We Consider Changes in Customer Needs and Society's Expectations as Opportunities for Business Growth and Work Towards a Long, Successful Future
Creating social value through business worldwide and promoting management focusing on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards
As stated in the Brother Group Global Charter (Global Charter), the basis of all our activities, we have developed long-term trust relationships with our customers and stakeholders by developing our business and fulfilling social responsibilities.
Brother will generate social value through business around the world and promote management focusing on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, tackling the following four priorities to help achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations.
1. Seek to provide innovative products and services that make our customers happy
To achieve the long, successful future of Brother stated in the Global Charter, we believe that Brother's business should help realize a sustainable society. Based on this idea, we create various innovative products and services to solve social challenges. We, for example, consider how to help solve social challenges with Brother's existing products and services and how to generate new businesses that can help solve social challenges with Brother's technologies. Brother is now exploring the direction of these initiatives while working together with NPOs addressing the SDGs and so forth.
In FY2019, we implemented training twice in connection with Brother's businesses and SDGs. This training was carried out with the support of the Sustainable Co-Innovation (SCI) Forum, an organization that undertakes various activities with corporations to tackle the theme of solving social issues. In training targeting young employees in charge of development, focus was on enhancing their awareness of embarking on development by considering social issues and customers on a daily basis. In addition, discussions were carried out on how our technology and development strategies going forward will contribute to the fulfillment of SDGs. In training for employees in charge of businesses at group companies that concentrate on health and welfare, we set assumptions and issues going forward for the creation of new social values in our businesses by reviewing the connection between our businesses and SDGs, with stakeholders.
2. Undertaking continuous efforts in environmental conservation
In April 2018, the Brother Group established the Brother Group Environmental Vision 2050 based on the basic environmental philosophy described in the Global Charter. In this environmental vision, the group outlines its plan to address the escalation of environmental problems, including climate change, resource depletion, pollution caused by waste, and ecosystem destruction, on a long-term basis and in a continuous way, perceiving these problems as serious social challenges and our business risks. To achieve this plan, we have set a long-term vision for FY2050 and medium-term targets for FY2030 in the three fields of "CO2 emissions reduction," "resource circulation," and "biodiversity conservation," and been implementing various activities.
In addition, in February 2020, as the Brother Group, we announced our support of the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
Our participation in these types of external activities is an opportunity to analyze the risks and opportunities of climate change to our businesses and reflect this into the Brother management strategy, as well as further strengthen related information disclosure.
3. Continuously promote social contribution activities
The Brother Group has been contributing to the local communities where the group facilities are located. The group every year conducts a lot of activities, especially focusing on health and welfare, educational support, and environmental conservation. We will encourage our respective facilities to autonomously carry out such activities and further contribute to society with Brother's resources, such as products, services, technologies, and human resources.
4. Enhance collaboration with business partners on ways to address social demands quickly
The Brother Group considers that fulfilling social responsibilities at the group' manufacturing facilities and parts and materials suppliers is a critical issue. The Brother Group cares about the environment and addresses challenges in the fields of human rights and labor, safety and health, fair trade and ethics, product quality and safety, information security, social contribution, and so forth. The group discloses its "Procurement Policy" and "CSR Procurement Standards" to parts and materials suppliers and encourages them to comply with these policy and standards. To reinforce these efforts, Brother joined the RBA, an international organization dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility, in January 2019. Brother will respond to social demands from the marketplace by promoting systematic approaches in line with the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA)'s framework.
The happiness, health, and job satisfaction of employees are essential for achieving the above four priorities. As stipulated in the Global Charter, Brother respects diversity, provides a working environment that enables its associates to utilize their talents and abilities to the fullest, and gives them great opportunity through challenging work assignments, and thereby focuses on the development of globally competent human resources. In addition, the company has been promoting and maintaining the health of employees in a strategic way under the Brother Group Health & Productivity Management Philosophy.
Through these activities, Brother will evolve its CSR management and further strengthen trusting relationships with its stakeholders to ensure a long, successful future.
In addition, we will further reinforce the Brother Group's unique management system "Brother Value Chain Management" (BVCM) by creating social value through our business activities, and thus achieve our medium- to long-term vision "Global Vision 21" at a high standard.
We Respond to Changing Customer Needs and Social Expectations
The "Brother Group Global Charter," the basis for all operations, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
The Global Charter serves as the basis of all operations conducted by Brother to globally create social value through businesses and promote management that focuses on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards.
The Global Charter sets forth the fundamental principles of the Brother Group, such as "quickly and consistently providing superior value with the "At your side." spirit in mind," "confidently facing challenges with a consistently global view," and "acting with the highest integrity."
To become a trustworthy company, the Brother Group expects each of more than 30,000 employees to embody the Global Charter in their daily decision-making and actions and quickly create and deliver products and services that meet the needs of its stakeholders.
The Global Charter is translated into the native languages of employees in the United States, Europe and Asia so that all employees constantly keep the charter in mind. We also distributed portable handy-sized charter cards (in 26 languages) and posters (in 28 languages) to all our group facilities.
Handy-sized cards and posters
The top management in the group's respective facilities every year formulates their commitments based on the Global Charter and takes the initiative in embodying the charter principles, and also delivers messages and creates opportunities to dialogue with employees. In FY2019, they issued 56 messages and had about 3,000 face-to-face talks with employees.
The Global Charter promotional leaders, who are appointed by the managers of each facility or department, are engaged in promoting the charter-based behavior of each employee in a variety of ways tailored to each organization's role and challenges. Such activities, for example, include creating opportunities for employees to review their own actions in light of the Global Charter.
In addition, regular meetings for the promotional leaders are held in Japan, China, and Vietnam. These meetings allow them to discuss the challenges of the promotional activities conducted by the respective group organizations, to share employees' charter-based actions that have contributed to productivity improvement or responded to customer needs and take cues to develop such activities in their own organizations. In this way, the meetings enable the leaders to learn beyond the borders of their facilities and occupations ranging from development, manufacturing, and sales.
In Vietnam, activities have been carried out thus far at four facilities domestically. We implemented regular meetings for the promotional leaders jointly with the manufacturing facility in the Philippines for the first time in FY2019. We undertook activities while intensifying collaborations across borders.
At the head office and Turkey Branch of Brother International (Gulf) FZE, which has employees from 10 different countries, there are differences in culture and thinking owing to employee's country of origin. In light of this, discussion workshops were held to give employees a deeper understanding of "respect for diversity" and "trust and respect" as outlined in the Global Charter.
Workshop at the Turkey Branch of Brother International (Gulf) FZE
In addition to these enlightment activities, from FY2019, the Brother Group has been committed to raising managers' and employees' awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in addition to that of the Global Charter to create value for society. The group will implement various awareness-raising activities at its respective facilities and departments by delivering messages via the intranet and other modes of communication from top management to group employees on the importance of contribution for achieving the SDGs and utilizing the systems, including the regular meetings for the promotional leaders, which was established to promote the sharing of the Global Charter.
At Brother Industries (Philippines), Inc., we raised awareness of SDGs. We provided a deeper understanding of group SDG activities through workshops for assistant managers or higher ranking employees. At the same time, after sorting out the proprietary CSR activities conducted thus far from an SDG perspective, we held discussions on how to connect these activities and SDGs.
Moreover, activities that are jointly conducted by employees in charge of human resources and CSR at sales companies in the Asia Pacific region provided an opportunity to discuss social values connected with businesses and which can be created and deeply think about how we can contribute to solving social issues in the 4 key SDG domains.
The Brother Group will further work to stimulate each employee's actions, in line with the Global Charter, to gain the trust of all stakeholders and become a company which can generate a strong sense of pride among its employees.
