Collaborative CSR with Business Partners and Suppliers

These days our CSR initiatives extend beyond our own group companies. Here we report on CSR activities that we are promoting throughout our entire supply chain in collaboration with our business partners and suppliers.

Throughout its history, Panasonic has based relationships with business partners and suppliers on a philosophy of mutual prosperity. At the heart of these relationships is a spirit of mutual responsibility and mutual trust between self-reliant companies that take responsibility for their own operations. We believe that a partnership should be a relationship in which both parties pursue prosperity while sharing these same values. By achieving its own growth targets, a company contributes to the growth of the partner, too. Enlarging this chain of growth can eventually produce greater prosperity and happiness in society as a whole. This is why Panasonic believes that the spirit of mutual prosperity is vital in using partnerships to benefit society and serve as a responsible corporate citizen.

With globalization of economic activity at a highly advanced stage, there is an urgent need to tackle environmental problems on a global scale. Awareness of worldwide issues involving human rights and workers is growing as well. Companies need to meet an increasing array of social demands. To succeed, they must place even more emphasis on cooperation that leverages international partnerships. The world is also witnessing a rapid increase in social problems that companies alone cannot solve. Prime examples are climate change and regional strife and its associated human rights problems. All products reach customers through the same basic process: development, manufacture, sales, service and other steps. Naturally, companies need to cooperate in each process to respond to social demands. But operating as a global organization also requires recognizing the needs of governments, non-governmental and non-profit organizations, and many other stakeholders. Understanding global standards of behavior is essential. Furthermore, every company with global operations must have the capability to recognize and respect the diverse values of different countries, regions and stakeholders. This is the new definition of mutual prosperity in the twenty-first century. These points also explain why Panasonic views supply chain CSR as the process of enlarging the scope of initiatives to achieve sustainability.

Our products are provided to our customers through partnerships with our suppliers and business partners.

We believe that we have an obligation to work objectively to discern CSR demands from society and our customers and provide explanations of what we are doing in response. The same applies to our supply chain. This is why our CSR activities include Panasonic itself as well as partnerships with business partners and suppliers.

At the fiscal 2008 meeting of the Panasonic CSR Board, which was chaired by company president Fumio Ohtsubo, the decision was made to perform a comprehensive examination of the company's CSR framework. The means for promoting this review is our Global CSR Task Force initiative.

The Corporate Industrial Marketing & Sales Division, which is responsible for our device business, and the device business domain are leading this initiative. These activities involve uncovering a variety of CSR issues from a global perspective, then promoting self-assessments and internal audits at each business site. Growth in public interest involving human rights, labor and occupational safety and health, the environment and compliance is particularly rapid in China and other areas of Asia where we have many factories. In response, we perform audits in accordance with our Global CSR Checklist, which provides guidelines that are consistent with the Panasonic management philosophy.

A total of 59 Panasonic factories worldwide performed self-assessments during fiscal 2009. This process revealed 306 issues involving employment and working conditions. Of these items, nine issues required improvements in operations and the remaining 297 issues required improvements to management systems. For problems identified by these self-assessments, business sites immediately incorporated countermeasures in their operating rules and other guidelines or systems. In addition, information about these issues and corrective measures is distributed at the Global CSR Conference that brings together senior managers of each business sales and manufacturing site from around the world. In this fiscal year, CSR self-assessments were performed in the device business domain as well as at 18 factories in the finished products business domain, primarily business sites that produce audio visual equipment.

We have agreements involving CSR programs with 80 of our business partners. This is in addition to ongoing cooperation with our suppliers. Overall, this provides the basis for CSR partnerships that span the entire supply chain.

At the Panasonic CSR Board, the decision was made to establish a Supply Chain CSR Committee. The roles of this committee are to evaluate accomplishments of the Global CSR Task Force through fiscal 2009, determine CSR goals for the Panasonic supply chain and take the necessary actions.

Our basic objective is to continue to conduct CSR programs through partnerships with business partners and suppliers. Activities will encompass the entire Panasonic organization in terms of geographic areas, business domains and head office divisions.

The committee will speed up measures aimed at eliminating risk worldwide and creating new forms of value. CSR will also include activities to foster closer ties with multi-stakeholders. We want to contribute to the creation of a sound society by expanding the scope of CSR activities.

The resources of companies alone are not enough to solve the numerous global problems that we face today. This is why people have come to view such problems from the standpoint of social responsibility rather than corporate social responsibility. Solving global problems requires the cooperation of many stakeholders: governments, academic and research institutions, consumers, NPO/NGO, and labor unions. Mineral resources are one illustration. In this field, solutions demand more than collaboration among companies reaching upstream to mining companies. Eliminating the causes of global problems is impossible without cooperation that also includes governments and non-profit, non-governmental organizations. Concrete actions involving this multi-stakeholder approach are already under way. A social responsibility ISO standard (ISO26000) is expected to be announced in September 2010. Following examples set in Europe and other regions, Japan plans to hold its first CSR round table discussion.

Panasonic is committed to making a difference by fulfilling its responsibilities as a member of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren), Japan's leading business association for these activities. Panasonic currently chairs the federation's Subcommittee on Socially Responsible Management that oversees CSR activities. In this role, we are a member of the Japanese National Committee for ISO Working Group on Social Responsibility and the strategic task force of the CSR round-table discussion.

Our Corporate Responsibility agenda is framed around the Nokia Values and is carried out in all aspects of our work to ensure customer satisfaction and respect, and also to assist us in embracing renewal and striving for achievement. By striving to include all members of Nokia's community in this process, we are demonstrating our overall commitment to the belief that responsibility is everybody's business. The Nokia Values are embedded in the Nokia Code of Conduct. Every employee is expected to conduct himself or herself, and his or her business, in line with this Code without exception.

At Nokia we feel that sound environmental and social principles are an important part of sustaining a successful and responsible business.

We expect Panasonic to take a similar approach to ethical business. To ensure this we have developed a comprehensive set of global Nokia Supplier Requirements, which include specified environmental and social requirements ranging from subjects such as take-back programmes to respect for human rights and anti-corruption. Our aim is to work in close collaboration with Panasonic to encourage filling these requirements. We also expect Panasonic to follow the ethical guidelines set in the Nokia Code of Conduct, and to apply these standards in their day-to-day business. We believe that the partnership between Nokia and Panasonic will lead to our mutual goal of sustainable and successful business.