Introduced in 1991, the company’s Long-term Corporate Vision, includes a statement of the Toray Group’s commitment to playing an active role in protecting the global environment. The Toray Group’s Corporate Guiding Principles also include “actively promoting environmental preservation.” Also in 1991, Toray established the Global Environment Research Laboratory.
In 1992, Toray formed the Global Environment Committee, reaffirming management’s determination to address global environmental issues proactively. In the context of the early 1990s, these steps were quite progressive. At its first meeting, the committee took up the questions of eliminating fluorocarbons in production, reducing waste, and improving wastewater treatment measures, as well as promoting plastics recycling and investing resources in research and technology development to come up with large-scale global environmental solutions for the next generation.
In 2009, the Global Environment Business Strategic Planning Department, which reports directly to the president, was formed to promote and support Group-wide planning, development, and commercialization of the Toray Group’s business strategies related to the global environment. The department aims not only to protect and conserve the global environment, but also to collaborate with Toray Group headquarters, the Technology Center and others to expand and create new environment-related businesses for the Toray Group as a whole. In order to ensure that its businesses help to resolve the issues facing society, Toray takes a life-cycle management (LCM) approach to environmental management, emphasizing efforts to enhance the social and economic value of its products and services while reducing environmental impact over their entire lifecycle.
One of the business restructuring strategies outlined in Toray’s Long-term Corporate Vision, AP-G2020, formulated in February 2011, is to pursue the development of products and technologies that provide solutions for global environmental, resource, and energy issues and to expand green innovation-related businesses by delivering Toray’s advanced materials and green innovations globally.
Reflecting this vision, the Toray Green Innovation Business Expansion (GR) Project is structured using a Group-wide interdepartmental approach and is part of the company’s medium-term management program, which has been implemented in three-year periods since 2011. The company’s long-term perspective is demonstrated by its allocation of 50% of research and technology development investment to GR-related projects. Under the current Medium-term Management Program, Project AP-G 2019, which will reach completion this year, GR projects have expanded from 378 billion yen in fiscal 2010 to 786.9 billion yen in fiscal 2018.
Going a step farther, the Toray Group released its new Sustainability Vision in 2018, describing the Group’s vision for the world by 2050, indicating the issues Toray will address in order to realize the vision, and setting key performance indicators (KPI) to be met by fiscal 2030.
Toray is pleased to announce its support for the TCFD recommendations and its participation in the newly inaugurated TCFD consortium of Japan. The Toray Group will proactively strive to promote the disclosure of climate-related information. At the same time, Toray is committed to actively contributing to the development of innovative technologies and the supply of advanced materials to help solve the climate change issues facing the world, based on the company’s corporate philosophy of “Contributing to society through the creation of new value with innovative ideas, technologies and products.”
Glossary
Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD):
Established in 2016 by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), an international organization that works to stabilize the international financial system.
TCFD recommendations:
Final report released by the TCFD in June 2017 for the purpose of supporting companies with the disclosure of information on climate-related risks and opportunities and stabilizing financial markets through a smooth transition to a low-carbon society.
TCFD Consortium of Japan:
A group of companies and financial institutions that supports the TCFD recommendations, the consortium of Japan was established to discuss effective corporate information disclosure and initiatives to link disclosed information to appropriate investment decisions on the part of financial institutions and other organizations.
