Materiality
To realize our purpose — "an invitation to the never before." — and maximize corporate value for our stakeholders, we have identified our material issues based on a two-axes materiality assessment that considers "importance from management perspective" and "importance from stakeholder perspective". We view these material issues as a key to achieving sustainable growth and value creation as we continue to evolve as a Business-to-Business-to-Society (B2B2S) company.
Material issues for dentsu
INTEGRITY
- Business ethics & compliance
- Data privacy and cybersecurity
- Risk and crisis management
- Corporate governance
- Respect for human rights
PEOPLE & CULTURE
- Human capital development
- Focus on well-being and enhancement of how we work
- Developing future generations
INNOVATION
- Co-creation and global collaboration
- Customer engagement and loyalty
- Technology and creativity for a sustainable society
- Contributing to local communities and society
- Leading innovation with new ideas
- New value for new markets
ENVIRONMENT
- Sustainable supply chain management
- Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Driving sustainable consumption through advertising and business activities
Materiality formulation process
Step 1: Identification of issues
We created a long list of key issues based on the Group's current and future-oriented strategies and business models, Board materials and sustainability-related briefings, and our corporate purpose. This was narrowed down to 36 issues after analyzing the following aspects relevant to dentsu’ s business areas:
1. Reports and frameworks published by ratings agencies, specialized organizations, NGOs/NPOs, etc.
2. Sustainability-related media reports
3. Societal issues closely connected to AI
Step 2: Ranking and grouping of issues
The issues identified in Step 1 were quantitatively evaluated through interviews and surveys with Group management members and other key stakeholders from the perspective of what is essential for realizing our purpose as well as what could support/hinder our corporate value creation. The results of these assessments were mapped based on the two axes of “importance from management perspective” and “importance from stakeholder perspective,” which yielded 17 material issues as a result.
These issues were further categorized into four material themes, which formed dentsu's draft materiality.
Step 3: Management approval
The draft materiality was approved following discussions at the Group Sustainability Committee, the Group Management Board, and the Board of Directors, where the issues were confirmed as material for dentsu. We will continue to conduct periodic reviews of our materiality assessment to reflect changes in social conditions, management policies, and stakeholder expectations.
