Disclosure Based on TCFD Recommendations

Role of management

The ESG Committee, chaired by the President, meets four times a year to discuss important issues, including the Carbon Neutral 2030 Declaration, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from electricity and other sources used in business operations to virtually zero by fiscal 2030. The rate of introduction of renewable energy and other measures to achieve carbon neutrality are partially linked to executive compensation. In addition, an Environment Committee has been established under the oversight of the Executive Officer in Charge of ESG as an organization to manage climate-related risks, promote internal initiatives, and carry out business operations.

The Environment Committee is chaired by the General Manager of the CSR Division and consists of environmental managers from each of our business units and major Group companies, and promotes specific measures to achieve carbon neutrality 2030.

Promotion structure

Impact on business strategies and financial plannings

We analyzed the impact of climate change risks on our business strategies and financial plannings. Under the 1.5℃ scenario, we assumed that there would be no acute or chronic physical risks from climate change at a level that would affect our business, but that policies and laws and regulations to combat climate change would be strengthened, and we estimated the impact of a carbon tax of about 16,000 yen per ton of CO₂ equivalent starting in 2025.

In the 4℃ scenario, we assumed that the strengthening of policies and laws and regulations, including the strengthening of climate change countermeasures, and transition risks in technology, markets, and reputation would not materialize, while the physical impacts of climate change, such as more severe extreme weather events, would occur, and we assumed that the most severe damage to our company caused by the heavy rainfall special warning that has occurred in recent years would occur in 2019 Based on the restoration cost of 770 million yen in FY2019, we have estimated the potential financial impact that is expected to occur in the future.
We have approximately 300,000 cell phone base stations in operation nationwide, and based on our analysis of the financial impact of disaster recovery costs, we have secured a budget and are prepared to respond quickly.

Resilience of strategy

To reduce the risk of damage from torrential rain disasters, we have continued to invest in the installation of long-lasting batteries in base stations, deployment of disaster drones, and enhancement of disaster countermeasure inspections, and no incidents leading to serious area disruptions occurred in FY2021.

In addition, we are promoting efforts to commercialize the High Altitude Platform Station (HAPS) service, a stratospheric communications system that provides a communications network from the stratosphere, approximately 20 kilometers above the ground. HAPS will enable the construction of a stable Internet connection environment in places and regions where communication networks are not in place, such as mountainous areas, remote islands, and developing countries. In FY2021, we issued our first sustainability bond (HAPS bond) for capital investment, research and development, and business operations of HAPS.
See the table below for risks and opportunities identified and measures taken to address them.

Climate change risk management process

The identified risks, including regulatory, reputational, market, technological, and physical risks, are monitored and progress managed by the Environment Committee, which confirms the formulation and implementation of countermeasures.

Integration into the company-wide risk management process

In order to identify and prevent the manifestation of company-wide risks, we have established a management system that analyzes risks from various angles within the company. The Risk Management Office periodically identifies company-wide and comprehensive risks and checks the status of countermeasures, and reports the results to the Risk Management Committee, whose members include the president, vice presidents, and CFO, as well as corporate auditors and the heads of related divisions. The Risk Management Committee determines the level of importance of risks and the person responsible for dealing with them (risk owner), issues instructions on countermeasures, and reports the status to the Board of Directors. The Internal Audit Office confirms these overall risk management systems and conditions from an independent standpoint.
Climate change risks managed by the Environment Committee are integrated with company-wide risk management, and through regular risk management cycles, we are working to reduce and prevent risks.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2) for FY2021 were 708,534 t-co2 and 8,685,602 t-co2 for Scope 3. For detailed figures, please refer to the data book at the end of this report, which is basically 93% of the Group's consolidated sales ratio for FY2021. Any differences will be noted in the table.

Targets and performance

As our main goal, we have set a carbon neutral goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from electricity used in our business activities to virtually zero by 2030, the year we aim to achieve the SDGs. In addition, we will promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from all of our facilities and equipment other than base stations to achieve zero greenhouse gas emissions from FY2030 onward.

The carbon neutrality target covers Scope 1 (direct greenhouse gas emissions by the company itself and Scope 2 (indirect emissions from the use of electricity, heat, and steam supplied by other companies) and is set by SoftBank Corp. and its major subsidiaries (93% of consolidated sales).

Our greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, including emissions of other companies related to our business activities (Scope 3), have been certified by the international climate change initiative SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative) as scientifically based “SBT (Science Based For more information on SBT targets, please click here.

The Scope 3 reduction target is a 14.8% reduction by FY2030. (compared to FY 2019)