Nearing the year end of its 50th anniversary in 2021, Delta was doubly honored by being selected as a constituent of the DJSI World Index for the 11th successive year and the DJSI-Emerging Market Index for the 9th consecutive year. Delta's continued acknowledgment by the world's leading corporate sustainability indicators reflects Delta's environmental, social, and economic efforts over the years. It has also deepened the recognition of Delta's business philosophy and sustainable practices by investors, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders.

Delta has been working diligently to implement ESG. Being selected for DJSI is a great honor and a driving force for Delta to become a global benchmark corporation for sustainability. Delta continuously self-examines, learns from all aspects, and actively invests in improving itself, ever more refining the company's ESG strategy and practice according to the DJSI's new and prospective issues and evaluation results every year. In addition to innovating, researching, and improving resource efficiency and product sustainability, Delta spares no effort in nurturing talents and participating in social welfare to closely integrate its business operation and sustainability goals.

Major issues and international sustainability trends — DJSI shapes corporate ESG from the outside inLooking back at Delta's participation in DJSI, like its ESG development, Delta started out by grappling with new ways to learn from mistakes, refine, and move forward. Now Delta has gradually gained a firm foothold.

In 2005, Delta established the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee (the predecessor of the Sustainability Committee). After promoting ESG from the top-down, Delta began to participate in external sustainability evaluations to develop a more macro and trend-sensitive sustainability strategy. Delta first participated in local major sustainability awards (such as the Global Views Monthly CSR Award) in Taiwan, where Delta is headquartered. After accumulating more experience, Delta was further invited to participate in the DJSI Sustainability Index Assessment (Note 1).

Each year, Delta mobilizes nearly all departments and the Foundation to respond specifically to all of DJSI's questions
The DJSI corporate questionnaire covers all facets of Environmental, Social, and Governance. Each participant receives a different set of questions according to the various attributes of different industries. The questionnaires are updated every year, with an average of about 20 groups of questions and more than 100 sub-questions. The length of the questionnaire often exceeds 200 pages and requires detailed and in-depth answers that cannot be completed by a single department of a company alone. Answers to the DJSI's questionnaire are also strictly required to be supported by public information or third-party certification (Note 2). Therefore, providing such information relies heavily on interdepartmental and cross-regional cooperation, which is a complex and challenging task. As such, Delta mobilizes almost every department each year, such as the finance, legal affairs, IT, global supply chain, human resources, branding, NBD, business units, plant operations, environmental safety and health, quality assurance, and R&D departments, as well as the Foundation, to respond specifically to all of DJSI's questions. The Corporate Sustainability Department will then compile the answers and submit the questionnaire. Relevant planning and preparation often take as long as half a year, reflecting the importance and commitment Delta places on this annual corporate sustainability review.

Mobilizing the organization for long-term commitment to DJSI and identifying opportunities for improvementDelta spent more than a year on research and simulation of the DJSI assessment before officially participating in 2009. However, when Delta was invited to join for the first time, we were unable to achieve good results. This was due to various factors, such as incomplete information, insufficient public support, inability to find the correct internal contact window or the fact that we had not yet started planning or working on certain trending topics. However, it was an excellent opportunity for Delta to diagnose the soundness of the company's E, S, and Gaspects using external standards.

Delta's management team leads the Sustainability Committee to promote climate initiatives and connect with key international
sustainability initiatives to address climate change
In the initial DJSI report, Delta performed better in the Environmental Division. In contrast, other facets such as "Supply Chain Management," "Talent Attraction and Retention," "Climate Strategy," and "Product Responsibility" had more room for improvement. After internal review and evaluation with the related units, the Sustainability Committee set up projectsfor each item, with dedicated teams responsible for facilitating improvements.

Using the "supply chain management" aspect as an example, Delta's thousands of suppliers are primarily companies with limited resources, making it relatively difficult to meet ESG standards. Therefore, Delta started counseling and training its suppliers and gradually assisting them in obtaining resources. In 2018, we formally integrated our global procurement system to establish an ESG Supply Chain Committee (Note 3) to assist suppliers with sustainable transformation. Over the years, Delta has also actively connected with various sectors, invested in industry-academia programs, recruited global talents, and implemented diverse and inclusive attainment to strengthen talent cultivation and development. The management team leads the Sustainability Committee to promote various climate initiatives and has successively engaged with important international sustainability initiatives such as SBT, EV100, and RE100 to respond to climate change. These efforts and results have gradually improved Delta's DJSI evaluation results, with its percentile rising significantly from around the 60th percentile at the beginning to now over 90th.

Selected for DJSI for 11 consecutive years, Delta moves toward becoming a global sustainability benchmarkFirst listed in the DJSI World Index in 2011, Delta has become one of the world's benchmark companies in sustainability. After years of experience, Delta has been included for 11 consecutive years, awarded "Industry Leader" five times, and received the highest score
in the ITC Electronic Equipment, Instruments, and Components Industry in 2021. Compared to the past, Delta's long-term efforts have resulted in a strong performance in the Social Division, comparable to its performance in the Environmental Division, with full scores in "Social Reporting" and "Human Capital Development" and the highest industry score in "Talent Attraction and Retention." Delta's performance in the Governance aspect also ranked top in the industry category, reflecting Delta's true integration of ESG into the long-term
development strategy of its operations. Opportunities presented in the report have gradually shifted to emerging issues such as "Conflict Minerals Management" and "Chemical Management."

Delta's performance in the Social Division of the 2021 DJSI assessment was outstanding, with full scores for "Social Reporting" and "Human Capital Development" and the highest industry score for "Talent Attraction and Retention." Image: HR Team group photo
The prestigious international acknowledgment doesn't change Delta's original intent to pursue sustainable development in a practical manner. Each year, Delta has used the results of the assessment for self-improvement. Through the process, Delta continues to see the corporate values that stakeholders are concerned with and the direction we need to work together. These will become future challenges and business opportunities for corporations working towards sustainability. 

Notes:
1 DJSI, issued by S&P Global, is the world's first sustainability index for top companies and is considered the most credible sustainability index. The DJSI World index has the highest rating among the many indices. In 2021, 2,500 large corporations from 61 industries around the world were evaluated in depth according to three major aspects: E (environmental), S (social), and G (governance). The top 10% of companies with the highest scores are selected as an important reference for global sustainable investment.
2 DJSI requires public information and third-party corroboration for corporate sustainability reports, official websites, policies/codes/regulations, financial data, carbon emissions data, international certifications, and others.
3 Delta's ESG Supply Chain Committee consists of six major projects, including "Regulations/Management Rules Revision," "Supplier ESG Assessment," "Environmental Efficiency Management," "Special Issues Management," "Platform Function Enhancement," and "Communication and Advocacy," all of which regularly track and review the projects' progress.