Respect for human rights

Respect for human rights

We're aiming high to protect fundamental universal rights

Human rights as defined by the United Nations (UN) include the universal right without discrimination to “life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more”.
The fight to defend human rights is often considered in the context of supranational bodies, nation states and NGOs, but businesses also have an important role to play. Respect for human rights is one of the main goals of Konica Minolta's ESG strategy: we're committed to helping counter global inequality, assaults on human rights, and exploitation in the workforce. This commitment spans our own company and its direct activities, and extends to our expectations of our partners and supply chains.

We've established a group-wide human rights policy

To place human rights at the heart of our business, the Konica Minolta Group developed the Konica Minolta Group Human Rights Policy. Based on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, our policy has three key focus areas:

Elimination of discrimination
Consideration for employees
Consideration for business activities

As well us upholding human rights within our company, we ask our suppliers to do the same when they conduct business with us. We also work to respect our customers' privacy to avoid causing them to experience discrimination.

We practise respect for human rights

To help ensure we live our values, our human rights policy sets out processes and requirements including:

Establishing human rights due diligence mechanisms
Assessing and identifying potential or actual human rights risks
Working to address any identified risks

We also commit to implementing systems to:

Capture human rights concerns
Investigate any alleged violations
Take corrective action through appropriate internal and external procedures if it's clear that we've caused or have been involved in a negative impact on human rights

We provide training and education to all our employees. We also seek expert advice from external stakeholders regarding our policy and efforts to help us strengthen our commitment to respecting human rights.

We embed respect for human rights into our supply chain

Recognising their potential impact on communities and the wider world, we seek to ensure our business partnerships and supply chains meet our own high standards, including compliance with the upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which seeks to prevent human and environmental rights infringements by requiring businesses to identify and manage risks in their supply chains.
Being based in Germany, where similar legislation — the Act on Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains — has already been implemented, means that Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe is already subject to these requirements.

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Supplier code of conduct

Globally, Konica Minolta has been working since 2013 to align its procurement to ESG (formerly CSR, corporate social responsibility) best practices through compliance with the industry-standard Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) Code of Conduct at Group level. Building on the RBA's work, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe has developed its own, even more robust Supplier Code of Conduct, which sets out clear expectations that our suppliers will:

Comply with applicable laws and regulations and with internationally recognised ESG standards
Make best efforts to implement the same standards among their own suppliers and subcontractors

To identify actual or potential adverse human rights impacts within our supply chain, we're implementing a risk management system as well as preventive measures to proactively drive higher standards.
Find out more about our supply chain management.

We focus on continuous vigilance and improvement

We view our work on respect for human rights as a journey rather than a destination, and have therefore established a framework for continuous documentation and reporting; and an internal complaints process to help us continue to mitigate risks and identify areas for improvement.