Nippon Paper Industries

Lobbying
Nippon Paper Industries discloses a list of trade associations of which it is a member.

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses its process for engaging with stakeholder groups, including frequency and channels, beyond its materiality assessment or an equivalent.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company discloses its process for identifying and prioritising its most relevant sustainability impacts as well as the outcome of this process, in relation to its sustainability strategy.

GHG emissions
The company has a time-bound target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions and reports progress against these scope 1 and 2 targets.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses its inputs according to an international standard.The company discloses which organisms it directly exploits for commercial uses, including wild animal and plant species.

Solid and air pollution
The company reports regularly on air quality parameters of emissions of harmful air pollutants. Furthermore, it has time-bound targets to reduce air pollutants and reports regularly against them.

Water
The company has targets to reduce water pollution and reports progress against them. Furthermore, the company reports a decrease in water pollution.

No leading practices were identified for the company in the social inclusion and community impact area.

Act ethically
The company has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption.

Provide and promote decent work
The company discloses the proportion of its total direct operations workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements. It also provides a breakdown of its total direct operations workforce for each employee category by age group. Additionally, the company discloses the proportion of women in its total direct operations workforce within each employee category and has set a time-bound target, aspiring to increase the ratio of women in managerial-track positions to be 40% or higher by FY2026/3.

Respect human rights
The company has made a public commitment to respecting ILO core labour rights, both within its own operations and expects the same from its suppliers, as evidenced by their publicly available policy statements. Additionally, it describes the process it utilizes to identify human rights risks and impacts within its supply chain. The company is also committed to respecting human rights more broadly, as indicated by another publicly available policy statement. Furthermore, it provides a human rights grievance mechanism that is accessible to all of its workers.

Lobbying
The company has an opportunity to disclose a clear and detailed framework for assessing alignment of its trade associations with its sustainability targets and to report (potential) misalignments.

Stakeholder engagement
The company has an opportunity to disclose an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
The company could disclose group wide targets on key sustainability topics for the most material parts of its value chain. Also, while the company reports consistently against some targets including climate, there is an opportunity to report consistently against all its targets. Additionally, it has an opportunity to assign decision-making and oversight responsibility for its sustainability strategy to the highest governance body. Furthermore, the company could link performance criteria in senior executives’ remuneration policies to targets and objectives which cover nature, including biodiversity, and social issues. Lastly, it could improve its transparency by disclosing whether its highest governance body has expertise with respect to the company’s most material sustainability topics.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
No evidence was found regarding the company’s efforts to avoid ecosystem conversion, including deforestation, or promote restoration. The company has an opportunity to develop a strategy and publicly report on specific, time-bound targets.

GHG emissions
The company should set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions as well as report progress against them. Crucially, all its scope 1, 2 and 3 targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company has an opportunity to disclose assessments of its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its own operations and in its supply chain. It also has the opportunity to disclose its dependencies on nature within its own operations and upstream business relationships.

Invasive species
The company has not identified any activities that could lead to the introduction of invasive alien species in its own operations.

Key areas and species
The company has an opportunity to disclose locations within or adjacent to areas important for biodiversity, both in its own operations and its supplier locations. It could also disclose existing species populations existing in or adjacent to both its own and its suppliers’ locations, as well as the conservation status of species identified at its own sites according to national and international lists.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company has an opportunity to report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance. The company also has an opportunity to disclose activities to improve soil health or agrobiodiversity in its production or sourcing practices, to disclose a target to improve soil health in its production or sourcing practices and to report progress against it.

Solid and air pollution
The company should commit to avoid developing or marketing new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties, as well as work on reducing the production of hazardous substances and waste.

Water
The company does not disclose relevant information related to water withdrawal or rights to water in its operations or supply chains. It has an opportunity to improve on its disclosure on water pollution by setting disclosing water pollutant metrics and setting time-bound targets to reduce them. The company does not disclose relevant information on rights to water in its operations or supply chains.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company does not show if it is committed to respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights or land rights of local communities.

Safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
The company has an opportunity to commit to respecting local communities’ right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and to zero tolerance for acts of violence, threats, intimidation or judicial harassment committed against land and environmental rights defenders. Moreover, it should track its actual or potential negative impacts on the health of local communities.

Act ethically
The company has the potential to enhance its transparency and anti-corruption efforts by detailing its processes for identifying bribery and corruption risks within its operations. Incorporating anti-bribery and corruption clauses in contracts with business relationships and ensuring all stakeholders can access its grievance mechanisms would fortify its commitment to ethical business practices. Additionally, delineating its approach toward lobbying and political engagement through a clear policy, declaring its stance on political contributions, and revealing expenditures on lobbying activities, while ensuring third-party lobbyists comply with its policy, could further affirm its dedication to ethical business operations.

Provide and promote decent work
The company shares data on occupational accidents and total working hours but omits details on high-consequence injuries and injury types. Although advocating for health and safety in business relationships and ensuring minimum wage payment, it lacks explicit policy commitments and disclosure regarding monitoring suppliers’ safety performances and determining living wages in operational regions. While having a health and safety policy and advocating gender equality, it could enhance commitment through stronger policy language and converting statements into formal policies. Moreover, while disclosing a 15.38% female board member ratio, it has the potential to reveal detailed gender-based salary and remuneration ratios across various employee categories and operational locations.

Respect human rights
The company recognizes certain human rights risks within its operations and outlines its assessment process, yet opportunities for enhanced transparency exist. Disclosing results of its human rights risk assessment and elucidating the risk identification process could fortify its commitment. Furthermore, while it details its human rights risk assessment process, it could also specify its salient human rights issues and potentially develop a global system to act upon, prevent, or mitigate these identified issues to demonstrate a comprehensive approach to managing human rights in its business practices.