JSR Group positions respect for human rights as one form of materiality (important issue).

It is critical for the entire Group to enhance its understanding of human rights and take appropriate actions. We have established JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the UN Global Compact, as we strive to fulfill our responsibility to respect human rights in all of our business activities.

At JSR Group, the Corporate Ethics Committee, which is chaired by the officer in charge of general affairs and whose office is the General Affairs Department, is responsible for promoting initiatives related to respect for and safeguarding of human rights.

The Corporate Ethics Committee is charged with formulating and executing plans to advance initiatives and verifying their progress. Progress made by the Corporate Ethics Committee is reported to the Board of Directors via the Sustainability Promotion Committee.

• Sustainability Management and Advancement Structure

JSR Group conducts its business activities based on JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy formulated in September 2021. As stated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, companies have a social responsibility to respect human rights. To fulfill this, we must educate employees about the importance of respect for human rights, and it is necessary for everyone involved in JSR Group to understand the policy.

JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy was formulated in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the Government of Japan’s National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights, and in reference to knowledge gained as a participant in Global Compact Network Japan’s Human Rights Due Diligence Committee. The policy was finalized in September 2021 following a review by relevant divisions and Group companies in Japan and overseas and approval of the Sustainability Promotion Committee, chaired by the President.

We ensure each employee of JSR Group understands this policy by sharing it on the company intranet and covering it in special feature articles in the company newsletter. We are also considering adopting a framework for human rights due diligence.

JSR Group's Human Rights Policy (September 2021)

• Japanese (PDF 188KB)
• English (PDF 145KB)
• Simplified Chinese (PDF 147KB)
• Traditional Chinese (PDF 177KB)
• Thai (PDF 97KB)

JSR Group is a signatory and supporter of the United Nations Global Compact. We also actively participate in subcommittee activities provided by Global Compact Network Japan in aiming to gain knowledge on human rights.

As participants in GCNJ’s Human Rights Due Diligence Subcommittee, we gather pertinent information through attending workshops and participating in group work activities, and disseminate it throughout the company. In group work activities, we participated in a human rights policy group and presented a model case for newly formulating human rights policy under the theme of “our vision of the ideal framework for human rights policy.” In formulating JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy, we applied insights that we acquired through these activities.

As we believe this policy must continue to be understood and diffused throughout the entire Group, we joined GCNJ’s Human Rights Education Subcommittee in FY2021. The knowledge we gain from participating in the activities of this subcommittee is incorporated into the e-learning we conduct on human rights.

JSR Group also understands the necessity of promoting initiatives oriented toward respect for human rights not only within the Group, but across the entire supply chain as well. To put this into practice, we revised our questionnaire for suppliers in 2017 and incorporated relevant items on respect for human rights in the “JSR Group CSR/Sustainable Procurement Policy” established in 2018.

Additionally, the “JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy” clearly states that we will continue to encourage our business partners in the supply chain to support this policy and adopt a similar policy.

JSR Group’s philosophy outlined in the above policies speaks for the requirements placed in companies by international society. JSR Group believes that it must share this philosophy with its business partners, and toward this end we have conveyed both policies to the Group’s main suppliers and collected consent forms stating their endorsement of the policies in FY2022. The entire Group is working to implement this effort with a target collection rate set at 100%. In FY2022, the collection rate was 90%.

We will continue taking the steps necessary to strengthen collaboration with partners in the supply chain and enhance our respect for human rights.

• Supply Chain Management

JSR Group has established a Corporate Ethic Hotline for employees as a remedy for employees who have been affected by harassment considered to be a violation of their human rights. Also, we have JSR Group Supplier Hotline for business partners whom we do business with regularly to quickly detect suspected violations of corporate ethics.

In order to garner trust, we ensure strict confidentiality of reports and prohibit unfavorable handling of whistleblowers using either hotline. Also, we provide redress or implement corrective action for any persons affected.

• Compliance

Further educating Group employees of human rights is essential to fulfilling our responsibilities in terms of respect for human rights. To this end, we will begin providing ongoing e-learning on human rights, aiming to systematically educate our employees on human rights.

In FY2022, we conducted the first installment of e-learning on the basic knowledge of human rights and overview of JSR Group’s Human Rights Policy utilizing e-learning curriculum provided by Caux Round Table Japan (CRT Japan).

Going forward, the same course will continue to be implemented with a target of over 80% participation rate globally. In FY2022, overall participation exceeded the target at 82%, but participation varied among each implementation site. For places with lower attendance, we will look into factors among those who did not attend to identify whether there is any bias due to department or position and take measures to improve attendance.