Sumitomo Forestry

Stakeholder engagement
The company discloses an overview of the issues raised during its stakeholder engagement activities, as well as its process for engaging with stakeholder groups, including frequency and channels, beyond its materiality assessment.

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 and reports consistently against all its targets.

Ecosystem conversion and restoration
The company discloses some activities to minimise ecosystem conversion.

GHG emissions
The company has set time-bound targets to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company discloses its inputs according to an international standard. It has however an opportunity to divide them between renewable and non-renewable.

Solid and air pollution
The company is reducing the production of hazardous substances and discloses the proportion of hazardous waste treated to reduce pollution, and the hazardous waste diverted from and to disposal.

Water
The company discloses its processes for managing and monitoring discharge water quality, and it regularly reports on water pollution. Further, the company demonstrates reducing water withdrawal in its own operations, and it has a commitment to respect the right to water.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company is committed to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Also, the company discloses its processes to identify and recognise the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights, and describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

Act ethically
The company enforces a policy against bribery and corruption and upholds a public commitment to safeguarding personal data. Additionally, it provides a grievance mechanism, allowing stakeholders to voice concerns and lodge complaints specifically regarding bribery and corruption issues.

Provide and promote decent work
The company explicitly commits to safeguarding worker health and safety and extends this commitment to its business relationships. Moreover, it is actively pursuing gender equality, disclosing the presence of women in its workforce across different employee categories, and establishing concrete targets: an increase of women by 24.5% in the parent company and 34.7% in domestic affiliated companies by 2024. Additionally, they aim to boost the number of female officers by 19.4% and senior managers by 3.6% in the parent company, alongside a 7.9% increase in domestic affiliates by the aforementioned date.

Respect human rights
The company asserts a commitment to human rights, manifesting in a policy requiring suppliers to honor ILO core labor rights and a separate policy affirming its own adherence to human rights respect. A detailed human rights risk identification process for both its operations and supply chain is outlined, along with a disclosure of salient issues. A case study provides insight into handling a specific risk, while recognizing various stakeholder categories—indigenous peoples, local communities, and foreign workers—as potentially impacted by its activities, ensuring a thorough and transparent approach to human rights matters.

Lobbying
The company does not report on its lobbying and advocacy practices on nature-related issues, nor whether these activities align with its sustainability strategy.

Sustainability strategy and accountability
While the company discloses some sustainability objectives/targets including waste and climate, it has an opportunity to establish group-wide targets for the most material parts of its value chain. Furthermore, the company discloses a remuneration policy related to sustainability and climate. However, it could link this policy to improvement in specific nature-related objectives 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 reduce its emissions across all scope 1, 2 and 3 as well as report against its targets. Additionally, all its targets need to align with a 1.5-degree trajectory.

Impact and dependencies assessment
The company has an opportunity to holistically assess its impacts on and dependencies on nature, including biodiversity, across its value chains. This assessment could focus on quantifying both its impact and dependencies. While the company discloses its trial use of the TNFD-recommended LEAP approach for future disclosures, there is no evidence of it assessing its impacts on nature, including biodiversity, within its supply chain, nor are the full results disclosed. Furthermore, the company does not provide any assessment of its dependencies on nature within its own operations or within its supply chain, along with the corresponding full results.

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
While the company acknowledges the discovery of an Irrawaddy dolphin habitat during forestry surveys in aquatic environments, it has an opportunity to disclose all species populations within or near its own locations. Similarly, while the company reveals that a portion of its forests is situated within national park areas, it has an opportunity to disclose detailed locations within or adjacent to biodiversity-important areas within its own operations. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to disclose the locations of its suppliers situated within or near biodiversity-important areas and to provide information about species populations in these supplier locations. Furthermore, the company can choose to disclose the conservation status of species identified within its own locations according to national and international conservation lists.

Resource exploitation and circularity performance
The company does not report quantitatively on its group-wide circularity performance.

Solid and air pollution
The company has an opportunity to commit to avoiding the development or marketing of new chemicals or products with SVHC (substance of very high concern) properties, as well as disclose evidence of reducing the production of hazardous waste.

Water
While the company discloses three separate targets for FY 2022, 2023, and 2024, it has failed to meet the 2022 target. The company has an opportunity to report how much water is withdrawn for its own operations in water-stressed areas. The company has an opportunity to engage with suppliers to reduce water withdrawal. The company does not report a decrease in water pollution. The company does not disclose targets to reduce water pollution. The company does not disclose its processes for implementing preventive and corrective action plans for identified specific risks to the right to water and sanitation in its own operations.

Indigenous Peoples’ and land rights
The company does not disclose its processes to identify and recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples when activities in its own operations may impact their rights or describes how it obtains Indigenous Peoples’ free, prior and informed consent.

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 room to enhance transparency and mitigate risks by detailing its process for identifying bribery and corruption risks within its operations. Including anti-bribery and corruption clauses in contracts with business relations can also strengthen ethical conduct. While its Code of Conduct addresses lobbying and political engagement, adopting a formal public policy could solidify its stance. Although it approves political contributions through divisional or top management, clarity on the criteria and potential exceptions for such contributions would enhance understanding. Moreover, disclosing expenditures on lobbying and ensuring third-party lobbyists adhere to its policy would bolster transparency in its political engagements.

Provide and promote decent work
The company reveals data on occupational injuries and related rates but omits details on fatalities, high-consequence injuries, injury types, and total work hours. It doesn’t elaborate on how health and safety performance is monitored in its business relationships or specifics on its living wage determination and strategies. While it professes to paying at least the minimum wage, it lacks a commitment or plan for ensuring a living wage is provided, neither extending such stipulations nor support to its suppliers. Gender pay data is disclosed, but a comprehensive gender pay gap analysis, including the ratio of basic salary and remuneration of women to men for various employment categories and locations, is absent.

Respect human rights
The company has a publicly available policy statement committing it to respect specific workers’ rights but has an opportunity to reference all the ILO fundamental rights at work. The company could also disclose a global system to act on, prevent or mitigate its salient human rights issues.