Organization and Systems

The Sustainability Management Division plans and formulates company-wide action to further sustainability at ITOCHU Corporation, which the Sustainability Chairperson served by the Chief Administrative Officer finalizes. Meanwhile, the ESG Officers and Managers in each unit carry out sustainability actions. The Sustainability Committee, one of the company’s key committees, holds deliberations and reviews policy formulation and important matters. In addition to a role in heading the Sustainability Committee, the CAO joins meetings of the Board of Directors, the Headquarters Management Committee (HMC) and the Investment Consultative Committee. The chair also engages in decision-making based on the company’s impact on the environment and society by reporting regularly to the Board of Directors to brief them on our promotion of sustainability.
We furthermore engage in dialog with stakeholders within and outside the company. One example of this is our regularly convened advisory board. This dialog provides an understanding of what society expects of and desires from the company, which we can then apply to our initiatives at advancing sustainability.

Sustainability-related Governance Structural Chart (As of June 21, 2024)

• CAO: Chief Administrative Officer
  HMC: Headquarters Management Committee

Board of Directors

ITOCHU group recognizes that responding to sustainability issues is an important management issue. The Board of Directors approves the Group’s policies, strategies and related business promotion concerning sustainability, and oversees the appropriateness of sustainability disclosure information.
The Board of Directors oversees the appropriateness of material issues through a review of key issues such as policies to respond to risks and opportunities for each material issue, the specific approach outlined in Sustainability Action Plans to responding to them, the performance indicators of the results of the response to them, and the degree of progress on them.
The Board of Directors also oversees the execution of business and investment strategies to respond to sustainability-related risks and opportunities including environmental and social risks. (That includes a review of strategies and divestment decisions). To explain details, we use the ESG Checklist for Investment as an advance ESG risk assessment on all our new investment projects. At the HMC, which is the decision-making body for appropriate and agile business execution by CEO and the Board of Directors, we identify, analyze, and verify important matters related to sustainability risks and opportunities, as well as discuss relevant policies, structures, and initiatives. Moreover, after investing in projects, we conduct multifaceted management such as monitoring and reviews of group companies to avoid sustainability-related risks, on-site visits and surveys to prevent environmental pollution, and human rights due diligence.
For management along the value chain, we conduct an annual sustainability survey to check the status of ESG initiatives of our suppliers. In addition, initiatives related to risks and opportunities regarding climate change are analyzed and disclosed based on the TCFD, and similarly those for natural capital are based on the TNFD frameworks. The CAO periodically reports on its sustainability-related deliberations and initiatives to the Board of Directors which then oversees them.

Sustainability Committee

The Sustainability Committee deliberates on the formulation and implementation of various measures to respond to sustainability-related matters. The committee identifies, assesses and manages the setting of sustainability-related targets, the state of progress on those targets, and current sustainability-related risks and opportunities. The Board of Directors oversees the promotion of business and investment strategies to respond to sustainability-related risks and opportunities. (That includes a review of strategies and divestment decisions.) In addition, at the executive level, the managers of each company concurrently serving as those in charge of ESG and the managers of headquarters administrative division participate in the Sustainability Committee as core members. The committee receives reports on sustainability-related matters from the Sustainability Management Division and those in charge of promoting ESG in each company and headquarters administrative division. It then manages and monitors the progress on the various measures and initiatives.

Sustainability Advisory Board

The Sustainability Advisory Board was established to engage outside stakeholders in dialog with our executive management to determine whether the direction we are taking with regards to sustainability is aligned with the needs of society as ITOCHU Corporation’s business grows more diverse and widespread, and then to apply the insights to promoting sustainability.

Overview of the Sustainability Advisory Board 2023

In FYE 2024, we welcomed three experts from industry, academia and the government to discuss the theme of “Natural Capital・Biodiversity・TNFD” in a meeting of the Sustainability Advisory Board we held in February 2024. The experts gave talks on the latest trends from their differing perspectives. After that, ITOCHU introduced “the status of plans toward disclosure of natural capital related information”. There was then a frank exchange of opinions in the question-and-answer session.
Based on the opinions exchanged at this advisory board, we will disclose our risk and opportunity initiatives related to natural capital and the results of our analysis and evaluation based on the TNFD framework. The following comments were made from the three experts with expectations and advice for ITOCHU: “I can see that you are already working on risk management in terms of sustainable procurement,” “I think it is important to change the entire supply chain by purchasing from producers who are making sustainable raw materials,” “There are aspects of nature-related business opportunities for trading companies. How to anticipate and uncover business opportunities is the key to show ITOCHU’s skills.”

Sustainability Awareness Activities at ITOCHU

While pursuing sustainable activities, ITOCHU engages in various activities to raise awareness within the Company so as to further ITOCHU Group employees’ understanding and to work through business on solutions to social issues in a manner that conforms to the latest global trends.

Sustainability Seminars

We have been holding in-house sustainability seminars on a continuous basis since 2007 to bring in outside insights and ideas on various sustainability issues.

Recent Seminars

In February 2022, we held a practical seminar titled “Method of Calculating Scope 3 Emissions in the ITOCHU Group.” We are working to improve our abilities so that all related employees can calculate Scope 3 for themselves. Moreover, in April 2023, we held a video training course on the relationship between business and natural capital and biodiversity, and what should be done, mainly for departments responsible for businesses with a high degree of dependence on and impact on natural capital, etc. In October, we held a seminar to deepen understanding of the background and significance of TCFD scenario analysis, mainly for departments conducting scenario analysis. In October, a seminar was held to deepen understanding of the background and significance of TCFD scenario analysis, focusing on the departments that conduct scenario analysis. In both cases, outside consulting firms presented specialized content.

FYE 2024	Training on Biodiversity (basic, practical)
	Briefing for TCFD and Scenario Analysis
FYE 2023	Method of Calculating Scope 3 Emissions in the ITOCHU Group
FYE 2022	When and Where Does CO2 Occur? Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Study Session
FYE 2021	Are the SDGs Profitable?
FYE 2019	Business and Human Rights (in the Supply Chain)