Introduction

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Our Sustainability
Aiming to become the world’s most essential corporate group.
The SoftBank Group will continue fulﬁlling its responsibility as a leader of the Information Revolution.

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Sustainability Message

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Our Basic ApproachP. 11 Feature: Sustainability Committee
P. 12 ESG Promotion in the Investment Business
Sustainable Bonds
P. 13 Spotlight: Portfolio Companies that Contribute toSolving Environmental and Social Issues

7Introduction

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Sustainability Message

Yoshimitsu Goto
Board Director, Corporate Ofﬁcer, Senior Vice President, CFO & CISO

Corporate responsibilities on sustainability, including climate change and human rights, are becoming even more important.
In ﬁscal 2020, SBG started establishing its internal foundation and has been steadfastly promoting sustainability initiatives,and over the past year, I feel we have taken another vital step.
With respect to the environment, in June 2022, we disclosed information in line with recommendations of the Task Forceon Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), along with the Group’s greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. SBG
has already achieved Carbon Neutrality. We will continue to work together as a Group to promote these initiatives, having
our several major subsidiaries set their own targets.
Regarding social responsibility, we are stepping up efforts concerning human rights, such as identifying human rights
risks, and also we are putting more focus on human capital. We believe people are the most valuable capital for the investment business, and continued qualitative improvement of our employees will drive our future growth. For this reason, we willcontinue to support every employee to elevate the talent and become a global player.
As for governance, SBG’s Board of Directors consists of highly diversiﬁed and skilled members from global businessleadership and academia. Since June 2021, the ratio of External Directors exceeded 50%, further strengthening thesupervisory functions of the Board.
In addition, we also promote the integration of ESG into our investment business, recognizing its signiﬁcance as aninvestment company. Many of our portfolio companies are already working to address climate change, recycle resources,
ensure diversity and inclusion, and eliminate inequality and discrimination. We believe that an important challenge for the
future is how to integrate ESG seamlessly into our investment criteria. Companies that have an insufﬁcient ESG perspective
are considered to be more likely to deliver limited growth over the medium to long term, so investing in such companies
could adversely affect our investment performance. It is indispensable that we address social needs head on. We will not
simply integrate ESG into our investment criteria; we will continue to monitor the ESG efforts of those companies wechoose to invest in and engage with them as necessary.
While these activities have already been highly rated by third-party ESG evaluation organizations, the Group plans tofurther deepen its initiatives with more substance. We will continue to promote ESG to enhance our vision while consideringsocial demands and making sure of continuous improvements.
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Introduction

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Our Basic Approach
Sustainability VisionHelp Shape the Next 300 Years for Our Future Generations and the Planet
SoftBank Group’s philosophy, Information Revolution — Happiness for everyone embodies our determination to bring happiness to everyone, even to future generations 300 years from now.
To create a world where people can live in harmony with the earth, the SoftBank Group will fulfill our responsibility as leader in the Information Revolution to realize a sustainable society.

Sustainability Principles
SBG established the SoftBank Group Sustainability Principles as a guideline to appropriately advance sustainability activities. Based on these principles, we have identified material issues (“Strategic Material Issues”)
reflecting the business characteristics and social demands of each Group company. We have also defined six activity themes for the Group to promote its sustainability initiatives autonomously.

Six Activity Themes—Our Direction

Strategic Material Issues *1

Strategic Material Issues(Top priority)

2

Take responsibility by responding to emerging issues thatcome with technological advancement

3

Ensure the growth of the future generations and ourbusiness by creating higher quality employment for all

4

Leverage breakthrough technologies to resolve environmental issues, including energy problems

5

Demonstrate highly transparent governance and integrity to
win further trust of our stakeholders

6

Maximize our potential as a group by joining forces withpeople around the world to make a positive impact on society

Eight Material Issues to be prioritized

Climate change
Human capital development
Corporate governanceAnti-corruption

Importance to stakeholders

1

Drive sustainable growth and innovation in society byuniting wisdom and knowledge

Labor standards
Social supply chain
Corporate citizenshipPrivacy anddata security

Human rights

Innovation management
Market opportunity
Sustainable finance

Pollution and resourcesE nvironmental supply chain

Risk management

 ccess toAcommunication

Health and safety

Importance to the Group(Top priority)*1 The colors of each materiality indicate its association with the six activity themes shown on the left.

9Introduction

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Identifying Material Issues (“Strategic Material Issues”)
SBG has classiﬁed issues to be addressed from two perspectives:

Step1

Step2

Step3

importance to stakeholders and importance to the Group. Among

Identification of issues
Identify issues

Materiality analysis
Analyze the importanceof issues to stakeholders
and the Group

Identification of material issues
Identify material issues
to be prioritized

Identify issues surrounding the Group’s
main businesses by referring to external
guidelines and opinions of experts.

Analyze the importance on two axes:
importance to stakeholders andimportance to the Group.

Identify Strategic Material Issues that
the Group should address withparticular priority.

these issues, we identiﬁed eight key issues as Strategic MaterialIssues to prioritize.

Sustainability Governance Structure
The Board of Directors has appointed Chief Sustainability Ofﬁcer (CSusO) and established theSustainability governance structure

Sustainability Committee. The Committee is chaired by CSusO (head of Investor Relations Department &head of Sustainability Department) and composed of three members including Board Director, Corporate
Ofﬁcer, Senior Vice President, CFO & CISO (head of Finance Unit & head of Administration Unit);
Corporate Ofﬁcer, Senior Vice President (head of Accounting Unit); and Corporate Ofﬁcer, CLO & GCO

Board of Directors of
SoftBank Group Corp.
Supervise

Report(head of Legal Unit). The Committee discusses material ESG issues surrounding the Group and its
promotion policies, while taking into account the requests from our stakeholders, and reports to theSecretariat
Sustainability Department

Sustainability Committee
Chairperson: Chief Sustainability Officer(CSusO)

Board for supervision.

Supervise

Related departments
Respond / report

Cooperate

Major subsidiaries

Initiatives for the SDGs
SBG aims to realize a society where people all over the world can live happily andprosperously. Together with the Group companies that conduct business globally, we will
work to contribute to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) byaddressing the six activity themes identiﬁed in our SoftBank Group Sustainability Principles.

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Introduction

FeatureOur Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Sustainability Committee

SBG’s Sustainability Committee was established in June 2020 and usually holds meetings once a quarter. The heads of relevant departments also attend the meetings to engage in cross-functional discussions based on expertise and from multiple perspectives.

Meetings held

5 times in total(2 times in ﬁscal 2020, 3 times in ﬁscal 2021)

Main matters
discussed to date

• Integrating ESG factors into the investment process• Strengthening ESG information disclosure• Establishing ESG-related Group policies• Responding to climate change• Responding to human rights risks

The Committee was held three times in ﬁscal 2021 (October 2021, December 2021, and March 2022) discussing the Group’s material
issues including its response to climate change and human rights risks, as well as the value creation story based on its corporate philosophy and strategies.

* As of March 31, 2022

Message from the Chair and Members of the Sustainability Committee
Chair of the Sustainability Committee

Members of the Sustainability Committee

Chief Sustainability Ofﬁcer

Engaging Discussions Raise Company-wide AwarenessOn Becoming the Chief Sustainability Ofﬁcer
I was appointed as Chief Sustainability Ofﬁcer in June 2022
and have been serving as the chair of the Sustainability
Committee since then. As head of Investor Relations,
I have been actively supporting sustainability initiatives.
Now that I take on the dual responsibility in both sustainability and investor relations, I am committed to taking evengreater ownership of our sustainability efforts.
Yotaro Agari
To begin with, I would like to further accelerate our diaGlobal Head of Investor
Relations and Head of
logue with investors and other various stakeholders. As a
Sustainability Department“Vision Capitalist for the Information Revolution,” SBG aims
to continue investing in AI-driven innovation and supporting growth to realize its vision.
We believe such business activities and our business model itself lead to the creation ofsocial value and solutions to global risks. We will continue to widely communicate thesematters to promote thorough understanding of our efforts.
We also seek to understand the expectations of our stakeholders well and capitalizeon the ﬁndings in developing our measures. In particular, as our business activities spread
globally, so do our stakeholders, we will continue to generate solutions on the front linesof the global market. The Sustainability Committee plays a very important role in thiseffort. We need to create a roadmap to achieve our stated vision and connect with ourdaily efforts. I believe it is imperative to share and convey policies and measures throughout the entire Group while SBG as an investment company and our subsidiaries/portfolio
companies in various businesses as members of the Group work on sustainability.

Yoshimitsu Goto
Board Director,
Corporate Officer,
Senior Vice President,
CFO & CISO
Head of Finance Unit
Head of Administration Unit

The Sustainability Committee has just marked its second anniversary and taken on an important rolein the Group of promoting sustainability and hosted many discussions on such diverse topics as
updating Group policies and addressing climate change and human rights risks. Active discussion andexchange of opinions among department heads at the Sustainable Committee lead to awarenessraising of the senior management team, which in turn, positively inﬂuences all colleagues back in thedepartments, further fostering a company-wide awareness of sustainability.

Aiming to Enhance Non-ﬁnancial Disclosure

Kazuko Kimiwada
Corporate Officer,
Senior Vice President
Head of Accounting Unit

As head of Accounting Unit, I feel that disclosure of non-ﬁnancial information—not just ﬁnancial information—is becoming increasingly important. Although the disclosure of quantitative ﬁgures is a very
challenging mission, by observing the trends in international non-ﬁnancial information disclosure
frameworks, we will continue striving to disclose credible information in a way that is easy tounderstand for investors and stakeholders. In addition, as a strategic investment holding company,
we recognize the importance of disclosure that extends to investees. We will continue taking
measures to enhance engagement with and monitoring of each fund’s portfolio companies.

Substantial Sustainability Initiatives with Integrity

Tim Mackey
Corporate Officer,
CLO & GCO
Head of Legal Unit

Fostering awareness of compliance, ethics and integrity among our Group employees is a core role of theGroup Compliance Ofﬁcer. To my mind, this will also naturally foster an overall awareness of sustainability.
In line with the corporate philosophy of Information Revolution — Happiness for everyone, the Group’s goal
is not simply economic proﬁt but also to contribute to the growth and development of society as a whole.
We will work to instill understanding of this philosophy across the Group and will continue to go beyond
superﬁcial sustainability and further evolve initiatives in pursuit of substantial sustainability that leads tohappiness in society generally.

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Introduction

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

ESG Promotion in the Investment BusinessIn order to improve medium- to long-term returns and reduce risks in its investment business, the Group

Environmental and Social Contributions through the Investment Businessis building a systematic assessment process for the ESG initiatives of portfolio companies. The GroupThe Group, as a “Vision Capitalist for the Information Revolution,” contributes to solving issues, such asalso conducts knowledge sharing and engagement to enable portfolio companies to incorporate ESG

climate change and educational and economic inequalities, and achieving sustainability on a global

aspects in their business strategy.

scale, by investing in companies with innovative technologies and business models. Through its investment
business such as SoftBank Vision Funds, we have already invested in many companies that contribute

ESG Integration into the Investment Process

to solving environmental and social issues using AI.

The Group believes that encouraging its portfolio companies to engage in ESG initiatives will contributeto the sustainable development of society and the sustainable growth of the Group. With this in mind,

See pages 13, 33, and 41– 43 for more on our portfolio companies that contribute to solving environmental and social issues.
P. 13

we revised our Portfolio Company Governance and Investment Guidelines Policy in May 2021, which

P. 33

P. 41–43

originally sets forth criteria on governance of portfolio companies to be considered in the investment
process. The revised policy clearly states that environmental and social factors, in addition to gover-Engagement with Portfolio Companies
SBIA

nance, are to be assessed in the selection of investees and in post-investment monitoring. The policy

Sustainability Sessions with Portfolio Companies

applies to SBG and its subsidiaries.*

SBIA holds sustainability sessions with portfolio companies as part of its engagement activities. SBIA

1

In assessing the environmental and social factors of investees, each investment subsidiary develops

held a total of four sessions by the end of ﬁscal 2021 and more than 60 companies and organizations in

its own implementation plan, which includes material environmental and social issues and assessment

total attended the sessions. The sessions provide useful information for portfolio companies to assess

methodologies. Some of our investment subsidiaries have already started assessing the environmental

and address business risks and opportunities related to sustainability, such as climate change policies

and social initiatives of potential investees during due diligence and are discussing how to utilize thein the U.S., the trend of decarbonization initiatives, and the importance of corporate ESG initiatives.

assessment results in investment decisions and post-investment monitoring.

The sessions also serve as a forum for promoting collaboration among portfolio companies through,for instance, the discussions where leaders of portfolio companies participate as panelists.

Sustainable Bonds
The Group promotes businesses that contribute to solving environmental and social issues by utilizing sustainable bonds.
HAPS Bond

SoftBank Corp.

Green Bonds

Z Holdings Corporation

In January 2022, SoftBank Corp. issued a total of ¥30 billion in sustainability bonds (nicknamed “HAPS

In July 2021, Z Holdings Corporation issued ¥20 billion in green bonds as a means of raising funds forBond”) to fund capital expenditures, R&D, and other areas related to its High Altitude Platform Station

projects that contribute to solving environmental issues. Funds raised are to be allocated to expenditures(HAPS) business. HAPS are unmanned aircraft systems ﬂown in the stratosphere that act as airborne

for constructing, refurbishing, acquiring, and operating energy-efﬁcient data centers to be used by thebase stations. They are operated to construct stable Internet environments that deliver connectivity to

Z Holdings Group, as well as to the procurement of renewable energy-based electricity to be used at

mountainous areas, remote islands, developing countries, and other areas and regions lacking access todata centers.

traditional telecommunications networks.
*1 Includes SoftBank Vision Funds and other investment subsidiaries managed by subsidiaries of SBG but excludes listed companies andsubsidiaries that the Group is restricted from controlling for regulatory reasons and their subsidiaries.

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Introduction

Spotlight

Our Sustainability

GovernanceSocialEnvironment

Corporate Information

Portfolio Companies that Contribute to Solving Environmental and Social Issues (Information for the portfolio companies is as of September 30, 2022)

Utilizing AI and other innovative technology, the Group’s portfolio companies leverage their own unique strengths to realize sustainability on a global scale. As a “Vision Capitalist for the Information Revolution,” we aim
to realize a safer, more prosperous, and exhilarating future while solving global issues through the businesses of our portfolio companies.

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P. 41-43

ClimatechangeHigher work
satisfaction andproductivity

CirculareconomyEnvironment

Health, safety,
and security

Biodiversity

SocietyCyber
security

Closing
gaps and
improving
access* These are examples of portfolio companies that contribute to solving environmental and social issues.

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