UBE Group Human Rights Guidelines
The UBE Group is committed to respecting human rights across all of its corporate activities. We comply with national and regional laws, regulations, and social norms in keeping with the globalization of our activities. We support and respect international standards on human rights including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We rapidly identify, prevent, mitigate, and appropriately remedy negative impacts on human rights from our corporate activities in order to meet our social responsibilities as a corporation.
Positioning of These Guidelines and Scope of Application
These guidelines are consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Together with the UBE Group Action Guidelines, they guide our human rights efforts across our corporate activities, which are based on the UBE Corporate Philosophy and UBE Management Principles. These guidelines apply to all officers and employees of the UBE Group. We also ask all of our business partners, the entire supply chain, and all other parties involved in our business activities to conduct themselves according to the principles of these guidelines and respect human rights.
Respect for Human Rights
We respect for fundamental human rights of all persons and endeavor to help people live in peace and security. Furthermore, we ask all stakeholders of our business to respect and not infringe upon human rights, in order to avoid indirectly contributing to human rights infringements.
Prohibiting Discrimination
We prohibit discrimination in all of its forms including based on gender, nationality, ethnic background, race, disability, health condition, age, social status, home environment, religion, faith, gender identification, sexual orientation or type of employment.
Prohibiting Harassment
We prohibit harassment in any form that violates the dignity of individuals including sexual harassment, harassment involving abuse of power, and harassment against pregnant employees.
Rights of Workers
We respect the basic rights of workers including the freedom of association and right to collective bargaining. We do not tolerate forced labor or child labor in any form. We also comply with the laws and regulations that apply in the countries and regions in which we operate and engage in responsible labor practices including ensuring occupation health and safety in workplaces, fair and appropriate wages that take a living wage into account, and proper management of working hours.
Education
We implement suitable human rights education to ensure that all officers and employees properly understand and are aware of human rights.
Human Rights Due Diligence
In order to meet our responsibility to respect human rights, we identify adverse impacts on human rights our corporate activities could have, based on the approach for human rights due diligence described in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. We implement initiatives to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts, and endeavor to undertake suitable and effective remedies if adverse human rights impacts arise from our corporate activities. We also work to correct adverse human rights impacts that arise in supply chains.
Addressing Human Rights Infringements
If a human rights infringement is discovered, we promptly remove the source of the infringement on human rights and undertake corrective countermeasures or cooperate on countermeasures with support from within and outside the Group. To ensure that we rapidly identify and correct human rights issues, we suitably operate grievance mechanisms and continually develop effective mechanisms.
Engagement
We utilize specialized knowledge on human rights from within and outside the Group in various ways, and continually engage in dialogue with stakeholders on human rights issues that surround the UBE Group, seeking to advance our human rights initiatives.
Masato Izumihara
President and Representative Director
UBE Corporation
Respecting Human Rights
The UBE Group Action Guidelines state our respect for individuals, fostering mutual understanding, and eliminating discrimination based on gender, nationality, race, disabilities, age, social status, religion, beliefs, or sexual orientation. In addition, the Group will refrain from all inhumane practices including forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking, as well as refraining from having any ties with individuals and organizations that are involved in such practices.
Human Rights Training and Education for Employees
We created a Groupwide framework to educate employees about human rights based on the UBE Group Human Rights Guidelines. We ensure that all employees understand and embody our stance on human rights in all aspects of business by providing ongoing training.
In fiscal 2022, all UBE Group operations in Japan conducted an e-learning initiative marking Human Rights Week to showcase the topics of business and human rights and human rights due diligence and our initiatives. We also conducted a survey to identify areas in which employees perceive that there are human rights risks.
| Initiative | Times held | Participants |
|---|---|---|
| e-learning | 1 | 6,794 (Domestic Group operations, including directors) |
| New employee training | 1 | 47 (Parent company) |
| Job-specific training | 1 | 310 (Parent company) |
Compliance Hotline for Human Rights Issues
In cases where a human rights infringement is revealed through internal reporting, business reports, or other channels, the UBE Group takes prompt action to correct the situation and administers the appropriate internal discipline. In addition, the Group reports such cases to management and disseminates this information throughout the Group to improve its efforts to ensure respect for human rights and to prevent recurrence. In fiscal 2022, there have been no cases of serious human rights infringement, such as those that could involve criminal penalties, involving UBE Group companies or their employees.
Human Rights Initiatives in Supply Chains
The UBE Group Sustainable Procurement Guidelines, which include measures to address human rights, apply to all Group business partners, in order to ensure that human rights are respected throughout the entire supply chain. The Guidelines clearly state that the Group will not tolerate any inhumane acts, including forced labor, child labor, and human trafficking.
In accordance with these guidelines, the Group assesses risks from the perspective of CSR by conducting regular surveys of its major business partners
. The Group also works with business partners to address such human rights issues as labor conditions and the risk of human rights infringement.
The fourth business partner sustainability surveys revealed that suppliers have implemented a certain level of initiatives and measures pertaining to the human rights issues covered by the survey.
For more information, see Supply Chain Management and Results of the Fourth Survey of Business Partners on.
Support for the UN Global Compact
The UBE Group signed the United Nations Global Compact in April 2021, and continues to uphold its principles.
The Group also joined the Global Compact Network Japan to further enhance its human rights protection efforts by participating in two subcommittees led by member organizations: the Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD) Working Group and the Human Rights Education Working Group.
Announcing Our Support of the “My Jinken Declaration” (Declaration of Human Rights) Project Advocated by the Ministry of Justice
In August 2021, UBE announced its own “My Jinken Declaration” (Declaration of Human Rights), supporting the “My Jinken Declaration” project advocated by the Ministry of Justice.
The ministry’s “My Jinken Declaration” initiative aims to realize a society in which everyone respects human rights. To this end, this initiative encourages various entities, including business corporations, and individual citizens to publicly declare their commitment to respecting human rights and to take action in keeping with such commitment.
Currently, the UBE Group is striving to “Continue to Create Value for All Stakeholders” in line with “Vision UBE 2025,” in which the Group defines its ideal with regard to what it must look like in 2025. With this in mind, we have also established the “UBE Group Human Rights Guidelines.” These guidelines are based on the UBE Corporate Philosophy and UBE Management Principles and designed to ensure respect for human rights throughout the course of all our business activities.
Looking ahead, we will respect the human rights of all who come into contact with the UBE Group as part of proactive efforts to fulfill our corporate social responsibilities.
President & Representative Director Masato Izumihara
“The UBE Group has positioned respecting human rights as a fundamental rule guiding its corporate activities. In step with the globalization of our business operations, we are ever more conscious of maintaining compliance with laws, regulations and social norms in countries and regions in which we operate. At the same time, we support and honor international norms associated with human rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
Furthermore, we are committed to ensuring the early identification, mitigation and prevention of incidents that exert a negative impact on human rights in the course of our business activities and to otherwise undertaking proper measures to protect human rights. In these ways, we will fulfill our responsibilities as a good corporate citizen.”
Masato Izumihara
President and Group CEO, Representative Director
UBE Corporation
Human Rights Due Diligence Progress
We endeavor to identify, prevent, and address any human rights infringements in our activities. We will deploy a PDCA cycle through and beyond 2024 based on the following process.
Progress in Fiscal 2022
