Respect for Human Rights

The Mitsui Chemicals Group lists “respect for human rights” as one of the “prerequisites for business continuity” as part of the Group’s material topics and is working to put this into company-wide practice.

In the countries in which the Mitsui Chemicals Group maintains a business presence, there are a number of challenges pertaining to human rights, reflecting the conditions of local politics, the economy, and society. The Mitsui Chemicals Group conducts human rights risk assessments to identify challenges concerning human rights that we should consider in various regions. While collaborating with external experts, we started confirming the situation and organizing the business status in fiscal 2021 while taking into account the impact of climate change, waste, etc., on human rights as a new point of investigation, in addition to the conventional viewpoints on human rights challenges. We did desk research on these matters and identified human rights challenges in our business sites that we should consider and their rights holders based on the results. Since the circumstances surrounding human rights are constantly changing, we will continue to review human rights challenges as needed.

Although the results of the human rights impact assessment are limited in scope and subject coverage, we acknowledge the identified human rights risks as challenges that the entire Group should recognize and we will work to prevent and correct them on a Group-wide basis. Specifically, we aim to fulfill our responsibility to respect human rights throughout our supply chain by expanding measures to further promote understanding of the Group's human rights policies and creating opportunities for communication with business partners on the subject of human rights.

We have reported the results of the impact assessment to the Corporate Sustainability Committee.

The Group has a whistleblowing system for the prevention and early detection of compliance violations. It enables any Group employee who has obtained information related to risks, including acts in violation of a law or regulation that have been or about to be committed within the Company, to directly report the matter to and consult the Corporate Administration & Legal Division, which is our Risk & Compliance Committee, or an outside attorney. The system is open not only to officers, corporate auditors, and employees, but also to all parties with an interest in the Group’s business activities, including the families of officers, corporate auditors, employees, retired employees, contractors at our Works or other sites, and suppliers. Any and all information related to risks received through the whistleblowing system is immediately and periodically reported to the Company’s corporate auditors, and important information is reported to the Company’s Board of Directors if necessary. Our "Whistleblower Management Regulations" clearly stipulate that whistleblowers will not be subject to penalty and retaliation because of whistleblowing. We also have established disciplinary measures and strictly enforce them for those who violate the regulations.

The Group has appointed several harassment counselors at each business site to fairly ascertain the facts in the event of an occurrence and to take prompt action to solve the issue. We have both male and female counselors. This hotline is available for everyone working for the Company (including employees, contract employees, part-timers, and dispatch employees), our customers, and employees of our business partners.

Based on the Mitsui Chemicals Group Action Guidelines and Mitsui Chemicals Group Human Rights Guidelines, we educate our employees on issues on discrimination and harassment through various trainings. To facilitate a deeper understanding of the basic principles of business and human rights, in FY2019, we introduced the "Business and Human Rights e-Learning" series published by the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center and Amnesty International Japan (compulsory participation once every three years). A total of 13,538 employees, including those from domestic affiliates, participated in this program between FY2020 and FY2022. We plan to expand the scope of this program across the entire Group. In FY2022, as we updated our human rights policy, in order to help our officers better understand human rights, we invited a lawyer specializing in business and human rights to teach a workshop titled "International Trends in Business and Human Rights and the Responses Required of Japanese Companies.” We distributed the video of this lecture to the Group’s division heads and others.

The Group’s employee rules stipulate that if an employee is found to have engaged in harassment (sexual harassment, abuse of authority, pregnancy discrimination, etc.) or discrimination that offends the dignity or character of an individual, the employee may be reprimanded, suspended from work, placed on disciplinary leave, or dismissed on disciplinary grounds, depending on the circumstances of the case.

The Mitsui Chemicals Group conducts business activities with emphasis on respecting human rights of all stakeholders in the entire supply chain. For example, we have clearly set out our expectations of suppliers in the Mitsui Chemicals Group Sustainable Procurement Guidelines. Under these policies, we place considerable importance on respect for human rights, fair working conditions and a good work environment, reduction in environmental impact, compliance with laws and regulations and social norms, and considerations for those in the supply chain. When we begin a business arrangement with new or ongoing suppliers, depending on the nature of the business, we conduct regular checks on the supplier's efforts through our sustainable procurement self-assessment questionnaires (SAQ). We use the questionnaire results to provide feedback to suppliers and to support their efforts to improve. In addition, we are also expanding our whistleblower system so that it will be available to our suppliers.