Efforts to Respect Human Rights

1. TEPCO Group Human Rights Policy

• TEPCO Group Human Rights Policy (59.6KB)

The TEPCO Group established and announced in August 2021 the TEPCO Group Human Rights Policy (“the Policy”) that clarifies our stance toward efforts to respect human rights, in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Besides strengthening our previous initiatives for human rights, we will promote human rights-respecting efforts that align with international standards in order to commit ourselves to prevent and mitigate adverse impacts on human rights.

Should the operations, products, or services of not only the TEPCO Group but also our business partners, including suppliers, adversely impact the human rights of our stakeholders including customers and local communities, we will take appropriate actions.

The Policy was established based on international human rights norms and principles (e.g., the International Bill of Human Rights, the International Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the Children’s Rights and Business Principles), and by incorporating opinions of external experts.

Commitment to Specific Human Rights Issues

The TEPCO Group respects the following rights and human dignities in accordance with international norms and principles on human rights.

1. (1) Prohibition of human trafficking, forced labor, and child labor
2. (2) Freedom of association and respect for the right to collective bargaining, etc.
3. (3) Respect for diversity and equal opportunity
4. (4) Prohibition of all forms of discrimination*, harassment, bullying, and unfair treatment
5. (5) Appropriate management of working hours and reduction of excessive working hours
6. (6) Securing the minimum wage and supporting the living wage
7. (7) Ensuring a healthy and safe work environment
8. (8) Protection of personal information and privacy
9. (9) Ensuring the safety of consumers and local communities and disclosing information transparently

• * 

  Discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, language, religion, nationality, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, sexual expression, disability, political or other opinions, national or social background, property, family or other status, or any similar reason.

Relevant regulations

• TEPCO Group Philosophy
• TEPCO Group Charter of Corporate Conduct (82.2KB)

2. Governance Structure of Respect for Human Rights

With the establishment of the Policy, we reorganized our Human Rights Awareness Committee, the primary goal of which has been to resolve/prevent issues such as discrimination, and accordingly set up the TEPCO Holdings (TEPCO HD) Human Rights Committee (“HD Human Rights Committee”) in February 2022. Because of the broad scope of human rights issues, we expanded its membership to include the heads of our procurement, ESG, safety, and system security organizations.
The HD Human Rights Committee, chaired by the Chief Human Resources Officer (“Human Rights Chairperson”), chiefly consists of TEPCO HD’s relevant department/office managers and human rights directors of TEPCO Power Grid, TEPCO Renewable Power, and TEPCO Energy Partner (these three are the “core companies”). Each core company has its own human rights committee, and the committee chairs also serve as members of the HD Human Rights Committee.

As a general rule, the HD Human Rights Committee meets twice a year to engage in such activities as reviewing efforts from the previous fiscal year, deliberating plans for the current fiscal year, and monitoring the action plan for human rights due diligence (“human rights DD”).
The Committee also shares specific cases submitted to our Human Rights Reporting Desk and Human Rights Consultation Desk and discusses and recommends remedial measures.

Items reviewed/decided upon by the HD Human Rights Committee are reported to the Executive Committee and other bodies, if necessary. (A report on actions taken after the Policy’s establishment up through FY2022 was made to the Board of Directors on April 28, 2023.)

System of human rights governance

• PG: TEPCO Power Grid, Inc.
• RP: TEPCO Renewable Power, Inc
• EP: TEPCO Energy Partner, Inc

• Note: 

  Coverage includes consolidated subsidiaries of the core companies

Here are the details on past HD Human Rights Committee sessions.

Provided below are the recommendations/remedial measures based on discussions from previous HD Human Rights Committee sessions.

• For stronger governance, we recommended responsible divisions to make human rights grievance systems better recognizable and widely known to employees.
• Reflecting opinions from visually impaired individuals, we made an organization-wide recommendation about how to communicate information that many employees view in particular (e.g., organization chiefs’ messages on the intranet).
• Reflecting grievances filed by contract staff, we communicated about thoroughly practicing the contract management manual.
• In response to stakeholder feedback suggesting that a consolidated subsidiary’s product leaflet could be perceived as discriminatory by some recipients, we replaced a problematic photo in the leaflet when it was updated, and held a training on the content in question.

Reference

• TEPCO Group Corporate Ethics Committee (Japanese)

3. Human Rights Due Diligence

The TEPCO Group respects human rights in all aspects of its business activities. We built a human rights DD mechanism based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights so that the human rights of all stakeholders, including people impacted by our business activities, are respected. We also defined ”our companies,” “consolidated subsidiaries,” and “suppliers” as the scopes of our priority responses in this area.

The TEPCO Group’s system for respecting human rights

Scopes of priority response for human rights DD

We carry out human rights impact assessments and engage with stakeholders concerning mainly the human rights issues listed in the Policy.

Human Rights Impact Assessments on Our Companies (Employees)

To implement human rights DD for our companies (employees), we specified adverse impacts caused by our business (human rights impact assessments). With the input from external experts, we analyzed our internal rules, results of employee opinion surveys, previous lawsuits, and contents of human rights grievances, among other information. We accordingly identified human rights issues and assessed them from the perspectives of the potential, scale, scope, and irremediability of human rights violations.

As a result, assessments showed particularly significant adverse impacts in the categories of harassment, working hours, and proper management of personal information. We have been addressing these three challenges for some time, and since FY2022 we have defined them as salient human rights issues and stepped up our efforts focused on preventing inappropriate cases related to them and minimizing impacts when such cases occur.

Human Rights Impact Assessments on Our Companies (Business)

We used the following process to conduct human rights impact assessments on nine departments of our three core companies in FY2022.

1. (1)We carried out the Self-Assessment on Respect for Human Rights, which has around 70 items covering 25 human rights issues that could have an impact within our business activities, including the specific issues to which we declare our commitment in the Policy.
2. (2)External experts conducted interviews based on the results of those self-assessments in order to identify items that each department considers to be potential issues.
3. (3)We used the findings from (1) and (2) to assess issues in terms of the potential, scale, scope, and irremediability of human rights violations, identify and prioritize critical human rights issues, and formulate an action plan.

Coverage of the self-assessments conducted

The management and the Human Rights Committee of each core company selected the departments indicated below based on the nature of their business and had them carry out the self-assessment.

The process of identifying and prioritizing human rights challenges determined that study and implementation of preventive/remedial measures regarding the issues identified are being carried out fully (100%). However, it also uncovered the additional issues listed below that could have negative impacts. Preventive/remedial measures for those items are being launched in FY2023.

The scope of action will be further expanded in FY2023.

Human Rights Impact Assessments on Consolidated Subsidiaries

• As in FY2021, in FY2022 we again carried out the Self-Assessment on Respect for Human Rights for major consolidated subsidiaries, which as suppliers and business partners of TEPCO HD and its core companies are subject to the Policy. The self-assessment targeted 38 companies and comprised 72 items covering topics such as our system for respecting human rights, supplier-related human rights actions, and the status of and measures for the nine human rights issues that we are committed to under the Policy.
• In FY2022, we began interviewing the consolidated subsidiaries individually, as the variances in their characteristics—size, year of establishment, business features, and so on—make it necessary for human rights measures to be formulated and implemented based on an understanding of each company’s situation and the issues it faces. Seven companies were interviewed in that year. In FY2023, we will expand the number of companies interviewed, with priority given to those with large businesses, so that the TEPCO Group can better advance respect for human rights as one team. Our plan is to visit with the major consolidated subsidiaries in the span of three years.
• In FY2023, we designated a human rights coordinator at each company to strengthen coordination with TEPCO HD. We also established the “Guidelines for Implementing Actions under the TEPCO Group Human Rights Policy” to encourage the consolidated subsidiaries to independently take action for respecting human rights.

System for Promoting Respect for Human Rights at Consolidated Subsidiaries

Reference

• Consolidated subsidiaries

Human Rights Impact Assessments on Suppliers

We established the Sustainable Procurement Guidelines (the “Guidelines) in May 2021 by adding an element of respect for human rights to the Basic Policy on Procurement, with the aim to develop stronger respect for human rights in our supply chain. We also developed a system to reinforce our suppliers’ respect for human rights and started to take action in FY2022. Example endeavors include having suppliers submit a confirmation document that declares they are properly practicing the Guidelines, and distributing a Sustainable Procurement Questionnaire to check the extent to which suppliers are complying with the Guidelines.

System to Reinforce Suppliers’ Respect for Human Rights

• We apply the PDCA cycle to develop stronger respect for human rights in the supply chain.
• The PDCA cycle is run as a three-year cycle.

Results of Sustainable Procurement Survey

In FY2022, we asked approximately 300 suppliers to complete a roughly 60-item Sustainable Procurement Survey on seven areas—human rights, CSR, compliance, occupational health & safety, the environment, risk management, and sustainable growth across the entire supply chain—and on their contributions to local communities. The results indicated that the larger the company is, the more likely it is to have a balanced commitment across the board for all areas.

■ Feedback to survey respondents

We provided each survey respondent with feedback in the form of a radar chart showing the three values indicated below for the seven areas (human rights, etc.). The values included two benchmarks, overall average and average of suppliers of similar size, so that each company could compare its performance against them.

Feedback resources

Human rights training material

■ Engagement

The scoping of human rights due diligence regarding suppliers was performed from the three perspectives of sectoral/enterprise factors, product factors, and geographical factors, based on the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. We also used tools such as the UNEP FI Human Rights Guidance Tool and FTSE Risk Exposure for analysis. This led us to decision to assign high priority to the construction sector.

Issues	Occupational health & safety, worker exploitation through subcontractor chains, foreign worker issues, etc.

In FY2022 we engaged with six suppliers based on the results of the Sustainable Procurement Survey.
Through this we learned that smaller enterprises in particular tend to be behind the curve in how they commit resources to this area.

Going forward, we will continue implementing the initiatives below to highlight the necessity of human rights DD in our supply chain, and provide guidance and assistance where needed.

Procurement-related policies

Basic Policy on Procurement	Basic Policy on Procurement Sustainable Procurement Guidelines Confirmation of Compliance with Sustainable Procurement Guidelines

4. Grievance Mechanism

The TEPCO Group has established both internal and external grievance mechanisms to respond appropriately to human rights-related issues. In addition to ensuring the anonymity of clients or whistleblowers and the confidentiality of the content of their reports, we thoroughly protect the clients or whistleblowers and prohibit unfavorable treatment and retaliation against them.
If it becomes apparent that the TEPCO Group’s operations have caused or were involved in an adverse impact on human rights, we will engage in remediation and redress through appropriate procedures and dialogues.

Primary Consultation and Reporting Contacts for Human Rights

Flow of Response to Consultations and Whistleblower Reports

Response System for Consultation and Whistleblower Reports

• TEPCO HD’s Human Rights Coordinator (“the HRC of HD”) responds to consultations and whistleblower reports by coordinating with the relevant workplace’s human rights officer (who co-serves as the corporate ethics officer), in a manner mindful of the human rights of the person consulting or reporting.
• A veteran employee with management experience serves as the HRC of HD.
• Female managers are assigned to serve as counselors.
• This mechanism also handles consultations on sexual minority-related matters.
• To make it easier for employees to access this mechanism, a link to it was added to the intranet’s top page, just below the President’s message, in July 2022.
• Contact information for human rights consultation/whistleblowing was added to the Corporate Ethics Card distributed to all employees when it was updated in October 2022.
  The Human Rights Reporting Desk and the Human Rights Consultation Desk (see 1 and 2 in the above table) received 103 grievances cases in FY2022.

Disciplinary actions for harassment are prescribed in our rules of employment. Our preventive measures include raising employee awareness by periodically posting information on the intranet regarding disciplinary actions taken. Of the cases handled through our human rights consultation/whistleblowing mechanism, disciplinary action was taken against two cases in FY2021, and none in FY2022.

5. Stakeholder Engagement

We strive to engage in dialogue with all stakeholders, including workers’ representatives, suppliers and other business partners, and local communities, so that we can understand and respond to the human rights-related impacts of the TEPCO Group’s operations from the perspective of the affected stakeholders. We also refer to the opinions of external experts.

We recognize that the working conditions and safety of contractors are human rights issues peculiar to our industry. Through interviews, we will deepen our understanding of the situation and take further action.

A visit to a supplier’s electric power equipment plant to ascertain working conditions for foreign workers through interviews with foreign employees/technical trainees and their managers

6. Information Disclosure

We use our website (this webpage) and other channels to periodically disclose information about the process of efforts made based on the Policy and results of assessments on their effectiveness.
We will also disclose our efforts on sources such as the Integrated Report and Corporate Governance Report.

• Corporate Governance Report (1.64MB)
• Integrated Report (27.1MB)

7. Information Dissemination/Education on the Policy

The TEPCO Group provides appropriate education and training to all officers and employees so that the Policy permeates the company. We will also not only incorporate this policy into related policies, procedures, and tasks to properly embed it in our operations, but also work on building the capability of individuals in charge of human rights DD for the effective implementation of human rights DD. Moreover, we will strive to respect human rights throughout the supply chain by thoroughly communicating the contents of the Policy to our business partners, including suppliers.

Commitment of Top Management

• Taking advantage of Human Rights Week, the Representative Executive Officer and President of TEPCO HD issued human rights messages on the intranet on December 1, 2021 and December 2, 2022.
• The leadership of many consolidated subsidiaries also sent out similar messages. (14 companies in FY2021, 21 in FY2022)

Training

• Ahead of establishing the Policy, we invited an external lecturer and hosted a training for directors entitled “Why do we need to respect human rights now?” (May 2021)
• We hosted an e-learning training to develop deeper understanding of the Policy for all employees (including temporary employees, part-time workers, and temporary staff) of TEPCO Holdings, core operating companies, and consolidated subsidiaries to which the Policy applies. (2021 4Q)
• In FY2022 we held training for officers of TEPCO HD, RP, PG, EP, and Group companies to advance initiatives for respecting human rights as a group-wide effort. This drove an increase in the human rights initiatives independently conceived and run at the workplace level.

Other Human Rights Trainings Held in FY2022

Creative Approaches for Enhancing Sensitivity to Respect for Human Rights

Launching on the intranet a portal site on respect for human rights (July 2022)

• We improved the accessibility to our grievance mechanisms, and sorted training materials and information related to respect for human rights.

Establishing an emblem of respect for human rights and using pictograms

• We developed and have been using on various media an emblem and pictograms to visually promote respect for human rights.
• The aim of this move is to prevent harassment and foster mindsets/behavior of respecting each other’s human rights, by visually facilitating acute awareness of respect for human rights.

Emblem of respect for human rights

Pictograms representing respect for human rights

These pictograms are created by the TEPCO Human Rights Committee with the hope that human rights will be respected in all aspects of our business.

Responding to Discrimination (Buraku discrimination issue)

In addition to the above efforts, the TEPCO Group has long been committed to taking action on discrimination against Buraku people and other groups. We continue to do so through responses based on the Policy.

Responding to Discriminatory Graffiti

Discriminatory graffiti is sometimes found on the TEPCO Group’s electric power equipment and other facilities. To avoid becoming complicit in such human rights violations, we established a section in our intranet’s human rights portal site that focuses on how to counter discriminatory graffiti on our facilities. This section provides a manual on specific actions to be taken when such graffiti is discovered, an incident report form, and information on past cases. We take steps to encourage all Group companies to make use of these resources and join in our commitment to swiftly take proper action whenever discriminatory graffiti is discovered.

Fair Recruitment

In line with the Policy, the TEPCO Group fairly screens applicants by respecting their fundamental human rights, so as to ensure equal employment opportunities.

• Coordinators for screening for fair recruitment and awareness for human rights are appointed and notified to the responsible Public Employment Security Office.
• We set up a section on fair hiring and screening practices on our intranet’s human rights portal site. The section offers training resources and human rights-related information regarding hiring.
• When recruiting, we provide in-advance training on fair screening to new recruiters and interviewers.
• TEPCO has been included in a MHLW publication showcasing ten companies with best practices in prevention of harassment in recruitment.
  Preventing Harassment against Job-seeking Students (for businesses)
  ■ MHLW publication on companies’ best practices in recruitment harassment prevention (TEPCO is presented on p.38; in Japanese)
  • Companies’ best practices in recruitment harassment prevention (12.1MB)

Human Rights Reporting Desk

Access our Human Rights Reporting Desk, which is open to our stakeholders, from the link below.