Nintendo released their CSR report for 2021, recapping company goals and practices being enacted in and outside the company. The English version detailed eighteen pages of news regarding their relationship with their customs, their business partners, and employees. The prime focus of this report was described as “Contributing to the Realization of a Sustainable Society and Weaving Smiles Through Nintendo’s Products, Services, and Business Activities.”
Further elaboration in the report brought up three key points they hope to achieve, and how they have been working to do so.
- Putting Smiles on the Faces of Our Consumers
- Putting Smiles on the Faces of Our Supply Chain
- Putting Smiles on the Faces of Our Employees
The first two points covered were brief in their report, and about what you could expect from Nintendo. Most information covered things such as parental supervision and control and on-sight visits to assure the quality of production for their hardware continues to meet the standards of both Nintendo and their consumers. However, in the pages covering their plans to assure the satisfaction of their employees, something very surprising, peculiar, and delightful was made public.
According to the report, as of March 2021, Nintendo’s Japan branch has introduced a new “Partnership System” in order to “support and empower” each and every one of their unique employees. The system has been implemented to ensure that their employees in a domestic partnership with same-sex partners have equal employee benefits as opposite-sex married couples. Starting off, Nintendo of Japan has established that same-sex couples will be observed in the same way as a legal marriage, gaining the same benefits.
In addition, Nintendo clarified that the Partner System revised their in-house regulations regarding harassment to prohibit discriminatory comments based on sexual orientation or genre identity, even involving outing someone’s private LGBTQ+ identity against their own wishes.
Nintendo’s current employees were informed about issues of gender diversity with a message from the company President, Shuntaro Furukawa, to raise awareness. Furukawa’s message called for “renewed understanding that even speech and actions which are not intended to harm can cause significant emotional pain, asking for understanding and support for creating an environment in which everyone can work comfortably.”
This isn’t the first time Nintendo Japan has made steps in the direction to provide safe and equal opportunity in their company for LGBTQ+ employees and applicants. In 2018, Nintendo took reference to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. In doing so they created the Nintendo Human Rights Policy which was enacted in September that same year. Employees were notified of the policy installation, which is included in the codes of conduct and compliance manuals for each country. It is also introduced to new employees of Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Japan), as part of their training.
Nintendo’s Code of Conduct for employees established anti-discrimination policies, prohibiting all forms of discrimination against employees based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Currently, with the exception of select areas of the nation, it is still legal for businesses to refuse to hire or fire anyone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Very few companies have enacted their own anti-discrimination policies. The most noteworthy ones outside Nintendo include Sega and Softbank (one of the largest cellular service companies). With no law in place protecting LGBTQ+ workers nationwide, this, in times of crisis, can put a target on LGBTQ+ workers when companies need to lay off employees for any reason.
While no legal recognition of same-sex marriage exists, the nation has a domestic partnership system that is only recognized in Ibakraki and Osaka Prefecture, and parts of Tokyo. The certificate doesn’t have the same level of recognition as a government-issued marriage certificate does, including hospital visitation, nor does it allow for foreigners in same-sex relationships to apply for permanent residency via spouse visas.
Companies beginning to create safe, friendly, and open workspaces that treat same-sex partnerships with the same level of benefits and respect as heteronormative married couples in Japan shows progress and encouragement to the public, and could encourage the government to legalize same-sex marriage.
In March 2021, after the failed hearing to legalize same-sex marriage in Tokyo (which occurred in November 2020), courts in Sapporo heard the public’s argument and it was met with a shockingly different outcome. Sapporo courts declared the government’s failure to recognize same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional in the judicial ruling. The federal government has yet to act on this ruling.
