The DOWA Group works to improve customer satisfaction by providing better products and services, and to build long-term relationships of trust with its business partners. In addition, we are promoting CSR initiatives through the supply chain, including environmental conservation and improvement in the working environment.
The DOWA Group promotes CSR throughout the supply chain by distributing the DOWA Group CSR Procurement Guidelines which combine elements of its CSR Procurement Policy and Code of Conduct to business partners and suppliers, and by confirming their understanding of the Group’s approach to CSR. In addition, as a supplier ourselves, we may receive requests regarding CSR-conscious procurement from customers. However, in order to correctly understand and respond promptly to these requests, the Sustainability Department and the Procurement Department collaborate to implement internal explanations and follow-up.
The DOWA Group conducts surveys using checklists filled out by its business partners to identify and assess the CSR activities of these partners.
Business partners use the checklist to evaluate their systems for promoting CSR activities and their CSR activities. We send feedback reports to them discussing the results of surveys. If any of the CSR activities of our business partners are considered to be inadequate, we request they take steps more actively to address the items where their activities are considered inadequate.
We visit important suppliers and share our views regarding CSR procurement. We also assess their conformity with the CSR Procurement Guidelines. We discuss the results of the survey with the suppliers we visit and examine documents. We also examine their safety and environmental measures. We put together reports on the results of audits and give them to the suppliers so that they can use the reports in their CSR activities. The audits are carried out by teams consisting of members from the sustainability division and the procurement division. Employees at the plants of the Company using the related materials also participate as members of the audit teams. In this way, we strengthen our trust-based relationships with suppliers and raise awareness of CSR procurement within the Company.
We will continue to strengthen our partnerships with suppliers by enabling them to understand the importance of CSR in the supply chain and enhancing our CSR activities.