Water and effluents / Emission /
Waste /
Safety and disaster readiness

Material Issue Water and effluents

  • Targets/Vision
  • ● Management of total water withdrawal per water source by actual value
  • ● Maintain the quality of water discharge below the standards set by local governments

Management and Promotion Method of Water and effluents

[Responsible Departments]
  • Manufacturing Planning Center
  • Business divisions

Coordinating office: Environment Committee (Secretariat: Safety and Environmental Promotion Department of Manufacturing Planning Center)

[Policy/Point of view]

The Group sets forth the preservation of the global environment in the “Group Code of Conduct” and the “Environmental Basic Policy” and strives to save resources and energy and reduce wastes and hazardous substances in each stage of technology development, design, procurement, production, sale, and use of products and services. We recognize the importance of water resource that is essential for our production activities and launched initiatives to confirm and reduce water risk.
As for the volume of water consumption, each business manages the total water withdrawal by source.
As for effluents, each business facility checks the volume and quality of water discharge to comply with the standards set by relevant local governments.

[Targets/Vision]
  • Manage the total water withdrawal per water source by actual value
  • Maintain the quality of water discharge below the standards set by local governments
  • Comply with our voluntary standard for quality of discharged water and reduce water withdrawal at our production bases
[Measures]
  • Manage the total water withdrawal per water source at each business facility
  • Check the volume and quality of water discharge at each business facility

Launched an initiative to understand and reduce water risk

Although none of the Group’s production bases is currently located in areas with water restriction, we recognize the importance of water resource that is essential for our production activities and launched an initiative to understand and reduce water risk in fiscal 2018. In fiscal 2023, we worked to obtain appropriate data on water withdrawal and discharge in the Group’s production bases by creating flowcharts of water withdrawal and discharge and establishing a basic structure to obtain such data. We will continue our efforts to further reduce water risk and conserve water resources.

●Total water withdrawal and discharge (Fiscal 2021 to 2023)

  (FY) Bando Chemical Industries Domestic consolidated production subsidiaries Overseas consolidated production subsidiaries Bando Chemical Industries and consolidated production subsidiaries
Total water withdrawal
(m3/year)
2021 758,788 5,852 424,494 1,189,134
2022 611,497 5,509 430,100 1,047,106
2023 685,214 5,316 427,110 1,117,640
Total water discharge
(m3/year)
2021 195,654 1,165 87,712 284,531
2022 171,456 1,102 87,916 260,474
2023 183,892 1,063 84,939 269,895

Compliance with our voluntary standard for quality of discharged water

The quality of water discharge of production base is managed using the voluntary standard set stricter than those set by relevant local governments.
The Group’s production bases have in place a system to stop discharging water and collect it when abnormality is found in water quality in daily operations, but recently, heavy rains that cause massive damages are becoming more frequent, raising the risk of leakage or effluence of contaminants, wastes, and liquid raw materials.
Nankai Plant installed oil film detectors in drains and cooling water collection tanks and measured the volume supplied to neighboring farmers whose waste discharge had not been measured.
Ashikaga Plant installed water quality monitoring equipment as water used in its production process and cafeteria, etc. is discharged into rivers via a purifying chamber.
Ashikaga Plant and North Kanto Processing Center of Bando Industrial Components & Services, Ltd. replaced the aging purifying chambers with high-efficiency ones.
Kakogawa Plant raised the oil weir of oil-water separation paths.
Wakayama Plant implemented measures to prevent rainwater ingress into and waste oil leaks at the industrial waste storage and compiled a manual on how to collect water withdrawal data by water source.

Material Issue Emission

  • Targets/Vision
  • ● Bando Chemical Industries’ target for fiscal 2030: 33,915t-CO2t (reduction by 38% from the fiscal 2013 level)
    Bando Group target for fiscal 2050: Carbon Neutrality

Management and Promotion Method of Emission

[Responsible Departments]
  • Manufacturing Planning Center
  • Business divisions

Coordinating office: Environment Committee (Secretariat: Safety and Environmental Promotion Department of Manufacturing Planning Center)

[Policy/Point of view]

The Group sets forth the preservation of the global environment in the “Group Code of Conduct” and the “Environmental Basic Policy” and strives to save resources and energy and reduce wastes and hazardous substances in each stage of technology development, design, procurement, production, sale, and use of products and services.
Recognizing the seriousness of the escalation of climate change issues, the Company aims at reducing CO2 emissions which is one of the aggravating factors for climate change risks, and has implemented various initiatives such as shifting to different fuels, switching to high-efficiency equipment and LED lighting, and installing high-efficiency boilers at business facilities, in addition to aggressively adopting modal shifts, joint deliveries, and milk run logistics. We are also proactively adopting new methods such as ESCO service and Joint Crediting Mechanism.
The Company has set a long-term target for the reduction of CO2 emissions, with the actual results managed by each business facility.

[Target]
Bando Chemical Industries’ target for fiscal 2030: 33,915t-CO2t (reduction by 38% from the fiscal 2013 level)
Bando Group target for fiscal 2050: Carbon Neutrality
[Measures]
  • 1. Shift to energy-saving equipment
  • 2. Reduce energy loss (investigate details of loss due to steam leak, implement necessary measures, etc.)
  • 3. Achieve 100% of tasks set out in the roadmap toward CO2 emission reduction

Initiatives for CO2 emission reduction

To achieve “fiscal 2030 target” to reduce CO2 emissions by 38% by fiscal 2030 compared to the fiscal 2013 level (54,703t-CO2), we have switched to high-efficiency equipment including shifting to different fuels, upgrading to high-efficiency boilers, and introducing LED lighting, and also actively introduced ESCO service and Joint Crediting Mechanism.
In fiscal 2023, we successfully reduced our electricity consumption thanks to the solar power generation system newly added to Wakayama Plant in November 2022 as well as improvement activities in the production processes and various energy‐saving measures, but CO2 emissions increased due to an increase in carbon dioxide emission factor of purchased electricity in addition to a slight increase in gas consumption.
* Please see “AHEAD” for our efforts to capture climate-related opportunities and the created impact.

CO2 emissions (t)(Bando Chemical Industries) 1990 59,802 / 2017 48,784(27,730 21,054) / 2018 54,965(25,623 29,341) / 2019 50,523(25,671 24,852) / 2020 41,791(24,009 17,782)

Scope 1: Direct emissions by the Company from use of fuel, etc.

Scope 2:Indirect emissions from power stations, etc. associated with the consumption of electricity purchased by the Company

*For the figures before fiscal 2019, the emission factor is changed from fixed value to actual value from fiscal 2020.

*We have obtained third-party assurance for Scope 1 and 2 data for fiscal 2023 from SOCOTEC Certification Japan.

Environmental impact in value chain

From the perspective of global environmental conservation, we have worked to improve the accuracy of calculation of emissions from the entire value chain from procurement of raw materials to disposals (Scope 3), in addition to GHG emissions from our business activities (Scope 1 and 2), and disclosed the figures.

Scope 3 emissions by category

Category Scope Emissions in fiscal 2023 (t)
1 Products and services purchased Non-consolidated 49,747
2 Capital goods Consolidated 19,556
3 Fuel and energy related activities not included in Scope 1 and 2 Non-consolidated 3,732
4 Transport and delivery (upstream) Non-consolidated 54
5 Wastes generated from business activities Non-consolidated 2,474
6 Business trips Non-consolidated 936
7 Employee commuting Non-consolidated 208
8 Leased assets (upstream) N.A.
9 Transport and delivery (downstream) Non-consolidated 1,354
10 Processing of products sold Non-consolidated 121
11 Use of products sold Not included in the calculation due to no direct emissions during use
12 Disposal of products sold Consolidated 480

Reduction of VOC emissions

Volatile organic compounds (VOC) are considered as major causal substances of photochemical oxidants and are subject to the voluntary reduction effort under the Clean Air Act.
We work to reduce VOC emissions by installing the VOC processing equipment and ensuring proper handling and storage of the compounds. We set our voluntary reduction target at 55% reduction from the fiscal 2000 level, which is higher than the industry target of 50%, and have been successfully reducing emissions at levels exceeding the target. In fiscal 2023, we continued to implement measures and achieved a 74.6% reduction compared with the fiscal 2000 level, achieving the reduction target.

VOC processing equipment

Initiatives to reduce environmental impact in logistics

We are working on improving transport efficiency and lightening packing in order to reduce environmental impact arising from material procurement and product shipment as well as transportation of intermediate products between production bases. We are also promoting such initiatives as joint deliveries, milk run logistics, and modal shifts with an aim to reduce CO2 and NOx emissions generated by freight transport.

  • Targets/Vision
  • ● Achieve zero emissions
  • ● Wastes and waste plastic: 1% reduction from the results of the previous fiscal year (total volume)

Management and Promotion Method of Waste

[Responsible Departments]
  • Manufacturing Planning Center
  • Business divisions

Coordinating office: Environment Committee (Secretariat: Safety and Environmental Promotion Department of Manufacturing Planning Center)

[Policy/Point of view]

The Group sets forth the preservation of the global environment in the “Group Code of Conduct” and the “Environmental Basic Policy” and strives to save resources and energy and reduce wastes and hazardous substances in each stage of technology development, design, procurement, production, sale, and use of products and services.
For waste, each business facility checks the waste generation to comply with the standards set by relevant local governments.

[Visions]
  • Achieve zero emissions
  • Waste plastic: 1% reduction from the results of the previous fiscal year (total volume)
  • Compliance with the Plastic Resource Circulation Act
[Measures]
  • Determine priority issues based on the waste analysis (reduction of loss and defective products) and promote initiatives on the recycling issues
  • Expand research on measures for recycling waste plastic

Achieve zero emissions

We have already achieved zero emissions* through thorough waste separation. We will continue to work on reducing waste generation for the efficient use of resources.

*Definition of zero emissions: Final landfill disposal rate of less than 1% (final landfill disposal rate = final landfill disposal volume/volume of waste generation)

Compliance with the Plastic Resource Circulation Act

The Plastic Resource Circulation Act came into effect in April 2022. In fiscal 2023, our efforts to address recycling issues yielded results with the volume of our plastic industrial waste decreasing by 7.2% to 956 tons compared to 1,030 tons in fiscal 2022.
In fiscal 2024, we will set a challenge and continue to work on expanding recycling of plastic industrial waste with the year-on-year reduction target of 1%.

Emissions and transfer volumes of PRTR substances

We designated substances specified in the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) system* as controlled substances and adequately manage PRTR substances in accordance with the Act on the Assessment of Releases of Specified Chemical Substances in the Environment and the Promotion of Management Improvement revised in 2022.

*Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) system: A system whereby business operators are required to identify the amount of chemical substances potentially hazardous to human health and ecosystems emitted from the plants into the environment (air, water, and soil) and the amount transferred out of the plants as part of the wastes and report them to the government, which then aggregates and publishes the emitted/transferred amounts based on the submitted data and estimates.
The fiscal 2019 volumes in the chart below was retrospectively revised from the actual emitted/transferred volumes disclosed in CSR Report 2020 to those submitted to the government.

  • Targets/Vision
  • ● Claims, accidents or emergencies: None

Management and Promotion Method of Safety and disaster readiness

[Responsible Departments]
  • Each business facility

Coordinating office: Company-Wide Health and Safety Committee (Secretariat: Safety and Environmental Promotion Department of Manufacturing Planning Center)

[Policy/Point of view]

As the Company is engaged in manufacturing while interacting with society and local communities, we established the “Group Code of Conduct” and the “Health and Safety Policy” to set forth the compliance with the environmental laws and regulations and agreements with the local governments and industries, and are striving to prevent pollution in society and local communities with the target of achieving “No claims, accidents or emergencies.”

[Targets/Vision]

Claims, accidents or emergencies: None 

[Measures]
  • Maintain the latest version of the environmental laws and regulations and agreements with local communities that are applicable to business facilities in accordance with the “Environmental Guidelines”
  • Evaluate each business facility’s status of compliance with the applicable environmental laws and regulations, etc. in accordance with the compliance assessment of the “Environmental Manual”
  • Provide education to employees using textbooks incorporating past incidents
  • Participate in security and disaster readiness activities in local communities/Hold meetings for local residents near business facilities

Toward prevention of claims, accidents, or emergencies

The Group is engaged in manufacturing while interacting with society and community and aims at “No claims, accidents or emergencies” by enhancing initiatives to prevent them. In fiscal 2023, four accidents (four fires) occurred. The analysis of the causes revealed that (1) the areas that were usually overlooked or out of sight were not cleaned, (2) we did not consider that the friction of metal or oxidation caused by placing an oil-soaked cloth under high temperature could become a source of fire, and (3) the cleaning of dust and oil was insufficient, and therefore we implemented measures. In fiscal 2024, we will continue our preventive activities and aim at “No claims, accidents or emergencies.”

Security and disaster readiness activities

We also focus on security and disaster readiness activities in preparation for emergencies to ensure business continuity and safe operation. Specifically, the Bando Group suffered massive damages to its Head Office and production bases from the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and therefore we continue to work on creating disaster-resistant working places.

  • Earthquake countermeasures and emergency drills, etc.
    In addition to antiseismic reinforcement of the buildings at domestic offices, we conduct the Shakeout drills (actions to protect oneself from earthquakes) using the sound of the earthquake early warning. We are also promoting disaster prevention measures including conducting joint drills with local fire stations or brigades or in-house fire drills at each site of the Group as well as conducting safety confirmation drills assuming a disaster scenario and preparing stockpiles at domestic group companies.