Promoting Supply Chain CSR

As Sharp's business philosophy states, “Our future prosperity is directly linked to the prosperity of our customers, dealers and shareholders,” Sharp aims for sustainable growth and mutual prosperity with all of its suppliers.

To these ends, Sharp emphasizes maintaining impartiality and fairness in all purchasing activities and chooses who it will procure local parts, materials, and equipment from by providing Japanese and overseas suppliers with an equal opportunity to do business with Sharp. This opportunity includes a fair evaluation of whether a supplier meets Sharp's requirements for quality, standards, and performance.

To ensure sustainable growth and mutual prosperity with its suppliers, Sharp is going beyond initiatives related to the quality, price, and delivery of parts and materials. Sharp is also seeking to fulfill its social responsibilities over a wide range of areas across the entire supply chain. These areas include product safety, environmental protection, human rights and labor, and health and safety.

Sharp's basic concept, concrete policies, and requests to suppliers pertaining to procurement activities are set out in the Basic Purchasing Principles. And in the Sharp Supply-Chain CSR Deployment Guidebook, which is based on the Basic Purchasing Principles, Sharp clearly declares the implementation of CSR initiatives—such as complying with all laws, regulations, and social standards, and protecting the environment—as one of its procurement policies. Specifically, these include elimination of child/forced labor and discrimination, as well as compliance with labor related laws, such as those dealing with employees' right to organize and their right to collective bargaining. Sharp also asks its business partners to actively promote such activities.

To deepen the understanding between Sharp and its business partners, Sharp communicates actively with supplier sales representatives on a daily basis.

The Sharp Group Charter of Corporate Behavior and the Sharp Code of Conduct were formulated as the group’s basic CSR policies and have been thoroughly engrained into all employees.

To disseminate these policies throughout the supply chain, the Sharp Global SER Committee (SGSC), which is chaired by the President & COO of Sharp, set supply-chain CSR deployment as a key initiative. At SGSC meetings, members from relevant head office departments such as CSR, environment, and HR, along with business units and subsidiaries, share their policies and measures. The SGSC also monitors and manages progress on supply chain CSR-related measures.

Sharp periodically carries out supply-chain CSR surveys to confirm how well suppliers are carrying out CSR based on the Sharp Supply-Chain CSR Deployment Guidebook and to identify, assess, and reduce CSR risk in the supply chain.

On the survey form, there are areas that conform to the RBA self-assessment questionnaire—labor, health and safety, environment, and ethics—as well as Sharp's own areas, which are biodiversity/chemical substances management and business continuity planning (BCP). In fiscal 2020, Sharp added another area, information security, to deal with the rise in cyber security risks. Through such efforts, Sharp assesses risk in a wider range of areas in response to changing conditions inside and outside of the company.

Sharp also improves the survey form by adding things like guidance on the questions, thus making the survey a medium that prompts suppliers to further their understanding of, and efforts to achieve, international CSR standards.

The survey is carried out separately at each factory that makes products for Sharp. Survey scorecards are given to participating suppliers and those with low-scoring areas are asked to submit corrective action plans. Through such post-survey communication with suppliers, Sharp is continuously working to improve CSR across the supply chain.

In fiscal 2020, Japan-based business units and manufacturing subsidiaries carried out CSR/Green procurement surveys at approximately 650 supplier factories.

At production and procurement bases in China and ASEAN countries, since fiscal 2017 Sharp has been introducing two types of supplier management systems through which it has been carrying out ongoing risk management equivalent to that of Sharp in Japan.

To help all those in procurement positions improve their understanding and implementation of CSR, information about the Basic Purchasing Principles and supply chain CSR is included in training materials for new employees, transferred employees, and management skills improvement. All Sharp Group employees take compliance-related training based on the Sharp Code of Conduct, which covers topics such as respect for human rights.

To ensure that corporate procurement departments secure a stable supply of parts and materials at fair prices, Sharp continuously strengthens partnerships with suppliers regarding long-term supply contracts and other matters, and also purchases from multiple suppliers. Sharp also formulated the Rules of Business Risk Management, which it uses to create and periodically revise BCPs. As part of this, Sharp requires suppliers to periodically check the BCPs of the production bases that supply them. It also carries out CSR/Green procurement surveys to confirm how well suppliers are making and maintaining BCPs.

• *2 BCP: Business continuity plan

To comply with the Subcontract Act (Act Against Delay in Payment of Subcontract Proceeds, etc. to Subcontractors) in Japan, Sharp Corporation and its affiliated companies implement compliance checks and in-house education on an ongoing basis.

As in past years, Sharp encouraged internal voluntary reporting of compliance issues and further strengthened precautionary measures to prevent the recurrence of problems. In-house companies, business units, material purchase departments, Head Office groups, and domestic affiliated companies conducted self-audits in which they checked how well they were complying with the Subcontract Act. Sharp also held internal training sessions for domestic affiliated companies and performed periodic internal audits to raise awareness among employees of the importance of complying with the Subcontract Act.

In recent years, companies have had to expand the scope of their efforts regarding the minerals, regions, and risks involved in the responsible procurement of minerals. This means not only abiding by legal frameworks such as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of the United States and the EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation but also taking a firm CSR stand in light of issues such as child labor and environmental destruction at mining sites.

In the supply chain for procuring minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas, Sharp has a basic policy in place to ensure it is not complicit in human rights abuses and environmental destruction, and so that it does not inhibit sound, legitimate business activities.

Based on this basic policy and under the Sharp Global SER Committee (SGSC), which is chaired by the President & COO of Sharp, we have made responsible minerals procurement a key theme. A survey system has been created in major business units and production subsidiaries and we constantly check on the progress of relevant measures under this system.

To ensure that responsible minerals procurement is carried out effectively, Sharp believes in the importance of collaborating with industries in Japan and other countries and acting based on widespread consensus.

Since fiscal 2012, as a participant in the Responsible Minerals Trade Working Group of the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), which is a partner association of RMI*1, we keep abreast of the latest international developments in, and strengthen our global ties in relation to, responsible minerals procurement.

We also actively take part in JEITA’s Responsible Minerals Sourcing Inquiry Briefings by helping in planning, creating documents, and joining the briefings as part of our efforts to spread understanding of responsible minerals procurement in the industry supply chain and boosting the capabilities of downstream companies. Together with JEITA, we periodically send outreach letters to smelters or refiners that are not yet participants of the RMAP*2 urging them to undergo audits. These efforts are part of our contribution to effectively stamping out human rights abuses and other problems in the global procurement of minerals.

• *1 RMI: Responsible Minerals Initiative
• *2 RMAP (Responsible Minerals Assurance Process) is an RMI program for validating conformance of RMI-listed smelters or refiners.

Sharp uses the RMI’s industry standard reporting templates (CMRT*3, CRT*4, and MRT*5) to conduct surveys on 3TG (tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold), as well as minerals such as cobalt and mica if requested by customers.

In the surveys, primary suppliers are urged to procure minerals from RMAP-conformant smelters or refiners. And based on the CMRT, CRT, and MRT returned by survey participants, we identify and evaluate risk based on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (OECD Guidance).

In fiscal 2020, as a result of about 500 surveys carried out at major business units and production subsidiaries, 422*6 smelters and refiners were identified and the RMAP conformance rate was about 82%*6.

For smelters and refiners that are not yet conformant with RMAP and those with high risk levels, we urge their participation in RMAP through our primary suppliers. If any smelters or refiners have been found to be dealing with militant forces or complicit in serious human rights abuses, this information is shared with suppliers, with whom we discuss measures such as switching to RMAP-conformant smelters or refiners.

• *3 CMRT (Conflict Minerals Reporting Template) is a free, standardized reporting template developed by the RMI.
• *4 CRT (Cobalt Reporting Template) is a free, standardized reporting template developed by the RMI.
• *5 MRT (Mica Reporting Template) is a free, standardized reporting template developed by the RMI.
• *6 3TG smelters or refiners that are involved with major business units and production subsidiaries. Conformance rate as of March 2021.

To deepen employees’ understanding of responsible minerals procurement, as a rule we hold monthly meetings with those in charge of surveys at major business units and production subsidiaries, where participants share information on the latest international developments and discuss practical survey issues and how to improve the survey system.

Procurement personnel and new employees take part in periodic supply chain CSR training, which covers responsible minerals procurement. Another way we further employees’ understanding on responsible minerals procurement is by uploading new and relevant material to the management skills improvement training page on the Sharp intranet.

To carry out responsible minerals procurement, Sharp integrates into its management a five-step framework for risk-based due diligence recommended in the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas.