Sustainability / Materiality

Sound governance

  • Why it matters for us
  • Corporate Governance Structure
  • Corporate Ethics
  • Risk Management

Why it matters for us

Sound corporate governance serves as the backbone to a responsible management structure that is accountable to shareholders and other stakeholders. We aim to maintain a robust and effective corporate governance structure that lays the managerial foundation for long-term business growth, helping us to achieve our mid-term business plans and make sustainable progress across all of our material issues.

Our approach

Corporate Governance Structure

JRE’s business is conducted with the oversight of our Board of Directors. The primary responsibility of the Board of Directors is to make significant management decisions and provide oversight over senior management. The Board consists of directors, including directors from the parent company, and is required to meet once a month at minimum. To ensure checks and balances against the operation of the Board of Directors, JRE appoints, in accordance with the law, Corporate Auditors who have necessary knowledge and experiences to supervise the execution of duties of the Board of Directors.

Our executive directors in turn play an important role in increasing operational efficiency, with one such responsibility being their participation in the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee comprises of executive officers and the heads of our divisions, and is responsible for making executive decisions.

In addition to base salary, we provide our executive directors with variable compensations linked to the achievement of our corporate philosophy.

Corporate Ethics

We strictly prohibit corruption in any form, including bribery, facilitation payments, and insider trading. To ensure we maintain the highest standards of ethics and integrity, we established the Japan Renewable Energy Group Code of Conduct. Compliance with this code of conduct is monitored by our risk management department, which is responsible for drafting and updating our supplementary compliance manual that is disseminated through compliance training for directors and employees.

We also aim to engage with our business partners to eliminate the risk of corrupt practices throughout our value chain. Our Guidelines for Maintaining Responsible Business Actions and our Code of Conduct strictly prohibit corruption, and serves as a framework for our due diligence with new business partners.

Whistleblowing

Should an employee suspect an instance of non-compliance against our JRE Group Code of Conduct, or any of other internal policies, they are encouraged to notify the appropriate internal reporting channels, or access the JRE corporate Ethics Hotline. Once a report has been raised, compliance to a strict non-retaliation policy is secured. Ensuring anonymity where necessary, interactions between the whistleblower and our Compliance Committee are conducted via an independent third party. We also provide training for all of our employees on cases of non-compliance to our Code of Conduct and other ethical breaches, as well as on how to use the Hotline to report cases that they may be aware of.

In 2021, we established an external contact office for whistleblowers via our website to allow any of our business partners to report violations or suspected violations of corporate compliance by our staff members or officers.

Risk Management

Identifying, assessing, and managing risks and opportunities is foundational to meeting our corporate mission and business objectives. To ensure a consistent, formalized approach across the business we have established a Risk Management Policy, which is to be observed by all JRE employees, Board members, contractors, and part-time employees.

As per our Risk Management Regulation, our CEO is assigned the highest responsibility with regard to risk management, and is supported by our Executive Committee, which comprises of our executive officers and division heads. The Executive Committee receives reports from our Compliance Committee, EHS Committee, and other divisions on the potential risks that they identified and their assessments of these risks. The Executive Committee then prioritizes these potential risks and decides on how to manage them. By conducting a comprehensive risk assessment every three years and a focused risk assessment on high-priority risks on an annual basis, we ensure that our awareness of risks throughout our business is consistently updated.

* Please scroll horizontally to see the table below.

Indicators 2019 2020 2021 2022*
Number of reports to the hotline 2 2 1 7
Compliance with laws, regulations and corporate ethics - - 1 0
Coexistence with the global environment and local communities - - 0 0
Proper management of assets and information - - 0 0
Respect for humanity - - 0 7
Number of group compliance trainings conducted for each subject 5 5 5 5
Number of compliance trainings conducted by e-learning 12 12 12 15

* 15 months until March 2023

Since 2021, the number of reports to the hotline has been classified into 4 items of the JRE Group Code of Conduct.

  • Sustainability TOP
  • Top Commitment
  • Our Materiality for Creating
    a Sustainable Society
  • Environment
  • Stable supply of renewable energy and contribution to
    GHG emissions reduction
  • Environmental protection
  • Society
  • Harmony with community
    and society
  • Employee safety and development
  • Economy and governance
  • Stable growth through
    expansion of our energy generation business
  • Sound governance
  • Contribution to the SDGs through Business
  • Participation in the UN
    Global Compact
  • Disclosure in line
    with the TCFD Recommendations

Sustainability

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