while also devoting constant effort to human resource development and the improvement of a workplace environment so that individual employees can realize their full potential. The Company is also committed to maintaining its good relationship with the Sumitomo Chemical labor union built on mutual understanding and trust.

  • Central labor-management meetings and operation-site labor-management meetings
  • Labor-management committee for the promotion of work-life balance
  • Various training programs
  • Communication via the Company’s internal newsletters and intranet
Local Communities and Society

We work to help solve various global issues through cooperation on international initiatives as well as to achieve mutual prosperity with local communities by holding two-way dialogues and enhancing disclosure.

  • Participating in international initiatives (Including UNGC, WBCSD and ICCA)
  • Providing information mainly through the Company’s website and Annual Report
  • Holding dialogues with local communities
  • Social Contribution Activities

External Evaluations

ESG indexes are stock indexes composed of companies that receive high ratings for their ESG initiatives, and found to be outstanding. Companies with outstanding ESG initiatives are seen as being both companies that can be expected to grow over the long term and as companies that contribute to the creation of a sustainable society.
This page introduces the major ESG indexes that include Sumitomo Chemical.

FTSE4Good Index Series/FTSE Blossom Japan Index/FTSE Blossom Japan Sector Relative Index


FTSE4Good Index Series
This is a series of indexes designed by FTSE Russell, a global index provider. The indexes consist of companies selected from among the world’s leading companies for demonstrating strong ESG practices.

FTSE Blossom Japan Index
This is an index designed by FTSE Russell, a global index provider. It consists of selected Japanese companies demonstrating strong ESG practices. FTSE selects these companies from among the stocks constituting the FTSE Japan Index, and the index is designed as an industry neutral benchmark that reflects the distribution of industries in the Japanese stock market.

FTSE Blossom Japan Index
This is an index designed by FTSE Russell, a global index provider. It is designed as a sector-neutral benchmark that reflects the performance of small, mid and large cap companies demonstrating strong ESG practices in Japan. In addition, the index is designed to support the transition to a low carbon economy by evaluating companies' climate governance activities aligned with the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures' recommendations and carbon emissions intensity to determine stock eligibility for index inclusion. The index combines data and analysis from FTSE Russell and the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI).

MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index/MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (WIN)

MSCI Japan ESG Select Leaders Index

This is an index designed by MSCI, which provides a variety of tools to support institutional investors around the world in making investment decisions.
From among the stocks constituting the MSCI Japan IMI Top 500 Index, MSCI selects these companies that excel in ESG evaluation.

MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (WIN)

This is an index designed by MSCI, which provides a variety of tools to support institutional investors around the world in making investment decisions. MSCI selects the companies that are active in encouraging and promoting women’s participation in the workplace.

Other external evaluations

S&P/JPX Carbon Efficient Index

S&P/ JPX Carbon Efficient Indices:

This is an index designed by S&P Dow Jones Indices and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It is designed to select TOPIX stocks so that companies that disclose carbon efficiency and environmental data constitute a high proportion of the index.
Our decile rating is 4, and the disclosure status is “disclosed.”

EcoVadis

Gold Medal in EcoVadis

Sumitomo Chemical has received a Gold medal in a sustainability assessment by EcoVadis for the third consecutive year, an award recognizing companies whose performance is in the top 5% of all companies rated.

Established in 2007, EcoVadis is a performance rating agency focused on corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices, working to help companies improve their environmental and social practices through their global supply chains. The agency has assessed about 100,000 companies from 175 countries across 200 business sectors in terms of corporate policies, initiatives, and achievements in four areas: Environment, Labor & Human Rights, Ethics, and Sustainable Procurement.

CDP

CDP's "Climate Change A List 2022" and "Water Security A List 2022"

Sumitomo Chemical has been named on CDP's "Climate Change A List 2022" and "Water Security A List 2022" as a company recognized for its particularly excellent activities to address climate change and water security, including target setting, actions and transparency. The Company has been named on the Climate A list, the highest rating given by CDP, for five consecutive years, and on the Water Security A list for the three consecutive years. CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) is an international non-governmental organization that incentivizes companies and governments to become leaders in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing water resources, and conserving forests. CDP collects information from major companies about their environmental efforts on behalf of institutional investors around the world and scores their performance on an eight-level scale. Of 19,000 companies that disclosed their environmental efforts to CDP, 45 global companies and 10 Japanese companies received the highest ratings in terms of actions for both climate change and water security.

GPS/JIPS Awards

17th JCIA Responsible Care Awards, Grand Prix Award

The Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) awarded the Sumitomo Chemical Group the Grand Prix Award at the 17th JCIA Responsible Care Awards. The Responsible Care Awards are given by the JCIA to honor companies and individuals who help stimulate and promote the widespread adoption of responsible care activities in Japan. The theme of the awards is “contributing to the realization of carbon neutrality throughout society”. We were commended on our efforts assess and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with business partners and industry organizations, such as our early start to calculating important Scope 3 emissions to reduce supply chain emissions and the provision of our unique product carbon footprint (CFP) calculation system at no cost.

健康経営優良法人2022

Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization (White 500)

This system was established by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in 2016, and presents awards to corporations that are practicing excellent health management, based on measures to promote health promoted by Nippon Kenko Kaigi. We have been certified for six consecutive years since 2018.

Kurumin

In September 2015, we received the next-generation support certification logo (Kurumin) for the third time running as a company that supports families raising children. This is an accreditation system whereby the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare certifies companies that executed action plans formulated as per the Act on Advancement of Measures to Support Raising the Next-Generation of Children, and met all the criteria.