Risk Management

Risks are becoming more complex as uncertainty in the business environment increases, such as worsening climate change, geopolitical conflicts and tensions, and global epidemics of infectious diseases. Under these circumstances, the Mitsui Chemicals Group believes that it is essential to comprehensively and integrally manage "risks," which are uncertainties and changes that could affect our management and business strategies, from a medium- to long-term and continuous perspective, while covering both threats and opportunities. Therefore, we are working to establish a new company-wide risk management system to minimize threats posed by risks and maximize opportunities.

The Group will pursue sustainable growth and increased corporate value by utilizing risk management in corporate management while continuously reviewing and improving its systems.

The Board of Directors is responsible for the development and supervision of the overall risk management system of the Mitsui Chemicals Group. Under the supervision of the Board of Directors, the President assumes the ultimate responsibility for the risk management of the entire Group, while the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) is responsible for overseeing the risk management system and execution of the entire Group.
In addition, the President and CSO shall establish a “Risk Management Committee” as a specialized committee for risk management of the entire Group.
As a risk owner, each executive officer with a specific title is responsible for overseeing risk management in the business areas under their jurisdiction and responsibility, and executes risk management by utilizing the various committees (Corporate Sustainability Committee, Compliance Management Committee, Responsible Care Committee and Corporate DX Committee, etc.) and other committees under their control (Company-wide Strategy Committee, investment deliberation meetings, etc.).

In order to ensure that each division manages risks, the heads of headquarters functional divisions with expertise in their areas of responsibility support the risk management of first-line-of-defense divisions, their own divisions, and affiliates from a professional standpoint, under the responsibility of executive officers with specific titles who are their own risk management owners. They also implement Group-wide risk management measures in the relevant area.

The Internal Control Division independently audits operations in both the first and second lines and provides assurance to top management and the Board of Directors. The Internal Control Division conducts business audits and responsible care audits to maintain and strengthen the level of internal control in the Mitsui Chemicals Group and works to keep existing business risks at an acceptable level. At the same time, the Division conducts continual inspections and assessments of the design and operation of internal controls relating to financial reporting for the entire Mitsui Chemicals Group, as required under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, as the J-SOX assessment as a part of the statutory audit and directs its efforts to ensuring the correct and efficient execution of operations. The audit results are regularly reported directly to the Board of Directors and the Board of Corporate Auditors.

The business audit includes an internal audit process based on self-assessment of internal controls utilizing the compliance checklist. The compliance checklist includes items related to compliance with the competition law, prevention of bribery and corruption, insider trading and harassment, compliance with the securities export control regulations, appropriate handling of corporate and personal information, human rights, information systems security, risk management, credit management, fair accounting and tax administration, and organization and operation of appropriate internal controls. The checklist is revised every year. As process owners for each of the above items, the headquarters functional divisions are audited on the state of their operations. Additionally, audits are conducted based on topics selected each fiscal year from the risk status both in and outside the organization.

From among the responsible care audits (environment & safety audit, occupational health audit, quality audit, and chemical safety audit), the Internal Control Division is responsible for executing the environment & safety audit and the occupational health audit. The Internal Control Division also audits quality audit and chemical safety audit conducted by the headquarters functional divisions to determine whether they have been executed appropriately. In addition to on-site audits, we have established a remote audit system that can be conducted even when it is difficult to visit our sites because of infection control or other reasons.