SOCIAL
BASIC APPROACH
The Noritsu Koki Group regards respect for human rights as a fundamental element of its business activities, and promotes initiatives for respecting human rights throughout the Group. We formulated the Noritsu Koki Group Human Rights Policy in July 2022. We are working to fulfill our responsibility to respect the human rights of everyone who is impacted by our business activities, and have defined seven human rights issues related to our business: Prohibiting discrimination; preventing harassment; eliminating forced labor and child labor; respecting freedom of association and collective bargaining; ensuring occupational health and safety; managing working hours and wages; and promoting ethical use of technology. In addition, we conduct human rights due diligence and human rights education, and have also established systems for access to remedy and are putting them into practice.
INITIATIVES
HUMAN RIGHTS TRAINING
The Personnel & General Affairs Department of Noritsu Koki is in charge of promoting respect for human rights throughout the Group. We conduct human rights training for all executives and employees of the Group at least once a year to communicate and raise awareness of the Noritsu Koki Group Human Rights Policy and promote respect for the diverse values of each employee. In November 2023, we revised the human rights policy to strengthen our human rights initiatives. We will work to foster an open corporate culture where diverse values are respected by promoting human rights awareness throughout the Group, including by communicating and raising awareness of the new policy at Group companies, and through ongoing human rights training.
HUMAN RIGHTS DUE DILIGENCE
Since 2023, the Company has conducted human rights due diligence at the Groupwide level to ensure efforts to respect human rights are effective, in line with the Noritsu Koki Group Human Rights Policy. Human rights due diligence is the responsibility of the Sustainability Promotion Office of Noritsu Koki, which implements initiatives in collaboration with the Personnel & General Affairs Department and the procurement departments of Group companies. In the first phase of human rights due diligence, we assessed human rights risks related to the Group’s businesses and created a human rights risk map. The human rights risk map visualizes the risks that the Group should prioritize, with the severity of risk as the vertical axis and relevance to our business as the horizontal axis.
In 2024, we conducted further investigation on the prioritized risks (risks with high severity and relevance to the Group’s business) based on the human rights risk map and implemented necessary measures.
To respect human rights through the Group’s entire supply chain, we believe the business partners must also share our values and policies on respect for human rights. In 2024, with the aim of further propelling our procurement activities based on the policy, we established the Noritsu Koki Group Procurement Guidelines which stipulate specific standards and approaches of behavior we expect our business partners to comply with and apply to their business operations, and developed a self-assessment questionnaire (hereinafter referred to as SAQ) based on the guidelines. Going forward, we will identify human rights risks within the supply chains of the Group’s businesses through the implementation and analysis of the SAQ, consider and implement measures to mitigate and avoid such risks. Please visit RESPONSIBLE PROCUREMENT for further information.
GRIEVANCE MECHANISM
The Noritsu Koki Group operates an internal reporting system covering the entire Group to rapidly detect and prevent risks and issues in corporate activities. Each Group company also operates its own whistleblowing hotline that accepts reports on actions that violate, or could potentially violate, the Noritsu Koki Group Code of Conduct and the Noritsu Koki Human Rights Policy, including legal violations, human rights violations and corruption.
In addition, we have established a grievance hotline available for our external stakeholders, including workers of our business partners, local residents of our business locations, etc. who are or may be negatively affected (e.g., actual or suspected human rights violations) by our business operations and supply chain.
After receiving a report, we will promptly investigate and work to remedy any human rights violations identified based on the Noritsu Koki Group Human Rights Policy, in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles and other relevant human rights standards. We will reflect grievances and opinions reported to our reporting system into our human rights due diligence process to identify and review human rights risks.
COMPLYING WITH THE UK MODERN SLAVERY ACT
The Noritsu Koki Group discloses its commitment and initiatives to prevent modern slavery including human trafficking in the Group’s operations and supply chain in accordance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.
