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- Initiatives Aimed at Safety and the Environment
For Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings (MCHC), ensuring safety and environmental conservation are major premises of its corporate activities and are regarded as the top priority that concerns the very existence of the company. To ensure that this approach goes beyond mere concept, it is necessary to attach this awareness to every activity undertaken by each employee, and to develop the mechanisms to achieve this.
Given this need, MCHC has established MOS (Management of SUSTAINABILITY) indexes regarding the assurance of safety and environmental conservation in the APTSIS 15 mid-term management plan announced in December 2010, with the aim of using the social contributions assessed through these indexes for decision-making and performance evaluation. While there was previously a tendency to regard reductions in environmental load purely in cost terms, MCHC is now able to characterize reductions as the more active pursuit of MOS value in the context of management and our daily activities.
As an example of a MOS index concerning the reduction of the environmental load, MCHC has established the target of reducing the total impact from the release of chemicals into the air, hydrosphere and elsewhere in Japan by 30% from 2005 levels in 2015. The impact of the emissions are unified by using the LIME2*1 coefficient and assessed into a MOS index. In addition, with regard to safety, in the MOS indexes MCHC has set the goal of halving the number of security-related incidents, environmental accidents, work-related accidents and other incidents compared with results from the past three years by 2015.
Towards meeting these targets, MCHC hopes to contribute to the provision of KAITEKI value by continuing to promote the activities in terms of ensuring safety and reducing environmental load in a convincing and proactive fashion.
*1 The second version of the Life-Cycle Impact Assessment Method based on Endpoint Modelling (LIME), a Japan-specific method developed as part of the second stage of the National LCA Project. The coefficient to consolidate various categories of environmentally load into monetary terms is published.
MCHC has established the Group Synergy Office and reinforced the foundations in a Group-wide and cross-sectional manner. The aim of these moves is to combine Group expertise in areas such as disaster prevention, environmental protection, occupational safety and health, production technologies (manufacturing), in order to enhance Group strategy through unified functioning. Taking things a step further, general managers in charge of safety, the environment, and production technologies (manufacturing) from the four core Group companies, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation, Mitsubishi Plastics Inc. and Mitsubishi Rayon Co. Ltd., attend Four-Company Cooperation Council meetings which are held periodically. At these meetings, the attendees work closely to exchange information and opinions regarding the courses of action, activities and issues at each company. MCHC leverages its leadership abilities to draw out information such as the state of management in these areas.In order to assess and confirm the details of management at each company and work to prevent trouble from occurring. By continuing to promote the activities MCHC is working towards in terms of ensuring safety and reducing environmental load in a more convincing and proactive fashion through these consultative meetings, MCHC hopes to contribute to the provision of KAITEKI value.
Information about these safety and environmental activities being undertaken at each Group companies is also reported in detail on each company’s website.
MCHC Group GHG emissions in Japan
As goals for reducing domestic greenhouse gas emissions, in 2007 the MCHC Group set the targets of a 20% reduction from 1990 levels in 2015 and a 50% reduction in 2025 (both of which include the reduction contributions during product use). Towards meeting these goals, each of the Group companies has focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at their respective offices and plants, and at the same time carried out initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions across society as a whole through energy-creating and energy-saving products. Consequently, the results for total Group emissions, excluding Mitsubishi Rayon Group newly added in 2010 showed a 14% reduction from 1990 levels in 2010, even without the contributions mentioned above, indicating that the Group is making steady progress towards its initial reduction target.
MCHC revised its GHG reduction target in APTSIS 15 to reflect:
・the addition of the Mitsubishi Rayon Group
・a much larger contribution to the reduction of GHG emissions during product use than originally assessed as shown below.
As a goal focused on greenhouse gases among the newly established MOS indexes, MCHC has declared the target of achieving 17% reduction inside Japan in 2015 from to 2005 levels. While 2010 emissions were down 9% from 2005 levels, since production volume increased sharply from 2009, when the effects of the global financial crisis were still being left, emissions recorded a slight year-on-year increase. Looking ahead, MCHC will continue to make Group-wide reduction efforts towards meeting our 2015 reduction goals.
The MCHC Group has stipulated sustainability as one of its strategic criteria for business since the inception of APTSIS 10 as the previous mid-term management plan. MCHC has also cultivated business as associated materials, and components that make significant contributions to reducing greenhouse gases across society as a whole as a key growth business. As a result, MCHC has launched an LED-related business, a business to provide lithium-ion battery materials for electric and hybrid vehicles and other ventures. Looking ahead, by popularizing products that incorporate these technologies in society, MCHC expects to make significant reductions to the production of greenhouse gases compared with the use of conventional products.
The MCHC Group has stipulated its contribution to greenhouse gas reductions during such usage as one of the MOS indexes in APTSIS 15, and is seeking business development that enables significant increases in this index. MCHC also formulated assessment guidelines and methodologies to monitor this reduction contribution in quantitative terms. MCHC then followed these assessment techniques and predicted the reduction contribution for five kinds of products and materials based on forecasts made by each business sales and product performance. As a result, for a MOS index target value MCHC has come up with the reduction contribution figure of 4 million tons of CO2 per year compared with business-as-usual (BAU) in 2015.
While this figure has been determined based on the applicable products, the degree of popularization due to business development and the level of improvement in product performance over conventional products, improvements in the index can be regarded as considerable boosts in KAITEKI value for the world.
The basic approach behind our assessment technique is as follows:
Calculation Formula:
(Contribution of Reduction of GHG) = (Energy Usage of Standard Product – Energy Usage of Applicable Product) × Annual Sales Volume × CO2 emission coefficient × contribution ratio
As this represents the annual reduction due to sales volume in that year, when goods are used in multiple years, the annual reduction is tallied for the period of their estimated life.
To obtain a valid result, it is necessary to properly select scenarios as well as the scope of assessment. To that end, MCHC has received a third-party review of the assessment and calculation methodology discussed above from Bureau Veritas. Its target value has been determined accordingly.
a third-party review
Of the effects that human activities have on the global environment, the impact on biodiversity at various levels has recently attracted particular attention. Biodiversity brings us many benefits in the form of ecosystem services. These services are essential to our lives as well as to corporate activities, and their marked deterioration has been pointed out in studies such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conducted by the United Nations. Further, at the COP10 Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nagoya in October 2010, the Aichi Target was adopted and nations were called upon to take effective and urgent action towards halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020, making the issue a pressing one.
In 2010, the MCHC Group participated in the Declaration of Biodiversity by Nippon Keidanren*1 as a corporate group, and began voluntary, ongoing activities to reduce the impact on biodiversity of its business activities. The chemical industry uses an enormous volume of fossil fuels and water resources and is a sector responsible for manufacturing large quantities of chemical products. As such, it has become crucial to look at the entire lifecycle of these products to identify at what stages and in what ways they are likely to affect biodiversity, and to develop responses in this regard. To monitor the effect on ecosystems through our business activities, MCHC pursues these initiatives based on the Guidelines for Private Sector Engagement in Biodiversity produced by the Ministry of the Environment and the Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR)*2
As a specific initiative in this regard, in fiscal 2010 MCHC began a model study of the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) Yokkaichi Plant, aiming to conduct assessments in terms of the effects that chemical substance management and reduction activities have on biodiversity at our plants and offices. If MCHC is able to establish the assessment methodology through this study, MCHC plans to expand activities to assess across-the-board biodiversity impacts based on these methods.
Going forward, MCHC will continue to bear in mind the effects our business activities have on biodiversity throughout the lifecycles and take steps to build sustainable business.
*1 Declaration of Biodiversity by Nippon Keidanren: A declaration announced by the Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) in March 2009 and comprising seven pillars dealing with, such as the promotion of resource recycling-oriented management, and other issues.
*2 The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review (ESR): Guidelines to help companies develop strategies to manage the business risks and opportunities that occur from their reliance on ecosystem services and the effect they can have. The guidelines were developed on a joint basis by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and the World Research Institute (WRI).
While MCHC seeks the realization of KAITEKI with chemicals as its key technology, in providing the diverse chemical substances that support our lives it recognizes the primary importance of ensuring that its customers can use these products with peace of mind.
At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg Summit in 2002, a goal for action to “chemicals will be used and produced in ways that lead to the minimization of significant adverse effects on human health and the environment by the year 2020” was established As part of the efforts to reach the 2020 goal, the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) was adopted at the 1st International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM1). To achieve the WSSD agreement, the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) has encouraged Global Product Strategy (GPS) activities, based on “risk-based chemicals management throughout the supply chain” and “the disclosure of risk management information of the chemicals and products” as voluntary industry initiatives.
In response to these developments, MCHC began GPS activities in 2009. As a part of these activities, MCHC conducts chemical risks management related to the substances MCHC manufactures, which in publishes in the GPS Safety Summaries to ensure the safe use of chemicals.
In 2010, MCHC conducted risk assessment trials of seven substances handled by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation and its Group companies and standardized our risk assessment methods. Based on the methodologies established through this process, MCHC hopes that these activities lead to risk assessments and communication activities at each of the Group companies.
MCHC has set the target of conducting GPS assessments on all chemical substances dealt with in the Group by 2018. MCHC intends to manage the achievement rate of these risk assessments under GPS activities by introducing the figure as an MOS index item.
