Respecting Human Rights

The Kubota Group hereby declares as its Human Rights Policy that it supports international standards with regard to human rights and respects these as our birthright of all people.
The Kubota Group respects the human rights of all people affected by its business activities in accordance with the procedures outlined in “The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”

• Kubota Group Human Rights Policy (Japanese full version)
• Kubota Group Human Rights Policy (English full version)

Kubota Corporation expressed participation in the United Nations Global Compact, and officially signed its statement.
This initiative is participated by thousands of companies globally committed to taking responsible business action to create the world we all want. Kubota is proud to join those and also commits to continue taking its responsible business action.

• Profile of Kubota as a participant (UN Global Compact, English)

The Kubota Group is obliged to promptly understand the possibility of causing or contributing to any negative impact on human rights through its own business activities, and/or having any negative impact on human rights through its business relationships and is to deal with them appropriately. We regard respect for human rights as an important prerequisite for business continuity, and the Kubota Group Risk Management Committee receives reports on our efforts to respect human rights, monitors our activities, and issues instructions on our activities as appropriate.

• Kubota Group Risk Management Committee

In Japan, Kubota has a Human Rights Advancement Planning & Coordination Committee headed by by a director in charge.Its members at each Kubota site are promoting activities based on the human rights advancement activity policies. At the beginning of each fiscal year, a meeting is held gathering the committee members of all sites.
Besides the committee members, a human rights advancement leader is appointed at each site, who leads the human rights advancement activities of the site.

To fulfill the responsibility for respecting human rights as a company, the Kubota Group continuously promotes human rights due diligence as we recognize it to be an essential process for business activities.
Human rights due diligence is the process of identifying and assessing any actual and/or potential negative impact, and preventing and mitigating it. The Kubota group carries out the process in accordance with UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

In March 2023, the Kubota group assessed the potential for negative human rights impact on stakeholders in its business activities and value-chains (risk assessment). A risk assessment meeting was held and brought together 32 managers from various departments, including administration, control, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, constructions, and general corporate duties of Kubota Corporation and some Kubota group companies.

The assessment was supported by Caux Round Table Japan, a non-profit organization, in order to enhance its appropriateness, by ensuring the participants were involved in discussions based on their understanding of business and human rights, and third-party perspectives were also taken into account to promote discussion.

Human rights issues covered at the risk assessment and the result are shown as below.

■ Human rights issues discussed and covered at the risk assessment

• Decent wages
• Freedom of association and collective bargaining
• Land, property and housing rights
• Decent working time
• Forced labor
• Security forces and human rights
• Discrimination in the working place
• Child labor
• Indigenous peoples' rights
• Occupational health and safety
• Migrant workers
• Right to privacy
• Access to remedy risk

■ Process to identify human rights issues

• Investigate human rights issues related to the Kubota Group‘s business and supply chains.
• The ESG Promotion Department and other general managers shall confirm the relevance of the investigated human rights issues to the businesses and supply chains for which they are responsible, based on understanding of both ‘Business and Human Rights’ and actual operations.
• Identify human rights issues that may occur in a specific business activity referring to advice by third parties.

■ Human rights issues identified through the risk assessment

Through the risk assessment, the following human rights issues within the group operation and across our supply chain were identified.

• Decent wages
• Decent working time
• Discrimination in the working place
• Migrant workers
• Access to remedy risk

■ Human rights issues have been identified in the management policy or others

• Discrimination (Nationality, Race, Age, Sex, Sexual orientation, Gender identity, Disability, etc.)
• Forced labor
• Child labor
• Harassment (Sexual harassment, Abuse of authority, etc.)

The Kubota group considers it necessary to incorporate changing business and social conditions into its continuous risk assessment process. Through the identification of stakeholders who may be affected by negative impact arising from the business activities of the Kubota group and value-chain, and engagement with those parties, the Kubota group shall acquire a deeper knowledge of our salient human right issues and make use of said knowledge to subsequently take appropriate action in that regard.

Aiming to create a harassment-free, conducive workplace environment, Kubota plans and provides human rights education programs for all employees, including President and Directors, every year, based on the human rights advancement activity policies. The human rights education program can also be accessed from overseas via a video conference system.
The human rights education programs include rank-based training for new employees and at each site. In addition, to ensure ease of access for participants, we continued to offer training via e-learning. All Kubota employees (in terms of the total number of participants) in Japan received human rights education through internal training or training offered by external organizations.

In order to enhance awareness of human rights, Kubota invites human rights-related slogans from all Japan-based employees, including those from Group companies in Japan, every year, and awards excellent slogans during Human Rights Week, which is celebrated every December.
In 2023, entries were received from a total of 23,211 applicants (an application rate of 96.0%) and the best slogan from each business site was posted on a long strip of paper.

From the perspective of respecting human rights and protecting privacy, Kubota conducts several inspections each year for each base to ensure there are no insufficiencies in investigation tasks such as credit surveys, and there are no problematic contents or descriptions from the perspective of human rights violation included in the investigation reports.

Kubota declares in the Kubota Group Charter for Action, “we do not permit forced labor or child labor, and also request our business partners to comply in this regard.”
Also, in its CSR Procurement Guidelines, Kubota declares that it does not permit forced labor or child labor, and also requests that its suppliers comply in this regard. The Guidelines also clearly prohibit the use of conflict minerals, which are a source of funds for armed insurgents.
In May 2017, the Kubota Group released its Group statement with regard to the UK Modern Slavery Act, and has updated its statement each year, which can be seen on our website.
For employees in Japan, explanation is provided during their human rights education programs. At overseas Group companies, the business site heads of each company provides explanation to the employees.

Kubota has released its statement according to the UK Modern Slavery Act and has updated it each year, which can be seen on the below link.

• Compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act (2023)
• Compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act (2022)
• Compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act (2021)
• Compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act (2020)
• Compliance to the UK Modern Slavery Act (2019)

Kubota participates in the external organizations below and is working to create a discrimination-free society.

• The Corporate Federation for Dowa and Human Rights Issues, Osaka (also participating in Shiga, Wakayama, Hyogo, Chiba and Hiroshima)
• Osaka City Corporate Human Rights Promotion Council (with related organizations in each municipality)
• The Center for Fair Recruitment and Human Rights Advancement
• Multi-Ethnic Human Rights Education Center for Pro-existence
• Osaka Career Support & Talent Enhancement Plaza
• Buraku Liberation and Human Rights Research Institute, etc.