In our Code of Corporate Ethics and Conduct, we emphasize the importance of maintaining strong partnerships with subcontractors. We view our subcontractors as good partners and prioritize mutual respect for each other's position.
To build a sustainable supply chain with subcontractors, we have established the Shimizu Group Basic Policy on CSR Procurement and the Shimizu Group CSR Procurement Guidelines.
The Shimizu Group Basic Policy on CSR Procurement outlines our basic approach, while the Shimizu Group CSR Procurement Guidelines serve as a practical guide for our subcontractors to put the basic policy into practice. This includes legal compliance, including preventing bribery, respect for human rights, consideration of the environment, and ensuring quality. We also extend these expectations to our subcontractors' business partners (secondary and subsequent suppliers) and encourage them to promote initiatives based on these guidelines.
Shimizu Group CSR Basic Procurement Policy
Shimizu Group acts as a good partner in building relationships with suppliers that are rooted in mutual respect of one another’s perspectives, based on the following Shimizu Group CSR Basic Procurement Policy.
- 1. Compliance with laws, regulations, and company rules, and respect for social norms
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- Engage in sound and fair transactions, in compliance with domestic and foreign laws and regulations and with company rules, and with respect for social norms.
- Establish a whistleblowing system for employees and suppliers to report violations of laws and regulations. Maintain full confidentiality for and protect whistleblowers.
- 2. Fair, equitable, and good-faith transactions
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- Provide fair and equitable opportunities for competition to suppliers and strive to respond in good faith.
- Promote fair and equitable transactions as an equal partner. Take a holistic approach to selecting suppliers that considers such factors as price, delivery schedules, technical skills, financial condition, and mitigating environmental impact.
- 3. Building good partnerships with suppliers
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- Endeavor to sustain and strengthen good partnerships by sharing and resolving various issues and to achieve mutual improvement in technical skills, based on a mutual relationship of trust.
- 4. Respect for human rights
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- Based on the Shimizu Group Human Rights Policy, respect the human rights of employees and encourage suppliers to respect human rights.
- 5. Consideration for the environment
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- Based on the Basic Environmental Policy, engage in procurement with respect for the environment. Furthermore, based on the group environmental vision SHIMZ Beyond Zero 2050, work with suppliers to proactively provide positive environmental value to customers and society.
- Encourage all suppliers to engage in environmentally friendly business activities and creation and restoration of the environment.
- Work with suppliers to prevent global warming by reducing CO2 emissions (Ecological Mission 2030-2050), practice the 4Rs to reduce and recycle resources, and preserve biodiversity and water resources.
- 6. Quality and delivery assurance
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- Endeavor with suppliers to maintain and improve quality.
- Ensure the quality of structures built (strength, functions, durability, precision, workmanship, etc.) and of processes, as requested by customers, by working with suppliers to provide optimal construction work and related services.
- Strive to ensure a feasible construction period to achieve five-day work weeks.
- 7. Promoting health and safety
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- Endeavor with suppliers to ensure safe and pleasant work environments.
- Work with suppliers to implement accident prevention activities in accordance with the Construction Occupational Health and Safety Management System (COHSMS).
- 8. Pursuing reasonable costs
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- Work with suppliers to pursue reasonable costs.
- 9. Ensuring information security
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- Endeavor with suppliers to ensure information security while giving due consideration to safeguarding the confidential information, personal information, and client information we handle in our operations.
- 10. Contributions to society
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- Work with suppliers to actively contribute to society and local communities as corporate citizens so as to help preserve the abundance of the earth and create a future society in which all people on it can live with happiness.
- 11. Disaster response
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- Endeavor with suppliers to make preparations in normal times for major disasters, formulate and regularly revise business continuity plans (BCPs), and strengthen risk management systems for times of disaster.
Shimizu Group CSR Procurement Guidelines
- 1. Compliance with laws and regulations and respect for social norms
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- Comply with relevant laws (construction industry laws, bribery laws, and other penal laws) that apply and respect social norms in countries and territories where suppliers engage in business activities.
- Adamantly refuse improper requests from anti-social forces.
- Maintain transparent and fair relationships with civil servants (including deemed public servants, foreign officials, etc.). Do not engage in bribery whether domestically or abroad, and do not provide improper favors to civil servants or others, neither directly nor indirectly.
- Do not violate or misuse intellectual property rights.
- Report to the appropriate hotline any actual or perceived malfeasance observed in the Shimizu Group's business.
- 2. Fair, equitable, and good-faith transactions
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- Do not give or receive payoffs.
- Do not engage in behavior against another party such as abuse of an advantageous position or impeding transactions.
- Endeavor to properly disclose information, including corporate information.
- 3. Building good partnerships with business partners
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- Endeavor to sustain and strengthen partnerships by sharing and resolving various issues with business partners.
- Endeavor to encourage business partners to act in accordance with the guidelines.
- 4. Respect for human rights
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- Respect the diversity, unique character, and individuality of employees.
- Prohibit discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, religion, nationality, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or otherwise and harassment that damages the dignity of any individual.
- Prohibit child labor and forced labor in any form, whether domestically or abroad.
- Properly manage employees' working hours, days off, and leave.
- Comply with laws and regulations on wages, such as the legal minimum wage, and endeavor to ensure a wage level in consideration of a living wage.
- Respect employees' freedom of association and right to collective bargaining.
- Perform human rights due diligence, which is a process to identify, prevent and mitigate human rights risks.
- 5. Consideration for the environment
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- Promote environmentally friendly procurement of materials.
- Endeavor to conserve the environment and reduce environmental impact through managing industrial waste and hazardous chemicals in accordance with applicable laws. Furthermore, practice the 4Rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to reduce construction waste.
- Respect biodiversity, strive for harmony with the natural environment and endeavor to conserve the peripheral environment and water resources.
- Proactively promote zero-carbon initiatives in business activities.
- 6. Quality assurance
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- Endeavor to develop new technology and materials to further improve quality.
- Steadily perform quality control in all business processes.
- 7. Promoting health and safety
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- Create safe and sanitary work environments.
- Endeavor to create work environments that are pleasant to work in both physically and mentally.
- Promote accident prevention and endeavor to prevent work-related accidents.
- 8. Pursuing reasonable costs
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- Regularly improve and hone techniques and construction methods so that costs to be incurred are reasonable in light of specifications, deadlines, market conditions, and so on.
- 9. Ensuring information security
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- Thoroughly manage and reliably prevent leaks of confidential information, personal information, and client information.
- 10. Contributions to society
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- With a view to implementing industrial policy, endeavor to continue improving working conditions for skilled workers by taking into account the skill assessment system and the like in the Construction Career Up System (CCUS).
- Encourage social contribution activities that promote local communities' development, such as participating in community events and environmental beautification.
- 11. Disaster response
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- Endeavor to make preparations in normal times for major disasters and prepare a risk management system for times of disaster.
- Upon ensuring the safety of employees and their families, attempt to protect facilities used by the Shimizu Group, including work sites, while providing support to restore and rebuild disaster areas and promptly restart customers' businesses.
- In order to contribute to local communities, cooperate with national and local governments in rescue and restoration operations.
- 12. Establishment of internal management structure
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- Establish an internal management structure to comply with the action items listed in the CSR Procurement Guidelines.
To inform everyone in your company about the guidelines, please participate in the training sessions Shimizu organizes and endeavor to inform and educate employees. We may conduct questionnaires or visit to confirm the action that you are taking with regard to the guidelines. We ask for your cooperation at that time.
Please note that if we are unable to confirm that the guidelines are being put into practice, we may request corrective measures and, as needed, engage in discussions or provide guidance. If continued discussions and guidance do not result in observable improvement, we may review the continuity of our business relationship.
Results of Questionnaire Survey on Status of Initiatives Related to Shimizu Group CSR Procurement Guidelines (FY2022)
In order to build a sustainable supply chain with our good partner companies, we conducted a questionnaire survey as outlined below with the aim of ascertaining the current status of each company’s initiatives based on the Shimizu Group CSR Procurement Guidelines.
1. Overview of Questionnaire
Period | November 14 - December 24, 2022 |
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Target | Companies participating in Kanekikai (1,035 companies) |
Purpose | To ascertain the current status of each company’s initiatives based on the CSR Procurement Guidelines |
Number of questions | Total of 35 questions in 12 categories |
Scoring | Self-assessment of the status of own company’s initiatives on scale of 1 to 5※
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2. Questionnaire responses
(1)Fiscal year of implementation | (2)Number of target companies | (3)Number of valid responses | (4)Response rate | (5)Overall average score (out of 5) (Scale of 1 to 5) |
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2022 | 1,035 companies | 701 companies | 68% | 3.6 |
3. Responses and analysis
Compared to the overall average score of 3.6, scores were lower in the three categories of “5. Consideration of the environment,” “11. Response to disasters,” and “12. Establishment of internal system.”
The details are as follows:
Under “5. Consideration of the environment,” the lowest score was for “The company actively promotes decarbonization in its business activities.”
Under “11. Response to disasters,” the lowest scores were for “The company provides support for recovery and reconstruction in disaster areas and to customers for quickly resuming business operations” and “The company cooperates with the national government and local municipalities in rescue and recovery activities.”
4. Future issues
- Given the increasing demand for decarbonization initiatives, including on the part of our suppliers, we will ask our suppliers to actively promote such initiatives.
- While conducting BCP training and earthquake drills, we will ask our suppliers to actively promote initiatives as the role of the construction industry and its contribution to the local community during disasters is vital.
- Recently there has been strong demand for initiatives in line with CSR procurement guidelines to be carried out within corporate activities, so we will ask that suppliers establish internal systems to comply with these initiatives.
5. Schedule
Based on the results of this questionnaire survey, we will conduct interviews with companies that have high average scores and roll out good practices among our suppliers in order to establish this as a measure to strengthen the Shimizu Group’s supply chain. We will also conduct individual interviews with companies that have low average scores and provide them with advice and guidance to get them to make improvements.
Supply Chain Management
Shimizu performs human rights due diligence focused on skilled construction workers and construction materials, from the perspective of a sustainable business.
Things We Require of Our Supply Chain
We therefore make sure that everyone understands the points of the group’s human rights policy in compliance training provided to the subcontractors and suppliers with which we do business.
In fiscal 2022, we also utilized remote meetings, and there were a total of 7,042 companies.