MC believes that respect for human rights is fundamental to conducting a diverse range of businesses globally. MC promotes fair and sound business activities based on the Three Corporate Principles, which have served as the Company’s corporate philosophy since its inception, and has been implementing initiatives to respect human rights in its Corporate Standards of Conduct, Social Charter, and the Mitsubishi Corporation Code of Conduct.

As part of its Midterm Corporate Strategy 2024, MC has established its own Materiality, a set of material societal issues to address through its business activities toward the goal of continuous creation of MC Shared Value. For MC, as a global company involved in businesses across a wide range of products and services worldwide, respect for human rights is a key management issue, and we address this under the material issues of "Promoting Stable, Sustainable Societies and Lifestyles” and "Respecting Human Rights in Our Business Operations."

Moreover, after reorganizing and clarifying our approach on respect for human rights and to promote efforts to do so, we formulated the following Human Rights Policy in February 2024, which has been approved by the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors.

References:

The Corporate Standards of Conduct, Mitsubishi Corporation Code of Conduct, and Mitsubishi Corporation Social Charter

MC has established the Sustainability Advisory Committee which consists of three external experts. MC regularly seeks the diverse perspectives of this committee regarding MC’s human rights initiatives and other sustainability-related matters. In addition to regular committee meetings, committee members also visit business sites on an annual basis in order to deepen their understanding of MC’s sustainability efforts and provide advice from their own professional viewpoints.

Reference:

Sustainability Advisory Committee

MC’s current activities have expanded far beyond its traditional trading business to include project development, production, and manufacturing operations, working in collaboration with our trusted partners around the globe. Furthermore, since MC handles a wide range of products and services around the world, we believe that it is important to identify and analyze the negative impacts of our business on human rights and the environment, to ensure that such impacts are avoided/mitigated, and to fulfill our responsibilities. MC is conducting human rights and environmental due diligence with this in mind.

• Employees of MC and MC Group companies: As MC believes that respect for human rights is fundamental to developing our various businesses globally, we have formulated a Human Rights Policy that organizes and clarifies our approach on respecting human rights, based on which we promote specific efforts to respect human rights. All MC Group companies share a common philosophy. With regard to labor practices, MC stipulates the International Labour Standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as the relevant regulations underpinning the compliance requirements detailed in the Code of Conduct. Furthermore, from FY2022, in order to strengthen efforts to respect human rights throughout the MC Group, we have added questions regarding human rights (existence of human rights policies, identification of risk of human rights violation, etc.) to our annual survey for collecting sustainability related information/data from our subsidiaries and affiliates.

  References:

  Corporate Standards of Conduct, Mitsubishi Corporation Code of Conduct, Mitsubishi Corporation Social Charter, Human Rights Policy
  Labor Practices

• Business Management: When reviewing investment and loan proposals, MC conducts a comprehensive screening process which considers not only economic factors, but ESG impacts as well. From the viewpoint of human rights, MC’s assessments and considerations are informed by human rights risks that need to be addressed from the perspectives of the severity (scale of risk, their scope, and how remediable they might be) and likelihood (situation in each country, industry, and region of procurement) of potential negative impacts on MC’s stakeholders. MC’s risk management approach is informed by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Guidelines and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) Guidelines for Confirmation of Environmental and Social Considerations. Through consolidated environmental and social surveys, besides screening new investment and exit proposals, MC also strives to make improvements within existing business subsidiaries and affiliates by monitoring their management practices. In FY2023, MC’s Internal Audit Department conducted thematic audits on human rights and environment-related items when auditing MC Group companies. MC will strengthen its human rights and environmental due diligence on a consolidated basis by checking a wider range of human rights and environment-related items and communicating directly with Group companies.

  References:

  Incorporating Sustainability into Individual Projects
  Collecting Sustainability Information on a Consolidated Basis

• Trading Business: Regarding supply chain risk management, the Mitsubishi Corporation Policy for Sustainable Supply Chain Management outlines actions to address human rights, labor rights, environmental issues, etc., including the prohibition of forced labor and child labor, and MC expects its suppliers to support, understand, and implement this policy. In addition, MC conducts human rights and environmental due diligence on its supply chain every year through the Mitsubishi Corporation Sustainable Supply Chain Survey to confirm compliance with the policy. The due diligence is conducted through the following process: 1) report of due diligence policy to the Board of Directors at the beginning of each fiscal year, 2) conduct a survey to assess the results of transactions led by each Business Group, 3) conduct dialogues with stakeholders on the survey results, and 4) review.

  Reference:

  Sustainable Supply Chain Surveys

MC regularly participates in the UN Forum Business and Human Rights in order to learn the latest developments in this field. At the November 2023 meeting of the forum in Geneva, Switzerland, staff from MC engaged in discussions on human rights initiatives with human rights experts and other attendees.

Staff from MC also participated in the B+HR Academy in October 2022, together with representatives from MC Group subsidiary companies Toyo Reizo Co., Ltd., MC Agri Alliance Ltd., and MC Fashion Co., Ltd. The B+HR Academy is a human rights due diligence training program for Japanese companies run by the United Nations Development Programme. It consists of a two-day course of lectures from both Japanese and overseas experts as well as group discussions among participants. The MC staff who participated in this program were able to gain an overall appreciation of the various international standards that serve as the foundation for human rights due diligence, as well as a deeper understanding of the specific processes that are used in this field.

From July to October 2024, members from MC’s Sustainability Department and business groups participated in a program entitled "Business and Human Rights: The Human Resource Development Program to Promote Responsible Corporate Behavior" which was facilitated by a lecturer from the International Labour Organization (ILO) Japan Office. The program was comprised of five sessions given by experts, as well as group discussions with other participants and the drafting of a plan to promote business and human rights within the company and the wider industry. This, in turn, gave participants an opportunity to deepen their understanding of international human rights and labor standards, human rights due diligence, and the specific processes involved in implementing them.

References:

WBCSD, United Nations Global Compact (see the Participation in Initiatives page for further information)