With the globalization of business practices, society is increasingly interested in the initiatives that companies take to protect human rights. The Suntory Group considers the respect for human rights of stakeholders a highly important issue and reflects it in its sustainability vision. To promote activities considering human rights, we have formulated the Suntory Group Human Rights Policy to further strengthen existing initiatives by engaging with employees and suppliers.
Suntory Beverage & Food has established Sustainability Committee to promote global initiatives in collaboration with the board. We develop strategies based on the Sustainability Vision and monitor the progress of projects.
The Suntory Group's mission is "to Create Harmony with People and Nature,” while enriching people’s lives, contributing to the coexistence of society and nature, and helping realize a thriving society.
The Suntory Group recognizes that it may directly or indirectly affect human rights in the course of its business activities, and in order to respect the human rights of all people involved in its business activities, the Suntory Group Human Rights Policy (Hereafter, this policy) set here will promote our efforts to respect human rights.
As a member of society, the Suntory Group recognizes the importance of respecting human rights in all business activities. Based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) as a framework for implementation, we comply with relevant laws and regulations in each country or region where we operate, respect international standards of conduct and fully respect the following international human rights principles. We also support and respect the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact as a Global Compact signatory company.
The Suntory Group applies this policy to all Suntory Group executives and employees. We also require all business partners involved in our products and services to understand and comply with this policy.
The Suntory Group strives not to violate the human rights of anyone involved in its business activities, and takes appropriate measures to correct any negative impact on human rights, thereby taking responsibility for respect for human rights to build a sustainable supply chain.
The Suntory Group will establish a human rights due diligence system, identify its potential negative impact on human rights, and work to prevent and mitigate such negative effects. In addition, if it becomes clear that any of its business activities have directly caused negative impacts on human rights, or if indirect effects through business relations become clear, The Suntory Group will commence dialogue based on international standards through appropriate procedures.
The Suntory Group will disclose the progress and results of its efforts to respect human rights on its website, etc.
In the course of implementing this policy, the Suntory Group takes the advice of independent experts, and will diligently engage in dialogue and consultation with stakeholders.
The Suntory Group provides appropriate education and training to all officers and employees so that this policy will be integrated into all business activities and implemented effectively.
The Suntory Group will clarify the officer responsible for the implementation of this policy and ensure its effectiveness.
The Suntory Group aims to realize a corporate group that is rewarding, respects diversity and human rights, and positions the following items based on the Suntory Group Code of Business Ethics as key themes in human rights compliance.
We strictly prohibit the use of child labor or other illegal labor practices in any of our corporate activities.
We will respect the rights and personalities of each individual and will eliminate any and all discrimination and harassment based on reasons from ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, language or disability to build a workplace where everyone is treated fairly. In the event a violation to human rights is discovered, Suntory will execute the appropriate response immediately and make sure to prevent recurrence while protecting the privacy of the concerned parties.
We will respect the basic rights of our employees to engage in freedom of association and collective bargaining.
We will promote work styles that find balance between the professional and private lives of our employees while building a workplace that allows each person to work safely, securely and with enthusiasm in ways that are healthy both mentally and physically.
We will foster an open-minded workplace that respects one another's beliefs, values, and diversity and where each and every employee can candidly express and share their views. We will also build cooperative relationships founded with unity through active communication throughout the Suntory Group.
We will realize the growth of individuals by fostering a feeling of pride and responsibility toward work in each and every individual so that they may independently persevere in achieving their goals.
This policy has been approved by the Board of Directors of Suntory Holdings
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Suntory Group Human Rights Policy PDF
With the establishment of the Suntory Group Human Rights Policy, six important themes regarding human rights listed in above policy were identified in global business activities with the cooperation of experts. We will continue to assess the risks in the Group and supply chain focusing on these six themes.
In order to promote risk assessment as a part of our human rights due diligence process, Suntory Beverage & Food has conducted a potential risk assessment in collaboration with Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk consulting company, for the countries in which our 51 factories globally are located, using general country and industry data.
Low risk | 29 factories | 56% |
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Mid risk | 15 factories | 30% |
High risk | 7 factories | 14% |
Very high risk | 0 factories | 0% |
Of these, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia were countries with high risk of child and forced labor where we have plants.
From now on, we will carry out individual evaluations on the factories located in high-risk areas.
In order to promote risk assessment as a part of our human rights due diligence process, Suntory Beverage & Food has conducted a potential risk assessment in collaboration with Verisk Maplecroft, a global risk consulting company, for our major ingredients using general country and industry data. (major ingredients × country combinations for a total of 91 patterns)
Low risk | 10 items | 11% |
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Mid risk | 40 items | 44% |
High risk | 35 items | 38% |
Very high risk | 6 items | 7% |
Of these, following were items that have very high risks and impact (have high sales volume) on child and forced labor.
Forced labor: coffee, oolong tea, and sugar
Child labor: coffee and sugar
In 2020 we started a pilot to implement Sedex* on our own plants in order to visualize possible human rights and social compliance risks. From 2022, we plan to further expand Sedex implementation in own plants globally.
The Suntory Group is working to promote activities for respecting human rights throughout the entire supply chain while linking to business partners by establishing the Basic Policy on Supply Chain Sustainability.
The Suntory Group joined Sedex in June 2019, and since then we are engaging our suppliers to share information through Sedex by answering to the SAQ*. These SAQs evaluate the potential social risks in the supply chain by focusing on child labor, forced labor and other human rights issues as well as considerations toward the work environment and occupational safety. As of November 2021, Suntory Beverage & Food has confirmed that more than 900 manufacturing sites of 550 major suppliers have joined the Sedex. We will continue to promote all major suppliers to join the Sedex. We will prioritize the strategy for each region based on the result of the risk assessment to formulate an action plan and promote corrective actions when needed.
Suntory Group identifies potential and inherent risks using a risk assessment tool offered by Sedex. Specifically, we evaluate the ability to manage potential and actualized risks of the suppliers with SAQ. In addition, we also confirm inherent risks based on third-party audit information that can be checked on Sedex.
In the second half of 2021, Suntory Beverage & Food continued with the potential risk assessments through Sedex, obtaining data from a total of 774 manufacturing sites (up 42 cases compared to May).
May | November | Fluctuation | ||
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Low | 126 | 171 | 22% | 45 |
Medium | 535 | 529 | 68% | 6 |
High | 71 | 74 | 10% | 3 |
Total | 732 | 774 | 42 |
In the second half of 2021, Suntory Beverage & Food continued checking the non-compliances of our supplier's manufacturing sites obtained through Sedex third party audit data, with a total of 154 important non-compliances visualized (up 25 cases compared to May).
We also conduct sustainable procurement questionnaires targeting suppliers that have not joined Sedex. We examine not only our existing suppliers to identify those that are at high risk, but also assess potential new suppliers before we start business relationships.
In addition, the Suntory Group shares the Suntory Group Supplier Guidelines with our overseas Group companies and verifies initiatives toward sustainability at each company at the Global Procurement Conference in which our overseas Group companies participate. In 2014 we engaged overseas suppliers to check potential child labor, forced labor, and other human right issues.
Regarding the above-mentioned potential risk that can be confirmed in Sedex, we also assess the management capability of our supplier's manufacturing sites in respect to the potential risk. Based on that, we directly engage manufacturing sites, in particular sites with "high risk + low management capability" and work together to improve their management capability. As a result, at Suntory Beverage & Food as of the end of November 2021, there were 109 manufacturing sites with 10% to 50% of improvement in their management capability (14% of the total). Going forward, we will continue to engage our suppliers and promote improvement activities.
Regarding the above-mentioned important non-compliances found through third-party audit data in Sedex, we communicate directly with our suppliers and confirm that the non-compliances found are corrected within 6 months. As of the end of November 2021, Suntory Beverage & Food has confirmed that 119 of the 154 important non-compliances have already been corrected. For the remaining 35 cases, we will continue to engage with our suppliers and promote improvement activities.
Suntory Group holds regular dialogue with experts on human rights from Japan and overseas with the cooperation of Caux Round Table Japan (CRT Japan) Committee to strengthen initiatives related to human rights. We conducted online dialogue in October for FY2020. We share the progress of our activities related to human rights with the experts and discussed due diligence during the COVID-19 pandemic in this dialogue.
For the dialogue in 2019, we were advised to assess two types of risks: ethical manufacturing activities in our production sites and foreign workers. We reported that we have begun assessing the risks at our plants and foreign workers labor in the 2020 dialogue to the experts. We also discussed about an efficient and effective way to risk assessment of raw materials and immigrant workers we began 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We will continue to conduct dialogue with wide range of stakeholders to improve activities related to human rights, including the founding in this dialogue.
In April 2019, under the guidance of human rights experts (Caux Round Table Japan), we discussed global trends such as the approval of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the efforts of companies in Japan and overseas, and related departments exchanged opinions regarding the importance of human rights in today's world and the key themes for the Suntory Group.
The Suntory Group is holding human rights lectures and seminars at a departmental level in addition to conducting human rights training for new managers, new employees, and other staff in Japan. In 2018, we held a lecture on human rights titled "Human rights issues in companies surrounding sexual minorities." The DVD of the video recording of the lecture is used at seminars mainly at sale offices throughout Japan. We are holding seminars to raise awareness related to human rights that are more closely related to human rights issues in the workplace through in-person and online from 2020.
untory Group conducts measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 with the suppliers to ensure safety in the supply chain. We encourage suppliers to respond to a special module on Sedex SAQ related to COVID-19 to confirm the measures implemented by suppliers. In addition, we also offer suppliers masks and support implementation of measures to strengthen measures to prevent the spread of infection.
While the COVID-19 spreads across the globe, we strive to promote social contribution activities based on our founding spirit of "Giving Back to Society" to overcome this hardship. Suntory Group companies around the world are engaging in activities to support local communities, medical practitioners, and food and beverages industry of their respective region.
Suntory Group's Social Contribution
We have established a COVID-19 Response Task Force to gather information about its impact on the supply chain and business, enable quick decision making and implement measures with safety of the employees as a priority. Shift to telework was smooth even during the pandemic as its system and environment was being prepared before the COVID-19. To ensure safety and peace of mind when working at the office, PCR testing for employees are conducted as well as thermometers, acrylic boards and disinfectants were placed in various locations.
The Suntory Group is advancing activities with the goal of being an organization where each individual can actively participate regardless of gender. Suntory Beverage & Food Limited aims to increase the percentage of female employees in managerial positions to 30% by 2030 by establishing an atmosphere of healthy competition where everyone is given equal opportunities.
Suntory Beverage & Food is supporting the advancement of female employees by implementing measures with a view to providing continuous education and career support focused on the individual (developing capabilities and raising awareness) as well as by supporting the balancing of work and home life. In addition to cultivating a mindset through training for young employees and active participation in cross-industry exchanges, we are also supporting the building and enhancing of female employees' careers in the medium to long term through talent reviews.
In regard to balancing work with life events, we are raising awareness through pre-maternity leave guidance and post-maternity leave follow-up seminars, and we also support employees caring for children to return to work earlier by providing a safety net in the form of a baby-sitter program for employees who are unable to use daycare facilities, or by bearing part of the costs of baby-sitting services when a child is sick or in other emergencies. We are implementing measures aimed at realizing flexible work-styles such as a flextime system, establishing remote work environments, and expanding our satellite offices. In addition, we are strengthening efforts to provide management support for active participation of employees who are returning to work after childcare leave by providing the supervisors of those employees with the information they need to manage employees who are raising children.
Reference: Action plans related to the advancement of female employees
In order to create synergies between Group companies all over the world, Suntory Beverage & Food is advancing a variety of initiatives involving collaboration between companies with the aim of formulating and implementing global human resource strategies under the slogan of "Overcoming Borders". We carry out regular talent reviews to identify, develop, and utilize personnel who can play an active role globally. Through initiatives such as exchanges between personnel from different countries and industries and the mutual sharing of expertise, we will continue to evolve our global human resources activities so that each of our Suntorians worldwide, who are brimming with individuality, can carry out "Yatte Minahare," the spirit of bold ambition, and deliver even greater inspiration and joy to the world.
Additionally, we have decided to promote locally recruited employees to management positions at our Group companies overseas in order to make the best use of non-Japanese human resources. Going forward, we will continue to promote diversity by recruiting and promoting overseas talent.
Link: Group Global Human Resource Activities
Based on the principle that to carry out diversity management, it is important that we actively engage a wide range of human resources with diverse values, Suntory Beverage & Food has been proactively recruiting mid-career employees who have diverse experience. We judge that we are placing and using human resources in a well-balanced way without compartmentalizing new graduates and mid-career recruits, and in the future, we will continue to utilize diverse human resources by recruiting mid-career employees as needed.
Suntory Beverage & Food’s basic approach to developing human resources is through OJT (On-The-Job training). We also encourage employees to grow by experiencing different types of work through systematic personnel rotation, taking into account the wishes of the employee themselves, which is understood through career vision interviews held once a year in which the employee and their supervisor discuss the future of the employee's career. We also implement talent reviews, carried out between each division and personnel department, regarding the medium-to-long-term development plan and optimum placement for each employee, which leads to their ongoing development.
We also carry out inhouse recruitment and other measures to boost employees' desire to grow independently.
In addition to this, we have established Suntory University, a Group-wide platform for learning, which leads employees to further growth through Off-JT (Off-The-Job training), including programs on Suntory's philosophies and history to date, application-based training in which employees can acquire versatile skills and knowledge, and level-based training tailored to an employee's qualifications and length of time at the Group.
In regard to global human resources development, we are working to develop employees who can play a role anywhere in the world through application-based development programs such as the Trainee Program and the Career Challenge Program, and by encouraging the accumulation of workplace experience through employee transfers to overseas positions.
As a member of the Suntory Group, Suntory Beverage & Food has positioned going beyond the four boundaries of gender, age, handicaps, and nationality as an important matter, and we are carrying out a wide range of initiatives as shown above. As we do not believe that nationality or age at time of recruitment creates any significant barriers to advancement, we have not set targets for non-Japanese employees or mid-career recruits in our voluntary and measurable targets for promoting core personnel.
Going forward, we will actively engage in initiatives centered on diversity management.
Link: Human resources diversity data, summary disclosure, explanatory notes to numerical data
Suntory Beverage & Food was selected as a 2022 Certified Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization in the Large Enterprise Category (White 500). The Certified Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organization Recognition Program, which is jointly administered by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Nippon Kenko Kaigi, recognizes corporations that are practicing outstanding health and productivity management in coordination with insurance providers as Certified Health & Productivity Management Outstanding Organizations.
The Suntory Group recognizes that companies where employees can work actively in good physical and mental health are the source of its competitive edge, and in 2014, it announced a declaration about health. In 2016, it started new health and productivity management and work-style reform initiatives.
To date, we have carried out various initiatives such as health seminars, Health Mileage, and One Suntory Walk. In 2020, we implemented new initiatives tailored to new work-styles, such as providing online fitness programs and a course on mental health by internal counselors through video streaming. In this way, we are encouraging voluntary and ongoing improvements in physical and mental health with the goal of improving the lifestyle of each and every employee. In addition, as a health and productivity management support service for companies, we developed and released SUNTORY+, a free app that supports employees who have difficulty maintaining healthy habits to develop healthier lifestyles. It provides a framework that makes it easy for anyone to maintain healthy behaviors and has been well received not only within the Suntory Group, but also at client companies that have adopted it.
Going forward, we will continue to advance health and productivity management and work-style reform initiatives, and work to realize healthy and energetic lifestyles for each individual so that they can turn this energy into new value creation.
We believe that the health of our employees and their families are the source of Suntory's innovation and ability to take on challenges, so we aim to ensure that all employees can work with enthusiasm and be healthy in mind and body.
As a foundation for all activities, we conduct not only regular health checkups but also health consultations with employees conducted by in-house nurses to support individual health maintenance and encourage participation in measures tailored to each employee's condition.
We are working on health literacy education to foster health awareness among the younger generation and those who are not currently experiencing any health issues. In the monthly Healthma newsletter distributed by our nursing staff, we try to make people feel closer to health by introducing health information and measures. We also strive to provide opportunities for health seminars for the entire company, as well as seminars for each office in line with the issues they face.
We promote health management while firmly connecting that management to work style innovation.
We have collectively named our preventive measures for lifestyle-related diseases the Suntory Health Challenge and are implementing a variety of measures. In particular, in addition to specified health guidance, we provide the same level of guidance as the specified health guidance to those under 40 years old, and focus on raising awareness among the younger generation. We are also working on early detection and support for balancing work and family.
We have created two mental health management initiatives for the prevention and early detection of mental health problems: our self-care initiatives which aim to make employees aware of stress and take appropriate measures to counter it, and our line-care initiatives in which managers strive to improve the working environment and provide individual counseling. We are properly engaged in various health care efforts that include self-care in group training, courses in employee care overseen by a line manager, introduction of complete stress checks and counseling through clinical psychologist. We have also put in place a return to work support system for employees on leave to smoothly return to work.
One Suntory Walk is a program aimed to raise awareness of health among the participants and make exercise a habit through competing the number of steps they take within a month. The program has been held every year since 2017 targeting all Suntory employees, totaling approximately 40,000. This event is considered to be an event that unite Suntory globally and help promote health management. Engaging in sustainability of water, source of Suntory Group's business activities, at a global scale is put forth as message and core aspect of the event to raise awareness among the employees.
One of the participants commented that awareness toward number of steps taken raise during October along with the will to increase them. In addition, walking rallies are held independently at each office at the same time, proving that the exercise is becoming a habit through events. We will continue to hold this event every year with "October is One Suntory Walk month" as the slogan.
Photo posted on the bulletin board by a participant
Various policies | ||
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Illnesses, injuries, and disasters | Special leave that uses expired leave | Up to 60 days of leave can be accumulated from up to ten days of leave each year for paid leave not taken for injuries or illnesses occurring outside of work, for infertility treatments, and for the care of family |
Hospital room subsidies for remaining balance | Subsidizes 70% of the costs incurred for rooms outside of the health insurance coverage while hospitalized | |
Support Program for the Cost of Advanced Cancer Treatments | Subsidies for the Costs of Advanced Treatments Outside the Suntory Health Insurance Society Policy such as Heavy Ion Radiotherapy (up to 5 Million Yen per person per year) | |
Subsidies for specific infertility treatment | If the patient receives "specified infertility treatment" approved by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 100,000 yen will be paid for the first treatment and 50,000 yen for subsequent treatments. (Maximum 5 times per person) | |
Use of physical examinations | Employees over 40 years of age may have require physical examinations (once a year) without any cost to the individual for items designated by the company as periodic health assessments | |
People over 30 years of age (including dependents) may have physical examinations (up to once a year) and only pay 5,000 yen of a one-day examine | ||
Stress checks | Held four times a year and is always available | |
Dental examinations | Once per year | |
Mental Health Consultation | Consultation services from employees and their family members living with them on various matters related to the workplace, home, and private life through telephone, e-mail, online interviews, and face-to-face meetings. Consultations are available even for matters that are difficult to discuss within the company. | |
Chat-type medical consultation | Medical consultation service available via chat or video call from PC or smartphone, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and family use is also possible. (To be introduced in 2021) |
The Suntory Group is supporting the lifestyle of employees and their families from a broad range of aspects. External consultation windows such as mental-health consultation and telephone consultation as well as the general SOS contact window are available to support a wide range of needs from health consultations to even legal consultations. We are receiving consults from our employees and their families. We have also established a system that plays a role in issues directly confronting the lifestyles of our employees in addition to resolving their fears with programs such as the subsidy program to assist in physical examinations of our employees and their families.
Suntory Group regularly exchange opinion among its Group companies and companies outside the Group to further promote health management. Gathered information is used to strengthen industrial health system and implement new health related measures. Results of a questionnaire conducted on Suntory Group companies showed that approximately 60% of the companies that returned an answer had issues related to industrial health system, which in turn lunched the start of building a Group-wide industrial health system. We also offer promoting health management to other companies through the use of our healthcare products and services.
Water & CO2
Raw Ingredients
Containers and Packaging
Human Rights
Activities of Overseas Group Companies