The material issues were determined through the following process upon discussions by the Sustainability Committee, the Management Meeting, and the Board of Directors.

Topics were identi ed by referring to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ISO 26000, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards, etc., grouped, and extracted as the "Sustainability Topic List."

Questionnaires on the topics extracted in Step 1 were carried out on the executive of cers, employees, customers, and business partners of the Company, while at the same time assessments were made from the two perspectives of "the impact on corporate value" and "the importance for and expectations from the stakeholders," referring to such factors as the opinions of institutional investors, etc., the relationship with key industry-speci c topics based on the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards, matters that are expected of the post of ces by the nation's municipalities, the opinions of experts of the region, and the results of dialogue with sustainability experts, and the particularly important topics were determined.

After grouping the particularly important topics and their closely related topics, their consistency with the Management Philosophy and Medium-Term Management Plan was veri ed and sorted into six areas, and the direction to be taken by each initiative was clarified.