■	Aim for sales percentage of environment-contributing products of 50% or more (FY2016)
■	Evaluate comprehensive environmental activities by establishing a new integrated index to visualize contribution to the return of natural capital

 

 

SEKISUI CHEMICAL CO., LTD. (President: Naofumi Negishi, hereinafter called "Sekisui Chemical") and the Sekisui Chemical Group, under the five-year environmental midterm plan "Environment Top Runner Plan SHINKA!" up to FY2013, have promoted "SHINKA (evolution, deepening, renewing)" aiming at balancing ecology and economy, expanding sales of Environment-Contributing Products and reducing CO2 emissions generated by business operations and other environmental efforts.

Recently, following the formulation of the company-wide new midterm management plan "SHINKA!-Advance 2016" (FY2014 - FY2016), we have revised our long-term environmental vision "SEKISUI Environment Sustainable Vision 2030" (hereinafter called the "Long-term Vision"), and will make efforts for a "Earth with maintained biodiversity" as a joint goal in all our businesses and operations, from housing to plastic processing.

 

"SEKISUI Environment Sustainable Vision 2030"   Long-term Vision framework: with each employee being aware of that business activities utilizes natural capital and  being skilled in promoting environmental activities, SEKISUI CHEMICAL GROUP will "contribute to the return of natural capital," and realize the "Earth with maintained biodiversity" through the three contributions of "Expand and create Environment-Contributing Products", "Reduce environmental impacts", and "Conserve natural environment".

 

To solve the remaining issues in the previous environmental midterm plan (Table 1) and realizing our Long-term Vision, we formulated the new environmental midterm plan "SEKISUI Environment Sustainable Plan Take-off" (FY2014 - FY2016).

The new environmental midterm plan is positioned as the first step (take-off) to realize our Long-term Vision, and we will work to further expand the sales percentage of Environment-Contributing Products.

 

1. Summary of the previous environmental midterm plan (FY2009 - FY2013)

 

Table 1: Issues remaining from Previous Environmental Midterm Plans

Activity item		Target	Results	Issues
Environment-Contributing Products	Expanding sales	Sales percentage: 40% or higher (FY13)	Sales percentage: 42%	Further expansion
	Promoting development	30 or more new certifications (in 5 years)	60 new certifications
Reduction of GHG*1 emission (Domestic production sites)		Reduction of 10% or more (FY13 vs. FY07) (Total amount: 350,000t-CO2 or less)	17.4% reduction (Total amount: 321,000t-CO2)	Expand efforts to overseas / supply chain
Reduction of waste generation (Domestic production sites)		Reduction of 25% t/t*2 or more (vs. FY07) (FY07 total waste 43,700t)	19.6% t/t reduction (33,900t)	Strengthen efforts, expand efforts to overseas
Environment contributing activities		Activities in all production sites Participation of 80% or more employees over 2011 to 2013	Implementation in all production sites Total 112.6% (25,912 people) participation	Expand to all sites

Note 1: GHG: Green House Gas.      Note 2: t/t: (‘ton per ton’ : per production unit)

 

Evaluation of all activities

(1)	Target achieved activities: Environment-Contributing Products, reduction of GHG emission, environment contributing activities
(2)	Target unachieved activities: Reduction of waste generation

 

Environment-Contributing Products

(1)

Total registered products: 34 (end of FY2008) to 87 (end of FY2013) (7 de-registered during this period)

(2) Factors for achieving goals: Expansion of individual environmental businesses, increase of number of products     ・Increased sales volume of housing with solar power generation systems and expansion to housing complexes   ・Expansion of pipeline rehabilitation business   ・Increase sales of sound insulation and solar control interlayer film   ・Increase in number of new registrations   House refurbishing, use of unharnessed energy, intermediate materials for energy-saving products, etc. Deployed Big Solar, housing complex incorporating over 10kW solar energy generation system, from July '12

 

GHG emission reduction

Factors for achieving goals: Promotion of various measures such as the following
	・Operation of in-company environmental investment promotion system, implementation of ECO-JIT* / energy innovation activities
	・Optimization of lighting, use of LEDs
		*ECO-JIT:	Activity to reduce energy costs by thorough detection of energy losses in production processes and thorough innovation

 

Reducing waste

(1)	Factors for not achieving goals: efforts at manufacturing sites were not enough to achieve target Sucesfully reduced waste by 9800 tons by improving efficiency and increasing recycling by zero-defect activities, also improving drying of sludge.
(2)	Challenges are to improve production efficiency from a new perspective and to strengthen efforts by expanding recycling, etc.

 

Examples of efforts to reduce environmental impact

Strengthening forest preservation activities using domestic credit gain on sales of CO2:   Regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions by 2,827 tons (amount reduced from October 1, 2011 to March 21, 2013) by customers of Sekisui Heim housing with solar power generation systems and high-efficiency hot water equipment, we credited the reduced CO2 as operators / administrators. Using the profits from sale of those, we strengthened forest preservation activities such as by planting trees and so on.

Planting activities by Sekisui Heim Kyushu Group (August 20, 2013, Ukiha City, Fukuoka Prefecture)

 

Efforts to improve environmental awareness among employees

Newly begun activities:   In the Global Children's Eco Summit held in 2012, two proposals were made by children of Sekisui Chemical Group employees, and the president promised to do the two events: “Sekisui Environment Week” and the “Greenest Person Award”.
(1) “Sekisui Environment Week”:		Planting of mangroves in Thailand as symbolic event for Sekisui environmental week last year (August 3, 2013)
	Over one week from August 1 to 7, the same period as the Global Children's Eco Summit (or one continuous week between June 1 and September 30) all employees (groups or individual) from all sites of the Sekisui Chemical Group participate in local eco activities Begun from FY2013.
(2) “Greenest Person Award”:
	Award given to an employees or small group with a high level of environmental awareness, undertaking activities that contribute the most to the environment. The winner is decided by votes from all employees and children attending the Global Children's Eco Summit. Begun from FY2012 to raise awareness to environmental activities.

 

 

2. Background / key points in developing the long-term vision and the environmental midterm plan

The Sekisui Chemical Group, in order to restrain global-scale environmental issues such as the increase of GHG emissions, over-consumption of resources, and increasing impacts on the ecosystem, has undertaken efforts to reduce GHG emissions, recycle resources (recycle / reuse), reduce waste, manage chemical substances, reduce VOC, and protect forests, to contribute to the building of a low-carbon and a recycling-oriented society.

In our Long-term Vision and the environmental midterm plan, based on the concept that all these environmental impacts affect global biodiversity, activities to aim for "Earth with maintained biodiversity" are implemented in business activities.

Under this policy, overall activities will be evaluated with a new index, the “SEKISUI Environment Sustainability Index”, which will be set up to comprehensively analyze the use of naturally-occurring resources (natural capital) that we cannot make ourselves (such as land, animals, plants, ores, and fuels) and the return to these natural capital through the business and environmental activities of the Sekisui Chemical Group.
 

 

3. Summary of the new environmental midterm plan (FY2014 - FY2016)

 

 

Expand and create Environment-Contributing Products

Under the new environmental midterm plan, we will create and expand markets so that the sales percentage of Environment-Contributing Products will be 50% or higher.

 

Trend in sales and sales percentage of Environment-Contributing Products

 

(1) Measures for existing Environment-Contributing Products:
	Expand sales of houses with solar energy generation systems, improve functions /expand business of pipeline rehabilitation systems, etc.
(2) Registering new Environment-Contributing Products:
	Actively create new products and systems in new environment-contributing categories for protecting biodiversity, preventing / minimizing disasters, etc.

 

Reduction of GHG emission

Believing that it is urgent to promote reductions in our expanding number of overseas business sites the same way as in Japan, we have set the same goals for inside and outside Japan to reduce GHG emissions in our new environmental midterm plan.

 

Trends in greenhouse gas emissions during production

Our goals we will promote are to maintain the FY2013 level of total emissions even with the increased production plan, or to reduce GHG emissions at 3% t/t over three years even with reduced production volume from FY2013.

 

Reduction of waste generation

For waste generation, as with GHG, it is urgent that we promote waste reduction overseas; by applying the effective measures used in Japan, expanding Zero Emission factories and so on, we will promote reduction of waste generated with the same goals for Japan and outside of Japan.

 

Reduction of other environmental impacts

We are determining (survey) water risks and promoting measures in operations in all our business sites both in Japan and overseas, with the aims of “preventing loss of business opportunities by determining water risks” and “preserving biodiversity by strengthening water quality management”.

 

Raising the quality of green areas within business grounds

Aiming to realize "Earth with maintained biodiversity", we are improving the quality of green areas in our business grounds to ensure that business sites are in harmony with the global environment. We are promoting efforts to gain 10 points or better in the Land Use Score CardTM, the evaluation standard for all sites in Japan.

* Land Use Score Card®: A tool for Sustainable Business Sites as developed by the Japan Business Initiative for Biodiversity (JBIB). Evaluation points are awarded on a 100 point maximum basis for contributions to biodiversity in land use for business sites, considering the size of green areas, management structures and so on.

 

Sekisui Environment Week

We are proposing and promoting programs in which all employees can participate, by understainding activities at each business site. Our aim is for participation by all employees from all business sites by FY2016.

By consistently holding symbolic events overseas with participation from the president and other management executives, we will promote activities to raise environmental awareness among employees.

 

Integrated Index

Using our integrated index, the “SEKISUI Environment Sustainability Index”, we will visualize the progress of initiatives and degree of achievement.

The calculation framework covers CO2 and other environmental aspects other than CO2 (chemical substances, water risks, etc.) in the entire supply chain. By determining / inputting data with a negative impact on natural capital and  data with contributing / positive effect, we will calculate an index showing the degree of contribution for returns to natural capital.

(1)	Example of negative impact:raw materials volume, fuel / energy consumption, water usage, CO2 / VOC / air pollutant emissions, water turbidity emissions, waste generated, land use, CO2 emissions in the supply chain
(2)	Examples of contributing effect: contributions through Environment-Contributing Products (reducing CO2 emissions, reducing the impact of chemical substances, saving water, etc.), activities / donations related to protecting the natural environment

The calculation for FY2013 will be the benchmark for setting goals from FY2014 onward. We aim to ensure our returns to natural capital will exceed our use of natural capital by the final year of our Long-term Vision, FY2030.