Sustainability
Value Chain Management: Procurement Activities
Basic Approach
The stable procurement of high-quality products and services at appropriate prices is essential to sustainable business operations. This depends fundamentally on relationships of trust between the Mitsuboshi Belting Group and its business partners.
Based on the Mitsuboshi Belting Group Procurement Policy, the Group conducts fair and equitable procurement activities with all business partners and works to build mutually trusting partnerships through which value can be created together.
Green Procurement Standards and Procurement Guidelines
To contribute to a sustainable society while sharing values with its business partners, the Group promotes CSR procurement, including compliance, respect for human rights, occupational safety and health, information security, and timely and appropriate disclosure, as well as green procurement addressing climate change, biodiversity conservation, water security, the circular economy, and occupational safety and health.
To reduce the environmental impact of its products, the Group established the Green Procurement Implementation Guidelines in October 2003. The Guidelines clarify how chemical substances in procured items are managed within the Group and request business partners to establish, maintain, and improve environmental management systems and provide environmental information. The Group also established the Green Procurement Standards in March 2005 and has revised them as necessary to reflect changes in laws and regulations.
- Approach to green procurement
・Procure items manufactured at plants where environmental conservation is advanced.
・Procure raw materials, parts, and products with low environmental impact.
・Do not use conflict minerals.
・Procure raw materials with consideration for biodiversity conservation.
In 2023, to further advance sustainability initiatives throughout the value chain, the Group established and disclosed its Procurement Guidelines. Based on the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact covering human rights, labor, the environment, and anti-corruption, the Guidelines set out the Group’s approach to procurement and the issues it seeks to address together with business partners.
Based on these Guidelines, the Group assesses adverse impacts related to human rights, climate change, biodiversity, and other social issues throughout the value chain and works with business partners to promote sustainable business operations.
Promotion System for Sustainable Procurement Activities
The Group has established the Sustainability Meeting, chaired by the President and Representative Director, and under this meeting identifies important issues (materiality), sets KPIs for each issue, and promotes sustainability management.
In sustainability management, initiatives across the entire value chain are essential, and procurement activities also play an important role. For this reason, the content of initiatives related to procurement activities is monitored and evaluated by the Sustainability Meeting and reported to the Board of Directors.
Initiatives Toward Response to Climate Change, Consideration for Biodiversity, and Respect for Human Rights
The Group recognizes that social issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and human rights issues are closely related to the entire value chain, including procurement activities.
- Response to Climate Change
In FY2025, the Group’s CO₂ emissions from Scope 3, Category 1, “Purchased goods and services,” were approximately 93,727 t-CO₂e, exceeding its combined Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO₂ emissions of approximately 70,144 t-CO₂e. Mitigating global warming requires reductions not only in the Group’s own CO₂ emissions but also throughout the supply chain. The Group will collect primary data, establish reduction targets, and implement reduction measures.
- Consideration for Biodiversity
From a biodiversity perspective, the Group recognizes deforestation associated with the cultivation of natural rubber used in its main products, as well as excessive water withdrawal and pesticide use in cotton cultivation, as risks to ecosystems and water resources.
In 2025, application of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)* was postponed to December 30, 2025. However, as planned, from September 2025 the Group switched 100% of the natural rubber used in products for the EU to natural rubber not involved in deforestation.
The application timing of EUDR was postponed again to December 30, 2026; however, the supply system for products for the EU using natural rubber not involved in deforestation will be maintained and continued in FY2026 as well.
* A regulation intended to minimize the EU’s contribution to global deforestation and forest degradation. It applies to seven commodities traded by operators and traders in the EU market—cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, cattle, wood, and their derived products—and requires prohibition of transactions involving products linked to deforestation and implementation of due diligence. For large companies, sales in the EU of products that do not meet EUDR standards will be prohibited from December 30, 2026, and for SMEs and others from June 30, 2027.
- Respect for Human Rights
Through human rights due diligence, the Group has identified forced labor and child labor in natural rubber and cotton production areas as human rights risks to be addressed in connection with raw materials used in its main product, power transmission belts.
As part of its EUDR response, the Group reviews not only deforestation-related information but also information on legal compliance, including the potential presence of forced labor or child labor. In FY2025, the Group reviewed legality information for natural rubber production areas provided by suppliers and confirmed that the natural rubber delivered was not associated with forced labor or child labor.
The Group positions responses to these social issues as important initiatives across the entire value chain, and will promote initiatives toward realizing sustainable business operations while collaborating with business partners that share its values.
Introduction of Business Partner ESG Information Management Tool
In 2024, the Group introduced an ESG information management tool to collect ESG-related information from business partners and strengthen ESG initiatives throughout the supply chain. In FY2025, the Group expanded the survey from 30 to 70 companies. It will use the results to identify ESG issues and translate them into improvement activities.
Business Partner Audits
To monitor, evaluate, and improve business partners’ environmental conservation and quality assurance initiatives, the Group conducts annual second-party audits and, in some cases, first-party audits with reference to ISO 14001 for environmental management systems and ISO 9001 or IATF 16949 for quality management systems. Business partners to be audited are selected based on previous audit results.
Based on audit results to date, the Group considers its business partners’ environmental conservation and quality assurance initiatives to be generally satisfactory. Going forward, the Group believes the audit scope should be expanded from suppliers managed by the Purchasing Department at the Company’s head office to suppliers of Group companies.
Since FY2020, the Group has also requested business partners to formulate and operate business continuity plans (BCPs) and has surveyed their status annually. In FY2025, the survey covered 79 business partners. The Group will continue to monitor the operational status of these plans.
| Business Partner Audit Status | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Environment | Number of audits conducted | 21件 | 18件 | 19件 | 22件 | 19件 |
| Number of nonconformities | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | |
| Quality | Number of audits conducted | 21件 | 18件 | 20件 | 26件 | 19件 |
| Number of nonconformities | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | 0件 | |
| BCP | Number of audits conducted | 54件 | 75件 | 79件 | 79件 | 79件 |
| Number of nonconformities | 18件 | 14件 | 7件 | 0件 | 0件 | |
Declaration of Partnership Building
In 2021, the Company issued a Declaration of Partnership Building under an initiative promoted by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to create added value throughout the supply chain and promote appropriate business transactions. The Company is working to build fair and sustainable relationships with its business partners.
