Safety, Health and Disaster Prevention

The Brother Group's Basic Safety and Disaster Prevention Policy stipulates: "'Safety first' shall be the cornerstone of all operations. We shall try to create a comfortable working environment that allows all our associates to feel safe and work in good health. Safety culture shall be established at the same time." In accordance with this policy, the Brother Group is committed to preventing disasters, injuries, and illnesses among employees and to creating a comfortable workplace under the leadership of the Central Safety, Health, and Disaster Prevention Committee, which is chaired by the safety, health, and disaster prevention officer of Brother Industries, Ltd. (BIL) and composed of the officers of the group facilities in Japan.
Workplace accidents that can be anticipated at BIL include falls from heights, minor collisions with forklifts, being caught between or entangled in machinery, and chemical injuries caused by chemical substances. As countermeasures against these accidents, we are committed to improving the work environment to be accident-free by installing fall prevention fences and covers to prevent being caught between or in machinery. We have also established safety rules to prevent unsafe behavior and provide in-house education to ensure compliance with these rules. We also conduct regular safety training on chemical substances to ensure that they are handled properly. For manufacturing facilities, the status of workplace safety and disaster prevention is also checked through regular patrols by the chairperson of the Central Safety, Health, and Disaster Prevention Committee and by the Safety, Health, and Disaster Prevention Committee members at each facility.
For the three-year period from FY2019 to FY2021, the Brother Group manufacturing facilities worked to achieve the goal of zero serious accidents*. In FY2021, two lost-time occupational injuries occurred at BIL, but zero serious accidents were recorded at BIL and the Brother Group manufacturing facilities.
Regarding the two lost-time occupational injuries that occurred at BIL in FY2021, we are working to prevent recurrence by making improvements to equipment and issuing reminders. As for the first case of lost-time occupational injury, the worker took off their shoes in the locker room and stubbed their toe on a chair leg while walking, we have installed rubber cushions on the chair legs that led to the injury and are alerting workers to prevent similar accidents from occurring in other plants. In the second case, a long period of time spent inserting plastic tubing into parts caused tenosynovitis in the fingers, we have taken measures such as creating a custom jig to reduce the strain on the fingers.

The Brother Group will continue to work toward the goal of zero serious accidents in the three years from FY2022.

• Fatal accidents, accidents resulting in hospitalization of 30 days or more, and accidents resulting in permanent injuries

1. Number of lost-time deaths and injuries from work-related accidents/Total number of working hours x 1,000,000
2. Number of lost-time illnesses from work-related accidents/Total number of working hours x 1,000,000
3. Source: Survey on industrial accidents provided by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan

To ensure safety and health, BIL annually provides risk prediction training, safety and health education, and so forth based on the plans of the respective facilities.　As for the education, BIL offers e-learning training for all BIL employees. In FY2021, 3,959 employees, which represented more than 97% of the intended participants, took the training. BIL also conducts an educational session for new employees every April. In FY2022, this session was held with 84 new employees, the full participation of the intended participants. For mid-career or newly-hired temporary employees, BIL holds educational sessions every month. The sessions held in FY2021 had 251 employees, involving all of the intended participants.
In addition, BIL also provide training tailored to the specific needs of each operation. For example, employees engaged in specialized work involving chemical substances are provided training tailored to their tasks, and employees who drive company vehicles are required to take traffic safety courses under a permit system. For the facilities outside of Japan, training is provided for new and mid-career employees at each location.

Regarding preparation for disasters, BIL has been making efforts to minimize damage caused by possible disasters at its respective facilities. Such efforts include the consolidation of disaster prevention organizations, evacuation drills, initial firefighting training, and lifesaving training using an AED (automatic external defibrillator), and the legal inspection of fire protection equipment.
In 2007, BIL concluded a memorandum of understanding on support and collaboration in the event of a large-scale disaster with its local community through the mediation of a local administrative body. In addition, since 2014, BIL has been conducting evacuation drills jointly with a neighboring nursery school with which BIL signed a memorandum.
Since 2016, BIL has been conducting training for setting up a disaster headquarters at its head office.

Furthermore, as work styles of employees have changed and more employees are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is now necessary to increase awareness for disaster preparedness at home and to strengthen the preparedness framework. Accordingly, in FY2021, based on the results of a survey to monitor the said awareness at home, an e-learning program was implemented with the aim of "having employees prepared at home for disasters," and 4,102 employees, 95.6% of all intended employees, have participated in the program.

1. Since FY2019, safety education and disaster prevention training have been provided together
2. Since FY2019, the number of participants has included those in mental health-related education

At the Brother Group's main manufacturing facilities outside Japan, the Workplace Safety and Disaster Prevention Group of BIL's Human Resources Department, which acts as the secretariat of the Central Safety, Health, and Disaster Prevention Committee, conducts regular audits to increase the level of safety, health, and disaster prevention and develop local staff.
The Brother Group shares information about occupational accidents occurring in its main manufacturing facilities in and outside Japan and countermeasures against them on its intranet to make such information available at all group facilities. Each facility applies these countermeasures to its workplaces in order to prevent the same or similar accidents from occurring.
At the Brother Safety and Prevention Convention which is held annually in Japan, production facilities that have engaged in excellent safety and disaster prevention activities are awarded, and case studies of the awarded production facilities are presented to share information among other facilities. The event in FY2021 was held online as a COVID-19 preventive measure, and the case studies of awarded production facilities were shared on the Brother Group intranet.

At the Brother Group, it is required to perform an assessment of the risks associated with operations and equipment when installing equipment for a new project, relocating equipment, or implementing triennial operational changes. The purpose of this risk assessment is to identify potential hazard sources, such as falls, being caught in or between objects, electrocutions, explosions, and fires, and other sources that might exist in each work process, and to evaluate their risk levels and take appropriate measures for each level. In addition, the degree of such hazards of equipment is visualized if it is judged to have residual hazards above a certain level even after safety measures based on a risk assessment are taken.

In December 2017, the Brother Group established the "Regulations of system and control for disaster prevention of the Brother Group" to ensure the safety of employees and workplaces when a fire breaks out.
These regulations are composed of three sections: (1) "fire prevention management" to take precautions against fires; (2) "firefighting management" to minimize damage from fires; and (3) "personal safety management" to ensure the safety of employees. The Brother Group will apply these regulations to its main manufacturing facilities outside Japan sequentially.

Some manufacturing facilities, including Brother Industries (Vietnam) Ltd. and Brother Industries (Philippines), Inc., have been externally certified to ISO45001. About 8% of the Brother Group facilities had obtained this certification as of the end of March 2022.

Incident rate: (number of occupational injuries/number of employees) x 1,000

The Brother Group will actively continue to promote safety, health and disaster prevention activities, aiming to achieve zero accidents and provide employees with a safer and securer working place.