Stakeholder Dialogue 2023

Assessment of human rights initiatives and expectations for the future from a global perspective

Based on the commitment of its top management team, the Asahi Group has positioned respect for human rights as the new foundation of the company’s operations. Embarking on a range of initiatives to address this, the company has adopted the WBA’s^*1 CHRB^*2 assessment as a tool to measure the progress and effectiveness of their implementation.
In December 2023, the company also revised the Asahi Group Human Rights Principles to place a new focus on “vulnerable stakeholders” such as children, women, and migrant workers.
In this dialogue, we reviewed the result of the 2022 CHRB assessment and exchanged views with experts on the position of the Asahi Group as a global corporation and how the company should address the human rights risks faced by “migrant workers” and “the company’s supply chain as a whole“.
(The following discussion took place in November 2023.)

• The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA): A non-profit organization that develops free and publicly available benchmarks assessing the performance of companies on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
• Corporate Human Rights Benchmark (CHRB): One of WBA’s spotlight benchmarks that started in 2017, CHRB assesses companies in high-risk sectors on their human rights policies, processes and performance.

Where we are, through the lens of the CHRB assessment

MulderI think there is a need for a process that includes a full-scale involvement of rights-holders. It’s crucial that you let rights-holders tell you what’s important to them, and that you pursue the issues highlighted by them through this process while keeping the communication going in the meantime.
It is also essential that you establish a grievance mechanism. Make sure that the mechanism is understood, trusted and more accessible by all the rights-holders, including the companies you do business with, the local communities, and your employees, and then the quality of the mechanism will improve as a result.

KatsukiI think that the purpose of the CHRB assessments is not to compare and rank companies but to share best practices among companies and within the sector so that human rights issues can be resolved globally.

AgarwalThat’s absolutely right, and we call it “a community of practice”. Many issues are institutional and systemic, so they cannot be solved by one company or on a narrow sectoral scale. Many companies are connected through common suppliers and common communities, and different companies have different strengths. It is our hope that CHRB will provide a framework through which companies can share their challenges and practices.

Addressing human rights risks for migrant workers require a multi-stakeholder approach and partnerships

• JP-MIRAI: Voluntary organization by various stakeholders such as private companies, local governments, NPOs, academics, and lawyers. JP-MIRAI aims at tacking various issues of migrant workers in Japan seriously, being “A Country of Choice” for migrant workers.

SakitaWhen there are economic disparities between countries and regions, it is only natural that workers migrate to seek employment and that companies use these workers to fill labor shortages. Problems arise when people try to take advantage of and exploit these workers. Companies must of course ensure that they have appropriate oversight of their own employment practices, but they must also pay attention to what is going on in their supply chains and be responsible.

HamadaThe Asahi Group serves the bars and restaurants sector and the retail sector, where many foreign workers are employed, so I think we need to be mindful of the possibility that migrant workers may be illegally or unfairly exploited downstream, even if they are not employed directly by us. As a responsible company, we should carry out human rights due diligence　and watch out so that we can instigate corrective actions if necessary.

VynnychenkoIn order for that to happen, you need to provide your suppliers and business partners with the necessary support, training, and tools to carry out human rights due diligence and manage recruitment and employment of migrant workers responsibly, as well as assess them properly. Again, a grievance mechanism plays an important role here. It is equally important both in Japan and in their countries of origin to ensure that migrant workers are able to communicate any concerns they may have, and that the Asahi Group monitors that suppliers provide effective remedy and introduce improvement measures towards a more sustainable positive change.

A good-faith approach to human rights risks to bring about improvements across supply chains

FujikiCompanies face many issues when they embark on human rights due diligence. I would like to highlight two of the most important: “identifying risks and implementing plans”; and “ensuring compliance in governance”. The Asahi Group is making steady progress in the former, and I am looking forward to seeing how the plans will be implemented in practice.
In the course of human rights due diligence, the latter point is often set aside, but compliance does not only mean complying with laws and regulations. It is also about responding to the demands of global society. A management team may face a significant risk if it overlooks misconduct or lacks awareness that issues affecting the company’s subsidiary or suppliers can impact its own results or share price. Therefore, it is important to establish a risk management framework, ensure that every part of the supply/value chain understands what the company’s code of conduct means, and promote compliance awareness throughout the company’s activities.

YonemeThe dilemma you have highlighted also occurs between the company’s efforts and the attitude of individual employees.
We have various initiatives to prevent long working hours, but sometimes we see cases where eager employees, particularly younger members, work late into the night of their own volition because they feel passionate about what they are working on, and it’s a big headache to find a good way to talk to them and persuade them to stop. I strongly feel that we need to take the long-term health and well-being of our workers into consideration as we discuss how everyone should approach work and what the objective of the company is from a long-term perspective, and put all that into action.

KawaharaRunning a company comes with many trade-offs, including the dilemma you have just mentioned. These days the bar is set even higher than before, not only because of laws and regulations but also because of social demands, and business operations may face a lot of constraints as a result. It is very hard to solve all of these problems, and the only thing we can do is to do everything to make the Asahi Group an attractive workplace that people actively choose so that we can turn those trade-offs into trade-ons. I would like to believe that, by doing so, we will see a positive effect on recruitment even while the available population pool continues to shrink.

KatsukiI agree wholeheartedly that we must turn trade-offs into trade-ons. For example, when we are faced with the trade-off between long working hours versus meeting deadlines, or sustainability versus productivity, only the leadership can decide which option to choose. That means that the leaders of companies and departments taking part in this discussion here today are in the position to be able to turn these trade-offs into trade-ons by being decisive.

MatsuyamaThe population decline and the shrinking market are making competition fierce, and it feels even harder to make such decisions in the face of these challenges. In addition to social demands, popular opinions and voices amplified through social media require attention, and the weight of the reputational risks facing us is often bewildering. In these circumstances, it’s not an easy task to meet customers’ expectations, ensure compliance, and protect the mental and physical health of our employees all at the same time. Human rights actions are still in a transitional period in society as a whole, so every new challenge is a difficulty we have to ponder on and deal with the best we can. I think that best practices will emerge from this exercise, and society as a whole will gradually learn and move forward, one step at a time.

TanimuraToday’s discussions have underscored how important it is to hold dialogues in an open platform and to apply what we have learned to the actual human rights initiatives, as well as share them with society at large. We can’t continue responding well to social demands unless we respect human rights continually and spontaneously and tackle issues with an inclusive frame of mind, and unless we pass this approach on to the next generations. It has renewed my realization that putting all this into practice is the challenge we the management team are facing today.

KatsukiWe run our business supported by a huge number of people. For that reason, we cannot continue running our business unless society and its people are sustainable. In that sense, human rights are the very foundation of our business.
We have received many valuable comments and observations from the experts, and we are determined to address each one of them properly, while we strive to advance our commitment to respect human rights. Thank you very much for taking part in this discussion today.

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