ITOCHU Corporation (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Keita Ishii, President & COO; hereinafter “ITOCHU”) announced today that it has concluded a loan agreement with Mizuho Bank, Ltd. (Masahiko Kato, President & CEO; hereinafter "Mizuho Bank") regarding Mizuho Human Capital Management Impact Finance.*

Mizuho Human Capital Management Impact Finance is a financial product that Mizuho Bank developed to score initiatives regarding the visualization, disclosure and implementation of corporate human capital management using an assessment method developed originally by Mizuho Research & Technologies, Ltd. (Masatoshi Yoshihara, President & CEO; hereinafter "Mizuho Research & Technologies") referencing to the guidelines for the disclosure of highly reliable information about human resources both in Japan and overseas (ISO 30414, Cabinet Office guidelines for the visualization of human capital, etc.).

Mizuho Bank provides loans to companies that have achieved certain scores or higher.
ITOCHU has received an AA rating, which is the highest grade provided for this product, from Mizuho Bank and Mizuho Research & Technologies because their disclosure of information on initiatives in the following domains has been highly evaluated.

-ITOCHU explains the importance of human and organizational assets for sustainable value creation, establishes the labor productivity of employees and the amount invested per employee for the development of human resources as KPIs and the monitoring of indicators, and discloses trends in the results of these matters in chronological order.
-To facilitate the achievement of its goals, ITOCHU implements other initiatives such as the morning-focused working system and discusses the effects of these initiatives.
-In terms of supporting employee-led career development, ITOCHU discloses its original initiatives aimed at achieving diverse knowledge and experience such as the introduction of Virtual Office (in-house concurrent job system).

-ITOCHU defines the establishment of an environment that facilitates the participation of people from diverse backgrounds including women as issues to be addressed, and discloses specific approaches, such as the enhancement of measures to support sound work-life balances utilizing femtech and other technologies accordingly to employees' life stage, facilitating the evolution of “work style reforms” to increase flexibility, and promoting employees' understanding and acceptance of each other by holding workshops on diversity, while simultaneously sharing indicators showing the results of these initiatives and the progress achieved.

-ITOCHU identifies issues related to occupational health and safety and employee healthcare and discloses its system for considering and implementing improvement measures.
-ITOCHU explains the management issues it is working to solve and the measures for solving them (health investments), as well as the effects of these measures in its health and productivity management strategy map.
-In terms of supporting for balancing cancer care and work, ITOCHU implements initiatives from the three perspectives of prevention, treatment and living with cancer, to create a workplace where employees continue to work securely, and explains its establishment of a work environment according to the situation of its employees.

ITOCHU will continue to engage in sure-footed human resources management that leads to the enhancement of labor productivity and corporate value leveraging Mizuho Human Capital Impact Finance and the evaluations and feedback obtained from it, while also aiming to create a company that is challenging and rewarding to work for.

*Mizuho Human Capital Impact Finance (Press release dated May 30 , 2023) (In Japanese Only)
https://www.mizuhobank.co.jp/release/pdf/20230530_2release_jp.pdf

Sustainable finance of the Company
https://www.itochu.co.jp/en/csr/sdgsbond/index.html

Mizuho Bank's News Release “Conclusion of Mizuho Human Capital Management Impact Finance Agreement with ITOCHU Corporation” (In Japanese Only)
https://www.mizuhobank.co.jp/release/pdf/20240325release_jp.pdf