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Sustainability-related Materiality

Why do we need “Materiality”?

Rigaku group has upheld the corporate mission of its founders to “contribute to the enhancement of humanity through the development of science and technology”, working with the motto to “Value our customers, value our people, and value our technology”. Now the global environment issues including climate change, inappropriate management of resources, and loss of biodiversity affect our daily life and sustainability of society and economy. Based on that, Rigaku group specified our “Materiality” to contribute to realize the sustainable world and keep developing and growing with our customers through our business activities. We integrate this materiality into our mid-to-long term strategy and execute on this through our business.

Sustainability related Materiality

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Contributing to the sustainable social development
Technical advancement
  • Empower our customers’ vision of their materials. Build on our core technology in X-ray generators, high voltage adaptors, detectors and advanced software to provide full system solutions
  Carbon-free society
  • Enable innovations in power electronics technology essential for renewable energy and electric vehicles with our analytical technology
  • Improve the energy and material efficiency of our analytical devices as full ecosystem solutions
  Semiconductors and digital industry
  • Contribute to the development and production of next-generation semiconductors to support advanced digital applications, with a focus on AI
  • Provide analytical solutions for improvement of power semiconductors and various electronic components that form the basic building blocks for our society
  Human Health
  • Contribute to the development and quality assurance of medical products in the life-science and pharmaceutical fields by providing new analytical techniques through a combination of high-sensitivity X-ray analysis and automation
 
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Corporate
Social Responsibility
Strengthen human capital and recruit & retain a diverse workforce
  • Build the global team that will deliver our mid- to long-term business goals
    • Reinforce our strength in personnel with a capacity to act globally
    • Recruit and nurture the next generation of managers and experts to drive the company forward
    • Promote workforce diversity and female empowerment to embed society’s needs into our business practice
  • Develop international scientific/technical expertise and accelerate the spread of analytical capability
Enhanced product reliability
  • Maintain and improve product reliability (quality and safety)
    • Provide reliable data for customers through improvements in design and in quality assurance
    • Ensure high operational availability rates through improved product design and technical support
  • Carry out design and procurement activities in a way that fulfills our social responsibilities
Minimize environmental footprint of our operations
  • Promote decarbonization, resource recycling, pollution prevention, chemical substances control, etc.
 
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Governance
Leadership and
corporate governance
  • Provide leadership based on MVV (Mission-Vision-Value) principles
    • Create a “New Style Global Company” launched from Japan
  • Streamline the organization structure to make governance work

Process for specifying sustainability related Materiality

Step 1

Identify a pool of potential social issues

Create a long-list of “societal issues” for evaluation with reference to GRI standard, SASB, UN SDGs, and other international guidelines. Tailor the list adding some further items specific to Rigaku’s business and profile.

Step 2

Individual executives’ views on materiality gathered in survey

Conduct and collate a survey of ”important social issues for my company” with around 40 key people. Survey respondents are executive officers and above and based worldwide, including independent directors/auditors. Also, prepare reference data about competitors and guidelines information to provide an external view.

Step 3

Executive management group’s opinions on materiality consolidated at ESG Steering Committee

Based on the survey results, discuss the most prominent social issues at the ESG Promotion Committee and build the final Materiality matrix for presentation to and endorsement by the Board of Directors.

KPIs were set in line with the Materiality, also approved by the Board.