For Business (Material Procurement)

Codes of Conduct

1. Safety (quality, delivery date, price)

  • ・ We will incessantly act on the basis of safety first and provide transportation services that assure our customers of their reliability.
  • ・ We will make quality assurance and a steady supply our top priorities in order to achieve safe and reliable transportation services when purchasing materials.
  • ・ We will keep in mind our goal to provide high-quality transportation services for our customers at an acceptable price when procuring materials.

2. Fairness and impartiality

  • ・ We will provide equal opportunities on a fair and impartial basis to suppliers both in Japan and overseas during the procurement procedure, including prequalification to become registered companies and selection of suppliers, when disclosing requirements imposed on suppliers, prequalification and selection criteria and technical requirements, and when conducting tests, etc.
  • ・ We will select suppliers fairly and impartially according to objective criteria and economical rationality such as our stakeholder value, company value and a perspective of benefit, which are based on requirements such as reliability in terms of safety, quality, technical capabilities, delivery date, price, incident and issue response, after-sale conditions.

3. Mutual trust

  • ・ We will collaborate closely with our suppliers and strive to continually act in good faith, in order to establish relations of mutual trust and confidence.

4. Environmental conservation and compliance

  • ・ We will engage in environmental conservation efforts and implement a green procurement policy, in which we actively purchase environmentally friendly materials, to help build a society in which sustainable development is possible.
    The basic principles of our green procurement measures shall be prescribed according to the JR-West Green Procurement Guidelines(link to Japanese page).
  • ・ We will meet the expectations of our stakeholders with sincerity in the spirit of the relevant laws and regulations.
  • ・ We will thoroughly eliminate any transaction risks associated with anti-social forces and strive to establish a code of business ethics. A Whistle-blower Hotline (exclusively for the employees of our suppliers) is open to receive inquiries or reports about corporate compliance concerns.

5. Compliance with Laws and Regulations

  • ・ We recognize our corporate social responsibility to comply with the relevant laws and regulations pertaining to areas such as the environment, wages and labor time, in the regions where our suppliers conduct business activities. We will also endeavor to conduct highly ethical, fair and honest transactions, including eliminating the risk of transactions associated with corruption, organized crime or other anti-social forces.
  • ・ We have set up a "Whistle-blower Hotline" (exclusively for employees of our suppliers)(link to Japanese page) to receive compliance-related consultations and reports.

6. Consideration for the Work Environment and Human Rights

  • ・ We adhere to the "JR WEST Group Basic Policy on Human Rights(link to Japanese page)."
    We will procure materials with consideration for human rights and the work environment, and comply with the relevant laws and regulations in the regions where we conduct business activities, including those pertaining to equal opportunities for employment, the prohibition of forced labor and child labor and the illegal employment of foreign workers, and respect of the freedom of association of workers and their right to collective bargaining and right to act collectively.

7. Information Security

  • ・ We will endeavor to ensure information security, and give due consideration to the protection of personal information and procurement-related proprietary and confidential information (technical information, intellectual property, etc.).

8. Providing and updating website information on procurements

  • ・ We recognize the importance of providing information on procurement (such as procurement methods, requirements for selection of suppliers, selection criteria for items and, purchase figures and main procurement plan ) to possible business partners and companies who are willing to become business partners here and abroad.
  • ・ We will continuously post information on "Basic Philosophy", "Codes of Conduct", "Request to our Suppliers", "General Contract Procedure", "Purchase Figures by Category", and "The Main Procurement Plan " on our website with regular update in English and Japanese, aiming to purchase "high quality materials" from "the best suppliers" within "a suitable time frame" and at "an appropriate price", reduce the life-cycle cost by improving the after-sale conditions, and fulfill our managerial requirements to give the highest priority to safe and reliable transportation services.

To implement the policies and initiatives listed above, we will educate and train the employees in charge of procurement, and regularly monitor our suppliers using surveys and site visits.
We will share these issues with some of our suppliers, and collaborate with them to improve initiatives for realizing a sustainable society.

Monitoring results

FY2020 FY2019 FY2017-2018
Survey 265 companies 18 companies 16 companies
Site visits - * 6 companies 3 companies

*Postponed due to the spread of novel coronavirus infections

No compliance violations and other matters associated with the items listed above were found in the suppliers monitored from FY2017 to FY2019.