Materiality (Key Issues)
As materialities, SUMCO identifies those issues it will address on a priority basis to solve social issues and enhance corporate value in a sustainable manner while responding to demands from stakeholders. SUMCO engages in ESG activities to achieve the materiality targets.
The Materiality Identification Process
SUMCO Materiality
| Materiality | Material Issue Themes | Reasons for Identification | |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | Combatting global warming | Carbon neutrality | Reducing the environmental impact in our business activities is a corporate responsibility for the future. To ensure that our precious global environment is passed on to the future generation, the SUMCO Group has developed an environmental management system and obtained ISO 14001 certification for all of its plants. We also conduct environmentally friendly production activities including the prevention of global warming, the effective utilization of water resources and the recycling of wastes. To enhance our initiatives preventing global warming, we established and adress new targets aimed at achieving carbon neutrality. |
| Resource conservation activities | Effective utilization of water resources | ||
| Contributing to the creation of a recycling-oriented society | Waste management | ||
| S | Health, hygiene and safety initiatives | Prevention of occupational accidents | Under the principle that "the safety and health of employees take the highest priority over all," the SUMCO Group is committed to "creating a safe and pleasant workplace environment supporting good mental and physical health" through active communication in which all parties participate. On safety, we work to maintain and improve our occupational safety management system with the aim of creating a safe workplace free from occupational accidents, and with regard to health management, activities are focused on the three issues of mental health, smoking cessation and lifestyle habits. |
| Maintenance of health and productivity management | |||
| Human resources development | Enhancement of training | To be the "World's Best in Technology" and "Empower Employee Awareness of Profit" as declared in the SUMCO vision, we will continue to invest in human resources and make enhancements to our career development program. We will enhance training opportunities with a multi-faceted approach that covers everyone from new employees to managers and officers. |
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| Promotion of women’s active participation | Raising the percentage of women in management positions | We have set medium-term targets for percentage of women in management positions to increase diversity and to boost women's active participation. We will enhance our initiatives to create a more favorable working environment for women. |
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| R&D and technological capabilities supporting customer value creation | Contributions as a development partner | The source of enhanced corporate value is R&D and technological capabilities that support customer value creation through our "invisible assets," and as a development partner to customers, SUMCO enjoys a high global market share in cutting-edge products. Moreover, we will contribute to the achievement of the SDGs by supporting advances in semiconductors. |
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| Increasing customer satisfaction | To continually maintain our "first call" status as a company, we value close communication with customers. By quickly providing customers with the products that meet their needs while continuing with performance checks and follow-ups, we build robust relationships of trust. We analyze the information customers provide through QCDS (quality, cost, delivery and service) evaluations, share the insights with management and relevant departments, direct what we have learned into improvement activities and strive to improve customer satisfaction levels. |
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| Promoting CSR procurement and mitigating procurement risks | Promoting firm establishment of the CSR Procurement Policy | We believe it is important to share CSR-related societal demands with our suppliers and jointly tackle issues in the supply chain such as human rights, labor, safety, the environment and ethics. We share the SUMCO CSR Procurement Policy with suppliers through briefing sessions, audits and other activities, and promote responsible procurement activities. |
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| Strengthening BCP in materials procurement | Supply chain risk management is an important issue and a theme to which customers also have high levels of interest. SUMCO secures appropriate levels of inventory in line with risks, pursues advance preparations such as ensuring multiple procurement sources under normal circumstances, and has established the necessary systems to minimize the impacts on production in the event of a disaster or accident. |
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| Communication with shareholders and investors | Enhancement of IR activities | We fully recognize that the timely and appropriate disclosure of corporate information to investors forms the basis of a sound stock market and have adopted the basic policy of continually ensuring the prompt, accurate and fair disclosure of corporate information from the perspective of investors. We proactively disclose any information that is beneficial to investment decisions, such as medium-to-long-term demand forecasts for the silicon wafer market based on end product demand forecasts. |
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| G | Enhancing risk management | Initiatives to develop BCP | The silicon wafer business is a critical industry supporting an IT-based society, and the SUMCO Group is responsible for ensuring the stable supply of silicon wafers to the world's semiconductor device manufacturers. The Business Security Committee (BSC), which is an organization responsible for risk management, promotes risk management activities while working to improve business continuity and the ability to respond in an emergency through periodic training. |
| Promoting compliance | Ongoing enhancement of compliance awareness | Ensuring compliance with laws, regulations and social norms to be observed forms the basis for SUMCO fulfilling its social responsibilities and is also essential for the sustainable growth of corporate value. Training on topics including the SUMCO Charter of Corporate Conduct, which prescribes the norms to be observed by employees, is conducted regularly for all employees as part of ongoing efforts to strengthen awareness of compliance. |
SUMCO Materiality Targets
| Materiality | Material Issue Themes | Targets | |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | Combatting global warming | Carbon neutrality | By 2030, reduce GHG emissions (Scope 1+2:domestic and overseas) by 42% compared with 2030 levels (6.0% annual reduction); and by 2050, reduce by 100% (carbon neutrality) |
| Resource conservation activities | Effective utilization of water resources | High and stable water recycling rate | |
| Contributing to the creation of a recycling-oriented society | Waste management | Conversion of waste into valuable resources and improved recycling rate | |
| S | Health, hygiene and safety initiatives | Prevention of occupational accidents | Accident frequency rate of 0.2 or lower |
| Maintenance of health and productivity management | Maintaining ERI-adjusted general health risk at 100 or lower*1 | ||
| Human resources development | Enhancement of training | Increasing training time compared with the previous year including web-based training time | |
| Promotion of women’s active participation | Raising the percentage of women in management positions | (SUMCO*2) the end of December 2021: 1%→2030: 10% (Group) the end of December 2021: 6.5%→2030: 12% |
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| R&D and technological capabilities supporting customer value creation | Contributions as a development partner | Maintaining a worldwide share of over 50% in cutting-edge fields | |
| Increasing customer satisfaction | Maintaining high evaluation with the leading customer satisfaction score | ||
| Promoting CSR procurement and mitigating procurement risks | Promoting firm establishment of the CSR Procurement Policy | Holding briefing sessions for suppliers and conducting CSR audits | |
| Strengthening BCP in materials procurement | Continuing to maintain multiple procurement sources and implementing supplier safety training | ||
| Communication with shareholders and investors | Enhancement of IR activities | Maintaining and continuing the number of IR activities for investors | |
| G | Enhancing risk management | Initiatives to develop BCP | Implementing BCP training |
| Promoting compliance | Ongoing enhancement of compliance awareness | Implementing compliance education |
- *1As to the target of Material Issue Themes "Maintenance of health and productivity management," we have changed since 2025 "Maintaining Certification in the Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization Recognition Program (White 500)" into "Maintaining ERI-adjusted general health risk at 100 or lower."
- *2Total figures include the number of Sumco employees assigned to other companies and exclude secondees to Sumco Corporation from other companies.
SUMCO Materiality Initiatives and Achievements in 2024
In pursuit of medium- to long- term targets, SUMCO works on continuous improvement.
Our initiatives and achievements in 2024 are as outlined below.
| Materiality | Material Issue Themes | Initiatives and Achievements in 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| E | Combatting global warming | Carbon neutrality | A 8.2% reduction (from 2022 levels) was achieved in fiscal 2024, exceeding the 8.2% target for that year. |
| Resource conservation activities | Effective utilization of water resources | A water recycling rate was maintained at the level in previous years of 37.0%. | |
| Contributing to the creation of a recycling-oriented society | Waste management | The recycling rate of industrial waste was 77.0%, down slightly from the level in the last year. Acquisition of the polycrystalline silicon business influenced this rate,but we continue to struggle with recycling of waste products. |
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| S | Health, hygiene and safety initiatives | Prevention of occupational accidents | Although we carried out several regular safety education and training, working to raise safety awareness, the lost work day accident frequency rate was 0.26 compared to the target of 0.2. |
| Maintenance of health and productivity management | We won recognition as one of the “White 500” as a healthy enterprise for the seventh consecutive year. Aware that the good health of employees is a key management resource, we took initiatives toward maintaining and promoting health and improving the working environment. |
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| Human resources development | Enhancement of training | Time devoted to training in 2024 rose by around 630 hours, or 2.2%, from the previous year. We sought to make training more effective, with online training as the norm. |
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| Promotion of women’s active participation | Raising the percentage of women in management positions | In 2024, we achieved a 1.9% increase in SUMCO*1 and 7.5% increase on a consolidated base. Besides enhancing diverse working arrangements that support women’s active participation, we actively promoted mid-career hiring of women. |
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| R&D and technological capabilities supporting customer value creation | Contributions as a development partner | We continued to boast a worldwide share of over 50% in wafers for leading-edge logic chips. We maintained our top supplier position, winning customer recognition as a development partner for our high technology development capability and consistent quality. |
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| Increasing customer satisfaction | We again achieved an overall average rating of 85 points or higher (100 point scale) in supplier evaluations by customers. By sharing the supplier evaluations throughout the Group and reflecting them in improvement activities in each division, we won high ratings from customers in quality and technology. |
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| Promoting CSR procurement and mitigating procurement risks | Promoting firm establishment of the CSR Procurement Policy | We explained our CSR Procurement Policy in briefing sessions for suppliers, and worked to further instill the policy. CSR audits of suppliers were conducted | |
| Strengthening BCP in materials procurement | We sought to diversify our procurement sources as a hedge against the risk of disasters and accidents. We held a total of seven supplier safety education sessions, for each of the plants. |
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| Communication with shareholders and investors | Enhancement of IR activities | With the aim of enhancing corporate value, we resumed IR activities led by top management and conducted meetings with investors in a detailed manner. | |
| G | Enhancing risk management | Initiatives to develop BCP | Again in 2024, we worked on further developing BCP based on the findings in the previous year by the Business Security Committee (BSC). We also held drills to prepare for the loss of headquarter functions in the event of an earthquake directly under Tokyo, as well as conducting comprehensive disaster prevention drills and BCP drills at each plant to prepare for accidents. |
| Promoting compliance | Ongoing enhancement of compliance awareness | Again in 2024, we conducted training for all employees on the SUMCO Charter of Corporate Conduct, by e-learning and other means. |
- *1Total figures include the number of Sumco employees assigned to other companies and exclude secondees to Sumco Corporation from other companies
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