Forestry Business Initiatives

Domestic Initiatives

Sumitomo Forestry owns and manages approximately 48,000 hectares of forests in Japan, where contractors engage in planting, weeding, thinning, and clear-cutting operations. For the purpose of preventing occupational injuries among these contractors, the Group conducts safety patrols by employees and holds a Workplace Safety Conference at each of its forestry offices at least once a year.

Through the Workplace Safety Conference, we are stepping up educational activities such as expert lectures on occupational injury prevention and environmental education, as well as providing on-site safety instructions.

In fiscal 2025, we held the Workplace Safety Conference four times in total. At each event, we held discussion with related parties on topics such as the occurrence of occupational injuries in forests, occupational health and safety measures in the forestry business, risk assessment, and the prevention of heatstroke. These conferences served to further our mutual understanding.

Going forward, we will continue our efforts to achieve zero occupational injuries.

Overseas Initiatives in Forestry Business

The Sumitomo Forestry Group owns and manages a total of approximately 240,000 hectares of plantation forests overseas. To prevent occupational injuries in the forests, all its overseas forestation companies* ensure that operators always wear required safety equipment, and remind them of safety and health issues through periodic safety lectures and morning meetings.

Specifically, the companies (1) conduct thorough equipment inspections before work, (2) hold regular meetings with logging contractors and visit their sites for safety management, raise contractors’ awareness about the need to make real-time reports in the event of an accident, and (3) have occupational safety experts carry out assessments of occupational health and safety for the company and logging contractors.

In fiscal 2025, there were seven occupational injuries (four or more days of lost worktime). As occupational injuries frequently occur when using knives or chainsaws for weeding, we have taken steps to prevent recurrence by promoting safety education for workers, reviewing work methods, and introducing protective equipment. Moreover, we introduced face shields following an occupational incident in which an employee got something in their eye.

*Open Bay Timber Ltd. (OBT), PT. Wana Subur Lestari (WSL), PT. Mayangkara Tanaman Industri (MTI), PT. Kubu Mulia Forestri (KMF), PT. BINA OVIVIPARI SEMESTA (BIOS), Tasman Pine Forests (TPF)

Initiatives in the Manufacturing Business

Sumitomo Forestry Crest

In line with its Occupational Health and Safety Policy, Sumitomo Forestry Crest is working to provide its employees and subcontractors with a workplace environment where there are zero accidents and zero hazards. To accomplish this, the company is striving to develop a system that enables all employees to make continuous improvements to their health and safety. Also, employees of the plants proactively report near-miss incidents to the Health and Safety Committee and exchange opinions through workplace small-group activities (TPM activities). Furthermore, they increase the efficiency of their manufacturing activities through a PDCA management cycle while working to reduce risks.

In fiscal 2025, there were five workplace injuries (zero involving four or more days of leave, two involving one to three days of leave and three non-lost-time injuries), three commuting injuries, and one accident involving a contractor at a business site. Based on the fundamental concept of "Safety First” upheld by the Sumitomo Forestry Group, Sumitomo Forestry Crest will continuously strive to create a healthy and safe workplace environment.

Safety and Health Activities

Regular workplace safety patrols are conducted at each Sumitomo Forestry Crest plant to identify risks and make improvements. The plants conduct near-miss and risk assessments on some of the identified risks and share the results with other departments, while implementing basic safety measures to prevent accidents.

The plants conduct risk assessments whenever new equipment is introduced or production lines are changed, with the aim of preventing employee hazards and health problems. They seek to ensure workplace safety by identifying and evaluating potential hazards in equipment and operations and by implementing measures to reduce the risk level.

From the analysis of workplace accidents that have occurred, some accidents seem to have been caused by a lack of safety precautions against the behaviors that were not expected in ordinary work and were therefore not identified as potential sources of danger. It is vital to identify hazard sources from various perspectives and increase sensitivity to hazards to recognize potential dangers.

In recent occupational accidents, many of the most serious incidents have occurred during forklift operations and work involving rotating equipment such as rollers and blades. Accordingly, the plants are focusing their improvement efforts on these two types of operations.

Since December 2020, Sumitomo Forestry Crest has been holding monthly safety countermeasure review meetings. In addition to the intangible measures implemented to date, such as safety training, the company is also considering physical (hard) measures, including adjusting the volume of forklift buzzers, separating pedestrian and vehicle pathways, and installing safety covers on rotating equipment and introducing emergency stop devices such as safety mats. The company aims to create a safer work environment through these efforts.

Sumitomo Forestry Crest is engaged in TPM^* activities. All factory employees, without exception, have a role to play and are involved in the activities in line with the "All Member Participation," "Voluntary Maintenance," and "Zero Loss" principles. One of the main objectives of the activities is to achieve zero occupational injury by implementing safety activities such as "Hiyari-Hatto" (near miss) prevention, safety patrols and others, and the employees are working toward this goal on a daily basis.

Also, Sumitomo Forestry Crest conducts mutual safety audits between its plants to ensure that on-site workers comply with the rules on protective equipment and others and that the right people are placed in the right places. The audits also provide personnel of the plants with opportunities to share good examples and gain insights.

*TPM stands for Total Productive Maintenance and is a management method adopted in the manufacturing industry to increase productivity.

Overseas Manufacturing Companies

The Sumitomo Forestry Group's overseas manufacturing companies strive to create and maintain a safe and healthy workplace environment under the basic idea of "Safety First," and are united under the basic policy of "creating manufacturing sites with respect for human life and commitment to giving first priority to safety.” In particular, they are conducting activities with a focus on risk assessment and risk prediction training (KYT), while sharing examples and activities among plants to achieve a safe workplace environment for the entire company.

Safety Objectives

Our overseas manufacturing bases are promoting a culture of respect for human life and safety-first manufacturing under the fundamental policy of "safety takes precedence over all else." Also, in fiscal 2025, they are continuously working to eliminate accidents involving rotating machinery, which could result in serious injuries, as a key priority and while also focusing on preventing fires to ensure occupational safety.

Occupational Health and Safety Initiatives

The following are the details of the priority initiatives.

(1) Elimination of work-related accidents involving rotating machinery

We are reviewing past occupational accident cases and working to eliminate accidents involving rotating machinery -such as entanglement in rotating rollers or lacerations from rotating blades -which frequently account for incidents resulting in four or more lost workdays. Each factory is identifying machinery with rotating components, assessing associated risks, and implementing both physical and procedural safety measures. These include installing safety covers and fences, ensuring equipment is shut down during maintenance, managing lockout/tagout procedures, and providing relevant training.

(2) Revision and enforcement of fire prevention management procedures

In response to recent cases in Japan of occupational accidents with more than four lost workdays occurring at wood processing factories, we are strengthening fire prevention efforts at our Group manufacturing facilities. We share examples of major fire incidents at peer companies and minor fire incidents within our Group to raise awareness about fire risks. In addition, the Head Office regularly monitors the status of fire prevention procedures to ensure they are being properly maintained and followed.

Initiatives in the Housing Business

The Housing Division is implementing various measures to eliminate occupational injuries.

At the beginning of the fiscal year, branches, offices, and cooperative building contractors prepare an annual plan for safety, health and environmental management. Based on the annual plan and risk assessment enhancement items, they hold occupational health, safety and environmental conferences, regular occupational health and safety conferences, special safety patrols, and safety guidance seminars.

In the event of an occupational injury, staff of the Division are required to make the first notification to all parties concerned within two hours of the occurrence and prepare an accident report by the next day. In addition to an injury prevention conference held with the participation of related persons within seven days from the occurrence of the incident, interviews and detailed investigation are conducted, and effective countermeasures are planned and implemented through 4М analysis* and risk assessment to prevent the occurrence of similar injuries. In addition, after an incident occurs, the headquarters prepares a preliminary report on it, which includes measures to prevent recurrence, and distributes it to the contractors concerned and workers under its jurisdiction at regular occupational health and safety council meetings and on-site safety meetings.

As one of the measures to promote DX at construction sites, "in-out auto (beacon)" was introduced in April 2022 to automate entry/exit records at construction sites. By changing entry and exit records from manual to automatic, we are able to eliminate record omissions and errors and accumulate more accurate work records. At the same time, the system reduces the burden imposed on workers by eliminating the need to record their entry and exit, and distributes useful information to them when they enter, thereby improving their work efficiency and ensuring safe operations.

*A method of thinking about things in terms of four elements: people (Man), machinery and equipment (Machine), work, environment and media (Media), and management (Management)

Image of "in-out auto (beacon)" operation

Association of Sumitomo Forestry Safe Building Contractors

The Association of Sumitomo Forestry Safe Building Contractors aims to prevent occupational injuries and fires at construction sites, improve on-site work efficiency and the welfare of victims in the event of an incident and enhance on-site quality, while contributing to the development of members' businesses by improving construction technology and management skills and fostering friendship and exchange among the members.

The association is chaired by the Divisional Manager of the Housing Division of Sumitomo Forestry, and its members include Sumitomo Forestry Home Engineering and Sumitomo Forestry Landscaping, which are Sumitomo Forest Group companies, as well as 63 branches (as of April 2025) of construction companies throughout Japan. In addition, safety, health, and environmental conventions are held at each branch during the fiscal year, and lecturers are dispatched from the headquarters to give safety lectures. The lectures are intended to raise participants’ awareness of occupational health and safety through the explanation of the Sumitomo Forestry Group Occupational Health and Safety Policy and the Housing Division Health and Safety Management Policy; Sumitomo Forestry’s key measures and its roles and responsibilities under laws and regulations; accident statistics; and accident case studies.

Annual Plan for Safety, Health and Environmental Management

At the beginning of each fiscal year, the Housing Division prepares an annual plan for safety, health and environmental management for each branch and office. Based on the risk assessment enhancement items, the Division systematically holds and manages its safety, health and environmental conferences, regular safety and health council meetings, special safety patrols, safety guidance seminars, and others throughout the year. The Division also examines physical measures, such as separating the traffic lines of construction site workers and of pedestrians in its temporary site facilities plans, in its effort to create a safer work environment.

Safety Training for Construction Contractors

The Housing Division publishes monthly Safety and Environment Department Information, which includes information and topics about occupational health and safety as well as the environment, with a view to preventing accidents and avoiding risks by repeatedly raising safety awareness among the branches and construction contractors.

Sumitomo Forestry conducts safety training throughout Japan by visiting building and demolition contractors. We provide them with special education as well as safety and health education to give direct guidance to their workers on-site, and make efforts to contribute to on-site safety and environment by helping them understand the concept of "instilling a culture of safety."

Our branches hold safety and health conferences every month, as stipulated by law. Also, in order to improve contractors’ safety awareness and knowledge, the branches check and improve on-site situations through on-site health and safety patrols.