4th Quarterly, 2006 No.142
“Human Rights Information Contained in CSR Reports of Corporations – 2005”
Published by BLHRRI
BLHRRI has completed the monitoring and analysis of human rights initiatives and efforts of 521 Japanese corporations. In recent years, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) has been gaining wider national and international attention.
This is attested by the fact that CSR will become one of ISO norms by creating “ISO26000” in 2009. Respect of human rights is one of majority concerns in the anticipated ISO. In recent years in Japan many corporations have already taken human rights initiatives. In fact, some corporations make regular human rights reports in connection with their business performance and activities in their CSR, environment reports or sustainable development reports.
BLHRRI has collected CSR reports for 2005 of 521 different corporations operating in Japan, and made a thorough analysis of the information contained in these reports in terms of human rights. The main focuses of our analysis included: CSR structure; reference to human rights in the top-management statement; reference to human rights in corporate ethics policies; human rights of employees – rights of workers in general, rights of women, rights of persons with disabilities, rights of the elderly, rights of part-time workers, and protection of the personal information of employees; responses to human rights abuses caused by corporate activities; human rights efforts in business performance; human rights efforts outside business performance; and reference to human rights evaluation of the corporation made by a third party.
The results of our analysis have just been published in a 45-page leaflet in April. Our findings included: 1) 241 report explicitly mention ‘respect of human rights’ in their corporate ethics policies, and 36 mention human rights in the top-management statement; 2) regarding international human rights standards, 185 reports contain the GRI Guidelines, and 25 contain the UN Global Compact; 3) 34 corporations have procurement/ transaction norms that prescribe respect for human rights; 4) 106 reports contain information about human rights training. These finding are interesting because they reveal the current situation and challenges faced by corporations in terms of human rights. The leaflet also describes some progressive initiatives taken by corporations.
The human rights information included in the 521 CSR reports can be seen on our website, in Japanese.
http://www. blhrri.org/kenkyu/data/csr2005/.