Focus Area 5: Maintain Customer Trust as a Financial Institution

Major Initiatives

• Ensure compliance
• Protect human rights

Related SDGs

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Fostering a Sound Corporate Culture

To prevent large-scale scandals that might damage trust among customers and in financial markets, we strive to foster and ensconce a sound corporate culture as a part of our business strategy. We have clearly defined a desirable and sound corporate culture, and we have established the Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct to ensure the full awareness of all directors and employees and to ensure that all employees engage in legal and ethical practices in every aspect of business.

Definition of a Sound Corporate Culture

1. Respecting risk management while continuing to pursue approaches to new tasks and ensuring appropriate returns

Individual directors and employees are expected to fulfill their basic roles for the Bank and aggressively attempt new business to establish a stable profit structure that ensures organization-wide sustainability. Individual directors and employees are expected to fully recognize the risks they take on or that might arise and always be aware of the need to maintain a balance of returns, corporate strength and risk.

2. Securing business transparency and acting with a heightened awareness of responsibility

Individual directors and employees are expected to act with strict discipline and responsibility to achieve a higher degree of transparency and accountability through appropriate internal and external communication in order to serve the needs of society.

3. Respecting diverse ideas through communication to promote cooperation

Individual directors and employees are expected to develop a work environment that encourages active, free communication as well as respect for diverse ideas while promoting a sense of cooperation that enables all employees to fulfill their potential.

4. Understanding The Norinchukin Bank sense of value and management policy to execute business with a spirit of unity

Individual directors and employees are expected to share our sense of value while directors and managers are expected to practice strong leadership in providing clear and easy-to-understand communication to ensure that all employees fully understand management policy.

5. Developing a sound corporate culture as a part of corporate governance

Directors and managers are expected to take account of the business environment and employee awareness to develop a sound corporate culture based on an appropriate system for business performance evaluations and remuneration.

Initiatives Based on Environmental Policy and Human Rights Policy

The Bank has formulated human rights and environmental policies that clarify its basic position on environmental issues and respect for human rights and is working to resolve such issues.

Respect for Human Rights

In the Code of Conduct, The Norinchukin Bank emphasizes respect for human rights and the building of a workplace that enables employees to work with a sense of security. Discriminatory words and acts based on race, creed, gender, age, nationality, ethnic group, religion, social status and physical features are unacceptable in or outside the workplace. All directors and employees of the Bank are strictly prohibited from engaging in such acts or using such language under any circumstances.
In addressing global human rights, we adhere to and respect international standards, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the UN Global Compact. We also comply with the domestic laws of the nations in which we operate, and we prepare or update rules and regulations on operations concerning human rights in the course of our business activities. Recently, awareness of human rights is increasing not only within bank operations but also throughout the entire supply chain. While referring to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the Bank will continue to address issues from various angles, including compliance, with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Response to UK Modern Slavery Act 2015

The UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires any commercial organization with a certain annual turnover to produce a statement detailing their approaches to the prevention of slavery, forced or compulsory labor, and human trafficking in their business and their supply chain. This important statement has been posted on our English website since September 2016. The statement stresses that acts of slavery, forced or compulsory labor, and human trafficking are contrary to the Bank’s mission and sets out our efforts to prevent such acts.

Educational Activities to Heighten Awareness of Human Rights

The Bank’s business operations are supported by its stakeholders. It is important that all directors and employees of the Bank have a heightened sense of human rights with respect for the position and personality of others. To fulfill the Bank’s fundamental mission, each director and employee are expected to respect the position of individual stakeholders and treat all with sincerity, acquire deep insights and highly professional knowledge, and behave as valued members of society.
Toward the establishment of a highly transparent organizational culture based on the concept of respect for human rights, we continue conducting educational activities on human rights in line with the policy decided by the Board of Directors after discussion at the Human Rights Subcommittee.
To prevent sexual or power harassment as well as harassment on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth and child- or nursing care leaves, we engage in a wide range of activities such as providing e-learning and position-by-position education, guidance and consultation by the persons in charge of human rights issues throughout the organization, and external contacts for consultation.
In light of the Act for Promotion of the Employment of Persons with Disabilities and the Act for Eliminating Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities, we have set up a Consultation Desk for People with Disabilities at each branch and in the Legal Affairs and Compliance Division, and this is working to respond to actual issues faced by people with disabilities.

Environment and Human Rights Seminars

The Bank provides environment and human rights seminars annually, and all senior management and employees and employees at the Bank are required to participate in at least one.
We invite specialists from a wide range of fields to present seminars to enlighten and disseminate the concept of respect for environmental preservation and human rights under broad themes.
In fiscal 2021, in view of COVID-19 restrictions, we provided nine online sessions delivered to all business sites via a remote conference system.

Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA)

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 clarifies the corporate responsibility for human rights protection stating that business enterprises should carry out human rights due diligence, avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved.
Based on this concept, we clearly state in our Human Rights Policy that we strengthen efforts to carry out human rights due diligence to prevent or reduce adverse human rights impacts that the Bank’s financial services might have and conduct human rights impact assessment by the entire organization and in business activities.
Specifically, given that all the business activities of the Bank are in the scope of coverage, we identified human rights risks by leveraging employee questionnaires and outside specialized knowledge. We then assessed the priorities of the identified human rights risks from the standpoint of their importance and relevance to our business activities. Consequently, we determined “Investment and Loans to Sectors with High Human Rights Risks” and other risks to be priority issues. The Bank handles these priority issues in accordance with the “Policy on Environmental and Social Considerations in Financing and Investment Activities”.

Human Rights Impact Assessment Processes