The Nippon CSR Consortium, which CRT-Japan initiates as a secretariat of the Consortium, was established in September 2012 to raise awareness and promote activities in the fields of business and human rights in partnership with companies and NGOs/NPOs. It provides an open-platform where companies can identify and discuss actual and potentially adverse human rights impacts with which they may be involved with NGOs/NPOs.
Further information on Human Rights Due Diligence Workshop is here.

The 4th Human Rights Due Diligence Workshop consisted of two sections. The first section was held with a focus on identifying and assessing human rights issues by sector, and the second section was a workshop on sustainable food procurement.

In the first section, there were the 98 participants from 48 companies and 17 NGOs/NPOs. The participants summarized discussion contents on what human rights issues could be most salient by sector, and the Secretariat aggregated their reports and developed “Human Rights Issues by Sector (draft)”. Then, the Secretariat invited public comments on “Human Rights Issues by Sector (draft)”. Following consideration of the received public comments, the secretariat released “Human Rights Issues by Sector v.4″.

Companies have to understand perspectives of affected stakeholders when addressing human rights issues related to them. This is an important lesson coming out to be clear through a serious of the programs. The companies need to conduct a dialogue with rights-holders who are actual or potentially affected persons, identify salient human rights issues, and implement human rights due diligence processes. By doing so, the companies can earn “License to Operate” and trust from their stakeholders, enabling them to enhance their corporate sustainable competitiveness in the long run.

Nippon CSR Consortium will continue to collaborate with companies, NGOs/NPOs, subject experts, and other initiatives to enhance support for solving issues linked to business and human rights. We sincerely hope that this report will contribute to further implementation of human rights due diligence by companies.

“Human Rights Issues by Sector v.4″ (English)
“Human Rights Issues by Sector v.4″ (Japanese)

・Enquiry
CRT-Japan
Email: info@crt-japan.jp　
Hiroki Wada