Materiality and Sustainability Policy

Based on Santen's CORE PRINCIPLE "Tenki ni sanyo suru," Santen not only contributes to the sustainable development of society but also aims to achieve its own sustainable growth.

Santen's Materiality

Santen's Key Management Issues (Materiality)

"STRATEGY" and "ESG Materiality" are Santen's key management issues (Materiality).

Keeping Santen's CORE PRINCIPLE "Tenki ni sanyo suru" in mind, Santen has formulated ideal world called "WORLD VISION," namely, "Happiness with Vision," which represents our aim to contribute to the Happiest Life for every individual, through the Best Vision Experience. The company's VISION shows what Santen aspires to be in 2030 and beyond in order to achieve its WORLD VISION. We will "Become A Social Innovator" to orchestrate and mobilize key technologies and players around the world, to deliver happiness through vision. In order to achieve "Santen's VISION" and "GOAL," we will implement "STRATEGY," which consists of "Ophthalmology," "Wellness" and "Inclusion." This WORLD VISION and Santen's VISION have been established from the perspective of Creating Shared Value (CSV), which is a corporate approach to creating both economic and social value by devising solutions to social issues.

Meanwhile, from the perspective of environment, society and governance (ESG), we have identified the following four propositions as ESG materialities: "Development and stable supply of socially significant products and services (Happiness with Vision)," "Encouragement of an Organizational Culture that Promotes Value Creation," "Strengthening Governance, Contributing to the Realization of Fair and Equal Society," and "Conservation of the Global Environment," with the aim of contributing to the sustainable development of society by solving social issues and improving corporate value over the medium to long term. The three STRATEGIES and four ESG materialities are Santen's materiality, namely, Santen's key management issues.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations member states set 17 goals to be achieved by 2030. By addressing our materiality, we will help achieve Goal 3: "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages," and other SDGs.

Materiality Identification Process

Step 1: List up social issues

We compiled an extensive list of social issues based on international guidelines, including the 10 principles of the United Nations Global Compact and SDGs, as well as on survey items of sustainability assessment institutions in December 2019.

Step 2: Set priorities for social issues

We comprehensively evaluated social issues from two standpoints, namely, their importance to society and their importance to our company, and narrowed the issues down to those of high priority.

Step 3: Integrate the three STRATEGIES of the long-term vision "Santen 2030" into Materiality

Looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, we examined the relationship between "Ophthalmology," "Wellness," and "Inclusion," our long-term STRATEGY to address social issues related to people' eye health, and the issues on the above ESG axis (social issues).

Step 4: Confirm the validity

We confirmed the validity of the identification process and the selected ESG materialities through not only discussion within in-house meeting including management but also dialogue with outside stakeholders such as experts and investors. Based on the feedback we received at this stage, we have compiled the table into a form that captures strategic issues and ESG issues from multiple perspectives using triangles, rather than a general two-axis table.

Step 5: Identify Materiality

Through discussions with the Directors, we identified three STRATEGIES and four ESG materialities as Santen's Materiality and disclosed in 2020. We plan to periodically review the materialities in light of the progress of our initiatives and changes in the social environment.

Step 6: Set KPIs

In May 2021, in conjunction with the formulation of the Medium-Term Management Plan (MTP2025), targets were also set for key ESG materiality items, which were disclosed after deliberation by the Board of Directors. In addition, more detailed quantitative targets were set in July 2022.

Sustainability Policy

We have established our sustainability policy incorporating the standpoint of ESG into the WORLD VISON and Santen's VISION, formulated from the perspective of CSV in 2020.

Sustainability Policy

Based on Santen's CORE PRINCIPLE: "Tenki ni sanyo suru," Santen not only contributes to the sustainable development of society but also aims to improve corporate value over the medium to long term.

The Happiest Life for every individual, through the Best Vision Experience. (WORLD VISION) Become A Social Innovator; orchestrates and mobilizes key technologies and players around the world to deliver happiness through vision. (Santen's VISION) Provide people around the world with high-quality safe products and services, as well as information helpful for the treatment and prevention of diseases. Actively incorporate diverse talent and values to enhance our competitiveness and foster a corporate culture that helps increase the value we provide. Perform fair and transparent corporate management and promote business activities that protect human rights, labor and the global environment.

ESG Materiality

The four ESG materialities are aimed at contributing to the sustainable development of society and improving Santen's medium to long term corporate value. We have presented specific issues for promoting the activities and disclose the progress of our efforts as needed.

ESG Materiality Issue KPI (FY2025) Progress in FY2021

Development and Stable Supply of Socially Significant Products and Services (Happiness with Vision)
  • Aiming to contribute to more than 60 million patients (*1)
  • Contributed around 48 million patients in FY2020
  • CSR survey evaluation rate: 85% or higher
  • Supplier training implementation rate: 80% or higher
  • ESG education in the procurement department: 100%
  • Conducted a survey of 77 secondary suppliers, resulting in an evaluation rate : 68% (survey of primary supplies was conducted in the previous year)
  • Production and supply capacity of 500 million or more
  • OTIF (on-time and in-full) shipping(*2): 100% Japan, 97% EMEA, 97% Asia, 97% U.S.
  • Production and supply results: 390 million
  • OTIF shipping: 100% Japan, 96% EMEA, 96% Asia, 100% U.S.
  • Thorough education of Medical Representatives (MRs): 100%
  • Education of MRs: 100%

Encouragement of an Organizational Culture that Promotes Value Creation
  • Increased diverse representation in Senior Management globally
  • Increase representation percentage of Female Managers to 25% in Japan
  • Percentage of Female Managers in Japan: 15%
  • Philosophy is permeated into all employees by implementation of the BLIND EXPERIENCE
  • Percentage of taking BLIND EXPERIENCE basic course: 77%
(Quantitative targets are disclosed from next term on the basis of FY2022 survey.)
  • Prepared for the FY2022 survey
  • In-house training on ophthalmology knowledge: 100%
  • The aggregate length of training sessions in Japan: 48,612 hours

Strengthening Governance, Contributing to the Realization of Fair and Equal Society
  • Outside director ratio: Maintain at over 50%
  • Outside director ratio: 63%
  • Implementation of annual compliance education: Continue at least 95%
  • Major compliance violations: 0
  • Annual compliance education implementation rate: 99%
  • Major compliance violations: 0
  • Development of Group risk management system, development and penetration of related regulations, strengthening of cooperation with the risk management department and internal control defense line related departments
  • Business continuity: disaster recovery plan (IT area) completed
  • Major information security related incidents to be resolved and controlled with clear SLA/OLA(*3) (90% or more)
  • The online IT security awareness training completion rate: 96%
  • Implementation rate of human rights education: 100% (in-house)
  • Ongoing survey of human rights initiatives at business partners

Conservation of the Global Environment
  • Shift of company-owned vehicles to electric vehicles (HEVs, PHEVs, EVs, and FCVs): 100%
  • Facilitating wider use of transportation means with low environmental loads, including railroads, for commuting and business trips, and encouraging remote work and meetings
  • Reduction of CO2 emissions (compared to FY2019)
    Scope 1 and 2: 25% reduction
    Scope 3 Category 1 (non-consolidated): 8% reduction
  • Shift of company-owned vehicles to electric vehicles (HEVs, PHEVs, EVs, and FCVs) in Japan: 92.3%
  • Completed conversion to renewable energy at plants and the laboratory in Japan, on February 2022
  • CO2 emissions
    Scope 1 and 2: 13.7% reduction (30,012 t-CO2)
    Scope 3 Category 1: 12.2% increase (165,569 t-CO2)
  • Water consumption per unit of production: 12.4 m3/10,000 bottles or less
  • Recycling rate: 98% or higher
  • 60% of plastic eye drop containers being produced from biomass plastic in FY2030
  • 10% reduction in plastic used for wrapping and packing materials (compared to FY2019)
  • Water consumption per unit of production: 13.4 m3/10,000 bottles
  • Recycling rate: 98.5%
  • Replacing to biomass plastic eye drop container: started replacing the container of five eye drop products and three of five products replacement had been completed
  • Investigating alternative means of plastic materials for wrapping and packing materials
  1. Estimated total no. of patients to which Santen contributed (disease areas: inflammation/allergies, cornea, glaucoma, cataracts) in FY2019 was approx. 43 million, calculated based on JMDC's estimated total no. of patients for Santen's Rx products and Santen's shipment data
  2. OTIF (on-time and in-full) shipping: a KPI for logistics or delivery performance within the supply chain, meaning on-time and in-full delivery
  3. SLA/OLA: SLA is a promise made between the service provider and the service recipient; OLA is a promise made between the parties involved in providing the services

Sustainability Promotion System

The company has established a Sustainability Committee(*), which consists of the CEO as Chairman, and corporate officers in charge of the relevant divisions. Based on our CORE PRINCIPLE, the Sustainability Policy, the group's strategies, and social issues, the Sustainability Committee sets Sustainability-related policies and targets for our entire group, and monitors the progress of our Sustainability activities.

  • The name of the committee was changed from CSR Committee in November 2022.

Data Utilization for Strategic Decision Making

The company is enhancing our governance from global perspective to realize our long-term VISION "Santen2030" by addressing our business challenges with more complexity, diversity and ambiguity. To do so, we are establishing the infrastructure to utilize data for strategic decision making by capturing not only for financial information but also for non-financial information such as ESG swiftly and comprehensively by utilizing digital transformation (DX).The shift to a cloud-based ERP system is one of the initiatives to strengthen our governance by standardizing relevant business processes and capturing financial and non-financial information in order to bolster our efficiency and competitiveness. In addition, we are re-establishing our IT infrastructure and business processes throughout our value chains to visualize business processes and outputs and to realize a swift and plausive decision-making utilizing data.