Promoting sustainable procurement through collaboration

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for companies to respond to social issues such as environmental issues and human rights, and similar consideration is now required when procuring the resources necessary to provide their products and services. Given this social background, we are promoting "sustainable procurement" initiatives to carry out sustainable procurement activities.
Since 2019, we have published the "Itoki Group Sustainable Procurement Guidebook," which lists the procurement policies that the Itoki Group should follow and the procurement guidelines that we want our suppliers to follow, and we have also provided some of our business partners with a "Procurement Check Sheet." We also distributed the questionnaire and received responses from each company regarding the status of their efforts.

As this is a concept that is not very familiar to us, we ask departments implementing this initiative to ask themselves why this initiative is necessary, and for those in charge of actually interacting with suppliers. We also hold briefing sessions on how to do this and how to implement it. In addition, the contents of the guidebook and checklist are continually improved year by year, reflecting questions and opinions received during the course of operation, and taking into account changes in society's needs.
Furthermore, in 2022, we will create a Chinese version in addition to the Japanese and English versions we have prepared so far, in an effort to help a wide range of suppliers understand our efforts.

You can check the contents of the guidebook here.

In 2022, we received survey responses from 75 companies. Many companies are actively tackling various issues, and the status of their business partners' initiatives is evolving year by year. On the other hand, we strive to reduce risks by conducting interviews and on-site inspections with suppliers where there are concerns about risks.
From 2022, we will set the rate of understanding the status of sustainable procurement as a new materiality KPI, and aim to collaborate with more business partners.
We will continue to strengthen and promote socially responsible procurement activities through mutual cooperation with our business partners.