Basic ideas

Basic way of thinking on human rights

At Tokai Carbon, we believe that consideration for human rights is important in order to realize our corporate philosophy of “Ties of Reliability”. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares the "common standards that all peoples and all countries must achieve" in order to respect and ensure human rights and freedoms, and we support this declaration.

Respect for human rights

In order to fulfill our corporate responsibility to respect human rights, we conduct business activities with a high sense of ethics based on our Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights. In July 2020, we established the Tokai Carbon Group Global Policy on Human Rights based on these international regulations. Under this policy, we will further promote respect for human rights as the Tokai Carbon Group. The Tokai Carbon Group Human Rights Promotion Committee plays a central role in promoting this global policy and the concept of respect for human rights to all employees of the Tokai Carbon Group, including its domestic and overseas subsidiaries.
We also support the “Children’s Rights and Business Principles”, too, because we believe that special consideration is needed regarding children’s human rights since they are vulnerable to violations of their rights. We are also engaged in social contribution activities to avoid violations of children's rights in our business and to realize children's rights.

Policy

Tokai Carbon Group Global Policy on Human Rights

Structures

Organization of the Tokai Carbon Group Human Rights Promotion Committee

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Initiatives

Human rights due diligence

The Tokai Carbon Group conducts human rights due diligence to ensure corporate respect for human rights in order to identify and assess, as well as prevent and address, potential human rights risk arising from the entire value chain and corporate-related human rights-issues. Such issues shall be identified based on the engagement with our stakeholders including employees, suppliers and business partners.

Process of our human rights due diligence

Major items of human rights risk investigation include forbidding discrimination, forbidding forced labor and child labor, respecting the rights of employees to free association and collective bargaining, ensuring appropriate working hours and wages, and ensuring work safety and sanitation.

In fiscal 2020, we investigated local business site-specific country risks of individual companies and Group companies and identified priority human rights issues to be addressed at each site. Moreover, since FY2020, we have been investigating the impact related to human rights issues at the business sites of each company and major domestic subsidiaries, and are confirming the status of frameworks for managing their site-specific human rights and labor, and their whistleblowing systems, as well as the number of legal violations, etc. During the three years from 2020 to 2021, it has been confirmed that there were no significant cases identified as a human rights violation at any site under investigation.

We request our business partners to understand and agree with the Tokai Carbon Group Procurement Policy, in order to promote human rights-conscious initiatives.In addition, we conduct a CSR procurement survey on our major suppliers to confirm their status of prevention of human rights violations. There were no incidents of human rights among the business partners surveyed in the past three surveys(FY2020, FY2022, FY2023).
→Implementation of CSR procurement surrey for or business partners

Initiatives for human rights awareness

In order to instill an awareness of respect for human rights among our employees, we conduct educational training for all Group companies and business sites in Japan. As training based on the Tokai Carbon Group Global Policy on Human Rights, we thoroughly disseminate our approach to respecting human rights, and deal with contemporary human rights issues such as Dowa issues (discrimination stemming from the feudal class system in Japan still manifests itself in various forms even today), harassment, and the human rights of people with disabilities and non-Japanese.

Human rights education is also provided when new employees join the Company or when they are promoted to managerial positions. In particular, training at the time of promotion to management positions provides education on human rights issues such as bullying and harassment, clarifying the problems of harassment and including actual examples of how to respond to each case.

The human rights training held in fiscal 2023 was attended by 1,028 employees at business sites and subcontractors of Tokai Carbon, and 651 employees at all Group companies in Japan. Harassment-related training was attended by 961 employees with Tokai Carbon and 648 employees at all Group companies in Japan.

We shall continue to educate our employees not to let any violation of human rights to occur and if any case of suspected human rights violation should occur, the HR Department shall investigate the matter while taking care not to let the whistleblower suffer any disadvantages. If confirmed to be true, then the matter shall be studied and dealt with in accordance with internal regulations. Furthermore, reminders shall be given during human rights training to avoid any future recurrences.

Local Employment and Procurement Policy

In conducting business activities in various countries and regions around the world, we strive to contribute to the local community through local employment and local procurement, and aim to coexist and prosper with local communities. We recognize that hiring local employees and procurement of goods and services will contribute to the sustainable development of the region, leading to human resource development in the region and the revitalization of the local economy.

Collaboration with external organizations

Tokai Carbon participates in the national meetings of the National Association of Corporate Liaison committees for Dowa (social integration district) issues as well as workshop sessions hosted by various groups and administrative bodies that aim to solve human rights issues such as Dowa issues every year, to gather information related to human rights issues. Furthermore, we are a member of Tokyo Liaison Conference for Human Rights Enlightenment Companies (Tokyo Jin-ki ren), and other groups, conducting activities as a specialist in the Liaison Conference, leading discussions on the impact of corporate activities on human rights and various human rights issues.

Performance

Human rights data

【Status of human rights education in FY2023】