Meeting the expectations of society through our innovations in retailing.

Seven & i Holdings centers on seven main businesses- convenience stores, superstores, department stores, supermarkets, restaurants, financial services, and IT/service- each of which is closely connected to the daily lives of our customers. We are engaged in creating a New Comprehensive Lifestyle Industry that meets the needs of our customers in a broadly changing society. Our lines of business continued expanding in 2006, during which we added Millennium Retailing, which centers on department stores, and York Benimaru, which is expanding its chain of supermarkets in the Tohoku and Northern Kanto regions.
By building a system in which our companies dedicate themselves to their particular businesses based upon the control and oversight of Seven & i Holdings, we are able both to strengthen corporate governance over the group overall and to make the concerted group efforts necessary to fulfilling our CSR (corporate social responsibilities). In addition, by increasing the synergy benefits gained through business tie-ups amongst our companies that cross over existing boundaries, we are able to implement retailing innovations from a customer standpoint that allow us to meet the expectations of society and our customers to an even greater degree.

Dealing with social issues from the point of view of society and citizens.

Taking these kinds of efforts into consideration, in this year’s report we examine the CSR situation at Seven & i Holdings and report on items such as “safety and reliability,” “fair trading,” “co-existence and co-prosperity,” “contribution to local communities,” “respect for diversity,” “prevention of global warming,” and “creating a recycling-oriented society,” in a format that transcends the boundaries of the individual companies. We have tried to gain substantive improvement of accountability by providing explanations that consider the perspectives of all stakeholders, making them easier to understand. In addition, our hope for this report is that it can be more than an opportunity for providing one-sided information, and that it can be of use in propelling further CSR efforts by providing a chance to deepen the dialogue with all our stakeholders.
Seven & i Holdings is working in earnest to achieve sustainable growth in tandem with society, and to increase our corporate value. We look forward to the ongoing support and guidance of our stakeholders.

Emphasizing compliance, the foundation of CSR.

Society is paying ever more attention to the activities of companies. New laws for the prevention of illegal activities and for the protection of consumers and investors continue to be enacted, and there is a strong demand for compliance by companies with laws and social norms. Seven & i Holdings is working to ensure that legal compliance, which is vital to fulfilling CSR obligations and comprises the foundation for social contribution, is thoroughly observed in all of our group companies. Seven & i Holdings set up the CSR Promotion Committee, with the Chief Operating Officer (COO) as the chairman, when the company was established in September 2005 as an integrated compliance organization covering the CSR activities of our three operating companies at that time, which were Seven-Eleven Japan, Ito- Yokado, and Denny’s Japan. Five specialized subcommittees were created under the auspices of this Committee: the Corporate Ethics and Compliance Sub-Committee, the Fair Trade (FT) Sub- Committee, the Social Contribution Sub- Committee, the Environmental Management Sub- Committee, and the Information Management Sub- Committee. These sub-committees are designed to improve awareness at both the management and employee levels, to deepen discussions of CSR, and to establish goals and action plans to ensure thorough compliance.

Integrating efforts among the operating companies, and improving CSR throughout the entire group

In 2006 we added Millennium Retailing, Inc. (June) and York-Benimaru Co., Ltd. (September) to our group of operating companies. As our group of companies continues to grow, the aforementioned specialized sub-committees accurately monitor the CSR efforts of each company, so that we can develop an integrated CSR approach throughout the corporate group. There are currently some discrepancies amongst the operating companies in terms of their progress in CSR efforts. Therefore, we are seeking to improve CSR throughout the overall group by stepping up efforts based on information sharing and examinations conducted through the specialized subcommittees, based upon the policy set by Seven & i Holdings.

The importance of dialogue with individuals to a “sincere, trusted company”

All of the businesses engaged in by Seven & iHoldings call for daily interaction with customers, business partners, and local communities, providing many opportunities to hear the opinions of a wide variety of our stakeholders. Also, the staff at all of our outlets and business locations are local residents wellinformed about the local community, so the opinions of the local community are known. The opportunities for communication through dialogue with individual stakeholders at the places where we do business are of great value to Seven & i Holdings in fulfilling our corporate social responsibilities. From these dialogues with individuals we find out what is of interest and concern to all the members of society. This allows us to share their perspectives about social issues; we then tie this into an organizational approach, so that what we have learned is reflected in the management goals of each operating company and of the group overall. We believe that this form of “stakeholder engagement,” in which the stakeholder is given a role in the retail management process, is a way that we can realize our goal of being a “sincere, trusted company.” This report seeks to disclose the CSR efforts of Seven & i Holdings and our main operating companies from the perspectives described above. While we still need to improve some aspects of our efforts, we hope to gain your understanding of our current situation. Your unreserved opinions will help us implement even better CSR efforts.