Human Rights Policy
At Olympus Group (hereinafter referred to as "Olympus"), we define "Our Purpose" as "Making people's lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling." To achieve this, we seek to build this Purpose into all our activities. This commitment is one that extends to all our employees, and we encourage our third-parties and whoever engages in activities on our behalf and whose services or products we use, including our suppliers and our clients and users of our products and services, to abide by the same commitment as well. We believe that we need to be ever conscious of this commitment and to be transparent about our efforts.
Since people’s understanding and sense of values in relation to Human Rights evolve as society develops and changes, we seek to understand and adapt our activities as needed. We will continue to support the well-being of the people around the world through our business and other pursuits, continuously working to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how we mitigate Human Rights risks and address any adverse Human rights activities and impacts in our activities, including in our supply chains, and to adapt ourselves appropriately to the evolution of standards and norms.
Olympus commitment to respect Human Rights
Olympus established a set of five core values* which shall guide us in "Making people's lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling." Known as "Our Core Values," these values are shared and put into practice across the company. Among them, we consider the values of Integrity and Empathy as integral to our company’s responsibility to respect for human rights. We believe that sharing and practicing these values at all levels of the company creates an environment of respect for human rights among all those associated with Olympus.
* Patient Focus, Integrity, Innovation, Impact, Empathy
Olympus commits to respect all Human Rights and supports the following international human rights standards and promises unwavering respect for them in managing our group and daily business.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
- ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work
- United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
- The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact
- OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
Olympus commits to proactively avoid causing or contributing to adverse Human Rights impacts and to address such impacts when they occur. The company also strives to identify, prevent or mitigate adverse Human Rights impacts directly linked with our operations and business activities.
Guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, Olympus will establish Human Rights due diligence systems and processes designed to support ongoing identification and monitoring of potential impact of our business activities on Human Rights and appropriately address any identified challenges. We will seek guidance from stakeholders and experts to support continuous improvement in alignment with the expectations for global companies.
Olympus commits to continually update its Human Rights approach, and to use due diligence and monitoring for continuous improvement.
As a global business and as stated in our Global Code of Conduct, we promise to observe the human rights laws and regulations of the countries/regions where we operate, and where there are inconsistencies between the local and the international norms or where local laws and regulations may be less stringent than international human rights standards, the international norms, where stronger, will be followed.
Scope of application
This Policy is applicable to all officers, executives and employees of the Olympus Group.
Third-parties associated with Olympus are also expected to follow the Policy. We seek their understanding and support, as well their help to improve it.
Assessing, avoiding and mitigating negative impacts on human rights
We will work to regularly assess potential impacts on Human Rights in all our business activities, identify areas of concern and act appropriately to prevent or mitigate them. We will create and execute a plan in line with due diligence procedures suggested in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Remediation, correction and prevention
Should we become aware of a situation where we believe appropriate standards are not being met, we will work to determine the cause of the situation and provide appropriate remediation, in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
Raising awareness and promoting behavior that respects human rights
To promote recognition and respect of Human Rights and human well-being we will work to continuously encourage awareness and correct behavior by all officers and employees of all of Olympus. We believe our corporate philosophy, consisting of Our Purpose and Our Core Values, provides a strong foundation for understanding and practicing genuine support of human rights values.
Because we recognize that consistent understanding plays a pivotal role in this process and supports implementation of our commitments, we will regularly provide education and communication to our employees as well as to our third-parties that will serve to assure that expectations are clearly understood by all.
Stakeholder engagement and dialogue
We will regularly communicate with external organizations and engage in meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups and other relevant stakeholders or their representative organizations, as well as independent experts with knowledge of Human Rights risks globally to ensure that we understand rightsholders concerns and are aware of new trends and challenges so that we can anticipate and proactively address emergent risks that could impact our business and third parties.
Information disclosure
We will periodically report on the results of our Human Rights risk mitigation efforts, through relevant channels such as our website.