BSI (British Standards Institution) Group Korea (hereinafter referred to as the "assurer") was requested to verify the COWAY 2024 Sustainability Report (hereinafter referred to as the "report"). The assurer is independent of COWAY and has no major operational financial interest other than the assurance. This assurance opinion statement is intended to provide information related to the assurance of the COWAY report relating to the environment, social and governance (ESG) to the relevant stakeholders and may not be used for any purpose other than the purpose of publication. This assurance opinion statement was prepared based on the information presented by COWAY and the assurance was carried out under the assumption that presented the information and data were complete and accurate.
COWAY is responsible for managing the relevant information contained within the scope of assurance, operating the relevant internal control procedures, and for all information and claims contained in the report. Any queries that may arise by virtue of this independent assurance opinion statement or matters relating to it should be addressed to COWAY only.
The assurer is responsible for providing COWAY management with an independent assurance opinion containing professional opinions derived by applying the assurance methodology to the scope specified, and to provide the information to all stakeholders of COWAY. The assurer shall not bear any other responsibility, including legal responsibility, to any third party other than COWAY in providing the assurance opinion and shall not be liable to any other purpose, purpose or stakeholders related thereto for which the assurance opinion may be used.

As a part of its independent assurance, the assurer has used the methodology developed for relevant evidence collection in order to comply with the verification criteria and to reduce errors in reporting. The assurer has performed the following activities:

• A top-level review of issues raised by external parties that could be relevant to organization’s policies to provide a check on the appropriateness of statements made in the report

• Discussion with managers and staff on the organization’s approach to stakeholder engagement

• Review of materiality issue analysis process and prioritization by reviewing the materiality issue analysis process and verifying the results

• Verification of data generation, collection, and reporting for each performance index and document review of relevant systems, policies, and procedures where available

• Visit to the COWAY HQ to confirm the data collection processes, record management practices

• An assessment of the company's reporting and management processes concerning this reporting against the principles of Inclusivity, Materiality, Responsiveness, and Impact as described in the AA1000 AccountAbility Principles Standard (2018)

The assurer performed limited verification for a limited period based on the data provided by the reporting organization. It implies that no significant errors were found during the verification process, and that there are limitations related to the inevitable risks that may exist. The assurer does not provide assurance for possible future impacts that cannot be predicted or verified during the verification process and any additional aspects related thereto.

BSI (British Standards Institution) is a leading global standards and assessment body founded in 1901. BSI is an independent professional institution that specializes in quality, health, safety, social and environmental management with almost 120 years of history in providing independent assurance services globally. The assurance team members do not have any business relationships with COWAY. The assurer has conducted this verification independently, and there has been no conflict of interest. All assurers who participated in the assurance have qualifications as an AA1000AS assurer, have a lot of assurance experience, and have in-depth understanding of the BSI Group's assurance standard methodology.

The assurance was carried out by a team of sustainability report assurers in accordance with the AA1000 Assurance Standard v3. The assurer planned and performed this part of our work to obtain the necessary information and explanations considered to provide sufficient evidence that COWAY’s description of their approach to AA1000 Assurance Standard and their self-declaration of compliance with the GRI standards were fairly stated.

On the basis of our methodology and the activities described above, it is our opinion that the information and data included in the Report are accurate and reliable and the assurer cannot point out any substantial aspects of material with mistake or misstatement. We believe that the economic, social and environment performance indicators are accurate and are supported by robust internal control processes.

The Report is prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards. (Reporting in accordance with the GRI standards). The detailed reviews against the AA1000 AccountAbility Principles of Inclusivity, Materiality, Responsiveness and Impact and the GRI Standards are set out below.

COWAY defined customers, shareholders/investors, employees, partners and suppliers, local communities and academia/media/government associations as key stakeholder groups. In order to collect opinions by each stakeholder group in the context of sustainability, operated the stakeholder engagement process. COWAY conducted a review of the stakeholder engagement process at the governance level in order to reflect the major issues derived through the stakeholder engagement process in sustainability strategy and goals. COWAY disclosed the results related to the process in the Report.

COWAY implemented its own materiality assessment process in consideration of the major business and operational characteristics to derive important reporting issues related to sustainability. In the materiality assessment, COWAY conducted the analysis of global sustainability reporting or assessment standards, and analyzed international disclosure standards and evaluation indicators, benchmarking the same industry, and analyzing major regulatory issues to derive the impact and financial materiality. COWAY derived 5 material issues through the relevant process, and disclosed GRI topic standards disclosures related to material issues in the Report.

COWAY operated a management process for material issues in the context of sustainability derived from the materiality assessment. COWAY established mid- to long-term sustainability plans and goals according to the management methodology established to effectively reflect the expectations of key stakeholders. disclosed the process including policy, indicator, activity and response performance on key issues in the Report.

COWAY identified the scope and extent of the impacts to the organization and key stakeholders in the context of the sustainability of the material issues reported. COWAY established sustainability strategies and objectives based on the analysis results of major impacts, including risks and opportunities for key issues at the governance level, disclosed mid- to long-term plans and strategic system in the Report.

The assurer will provide the following comments to the extent that they do not affect the result of assurance:

• It may be helpful to advance the sustainability management system by disclosing ESG management vision, mid- to long-term objectives, and annual performance, achievement status, and improvement plans according to the implementation strategy.

• It may be effective in achieving key sustainability strategic objectives such as a circular economy, by internalizing a sustainability management framework based on key operational management systems, such as re-use of filters and re-resource rental expired products in key service segments of COWAY.

• It may be helpful to advance the sustainability management system by integrating and operating an internalized enterprise-wide risk management process with a sustainability performance indicator management framework.

COWAY provided us with their self declaration of compliance within GRI Standards. Based on our review, we confirm that social responsibility and sustainable development indicators with reference to the GRI Index. The assurer confirmed that the Report was prepared in accordance with the GRI Standards and the disclosures related to the Universal Standards and Topic Standards Indicators based on the data provided by COWAY. The sector standard was not applied.