Safety, Accident Prevention, and Environmental Preservation

Ensure the safety and health of society and employees, and protect the environment in all business processes, from procuring raw materials and manufacturing to the supply and disposal of products.

Basic Approach to Environmental Preservation

Corporate efforts to help realize a sustainable society have become increasingly vital in recent years. Toray Group established its Medium-Term Environmental Plan in fiscal 2000 to strengthen and enhance initiatives for reducing environmental impact. The Group has set key performance indicators (KPIs) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions per unit of sales in order to fight global warming, as well as to reduce atmospheric emissions of certain chemical substances (PRTR substances and VOCs, etc.) and waste. These efforts have continued during the course of all five Medium-Term Environmental Plans up until fiscal 2020.
Currently, the Group has transitioned from initiatives based on the Medium-Term Environmental Plan to those rooted in the Toray Group Sustainability Vision and the Challenge 30 Project, a company-wide project for engaging in specific activities. Furthermore, targets have been set, and initiatives are underway based on the CSR Roadmap 2022, a medium-term CSR plan.
Under the Toray Group Sustainability Vision announced in July 2018, the Group aims to achieve two targets per unit of revenue by 2030: a 30% reduction in greenhouse emissions and a 30% reduction in water usage. The Group is also promoting a Challenge 30 Project, a company-wide project to tackle specific activities related to these targets. To achieve these two targets, three-year KPIs have been included in CSR Roadmap 2022, the Group's medium-term CSR plan. Under this plan, the Group has also set KPIs relating to atmospheric VOC emission reduction and waste recycling rate improvement, which the Group had been working on until fiscal 2020 under the Medium-Term Environmental Plan. From fiscal 2021, Toray strengthened its management of priority-focus companies and factories, namely those have a particularly large environmental impact. Targets have also been set as KPIs for new initiatives such as switching to certified palm oil use as a raw material.

1. * Refer to the following activity reports for more information on basic approaches and policies regarding safety and disaster prevention, as well as for issue awareness and policies regarding individual environmental issues.

Related Policies

Safety, Health, Accident Prevention and Environmental Preservation Management

Action Policy and Main Activities

Toray Group operates a policy for safety, health, accident prevention, and environmental activities. The policy is revised every year to reflect the results from the previous fiscal year, and specifies the main activities to implement in each policy area.

Safety, Health, Accident Prevention, and Environment Activity Policy of Toray Group in 2021

1. 1 3S/5S: 3S stands for seiri (sort), seiton (set in order), and seiso (shine). Adding seiketsu (standardize) and shitsuke (sustain) to 3S make up 5S.

Structure

Safety, Health, Accident Prevention, and Environmental Preservation Promotion System

Toray Industries, Inc. places a group-wide committee, namely the Safety, Health, and Environment Committee, at the top of its system for safety, health, accident prevention, and environmental preservation (see chart below). The committee meets annually.
The committee discusses and sets policies and strategies for the entire Toray Group and its Responsible Care initiatives. The chair of the committee has absolute responsibility and authority over these matters. Progress on the issues determined by the committees is managed in the business divisions and plants using the PDCA cycle.

Audits and Follow-Up Measures

Toray Group conducts annual audits to objectively assess and improve the execution and management of safety, health, accident prevention, and environmental initiatives at offices and plants of group companies. Internal audits are conducted using a standardized audit checklist, and encompass visits and production floor guidance provided by directors and managers from other group companies.
In fiscal 2021, audits were conducted for all 13 plants and one research laboratory at Toray Industries, 27 plants operated by 27 group companies in Japan, and 82 plants operated by 63 group companies outside Japan. The audits focused on the following areas: thoroughly practice 3S/5S; comprehensive measures to prevent similar accidents; re-inspection of fire prevention control ducts; measures to prevent leakage of plastics such as resin pellets into wastewater; and thorough measures to prevent environmental accidents. The audits helped to secure systematic improvements by identifying and addressing facility issues and issues relating to management.

ISO 14001 Certification

Toray Group is pursuing the acquisition of ISO 14001, the certification for environmental management system, by all of its group companies, offices, and plants. Toray Industries had completed accreditation for all 13 of its plants by the end of 2000. By fiscal 2021, 33 plants at 22 group companies in Japan and 68 plants at 48 group companies outside Japan were certified.

In fiscal 2021, two plants at TFCC in China and TRMX in Mexico, newly acquired ISO 14001 certification. The Gunsan Plant at TAK in South Korea also acquired certification for the first time. The Advanced Materials Research Center, which is already ISO 14001 certified, was added to the scope of certification, increasing the total by four plants.

Responsible Care Program

Under Responsible Care programs, chemical companies pursue voluntary management of chemical substances, transparent disclosure, and communication with the public. Companies committed to Responsible Care take safety, health, and environmental measures across the entire product lifecycle—from development, manufacturing, distribution and consumer use to the disposal—and then disclose the results of their efforts.
Toray Industries implements its program in accordance with the Responsible Care Global Charter.² In fiscal 2021, the Company set priority issues: promoting the Sustainability Vision and rigorous chemical substance management.

1. 2 The Responsible Care Global Charter was originally established in 2005 to encourage companies to take concrete action that is understandable to external stakeholders. The Charter was revised in 2014, and Toray Industries was a signatory to both the original and revised Charter.

Compliance Status Regarding Worldwide Chemical Substance Regulations

All business divisions of Toray Industries, as well as its group companies in and outside Japan, have chemical substance management systems in place for securing compliance with relevant regulations worldwide, such as Japan's Chemical Substances Control Law and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) in Europe. As a part of this compliance effort, the Group registers chemical substances registration in accordance with national laws and regulations. The Group also reports production and import volumes, manages substances of high concern, a category that includes substances of very high concern (SVHC) under REACH, and studies the use of alternative substances. In 2021, in addition to responding to the new UK-REACH registration system in the post-Brexit UK, and the KKIDK regulation in Turkey, the Group revised its safety data sheets (SDS) for Toray products sold in Japan to achieve compliance with new JIS requirements.

Further Improving Chemical Substance Management in Toray Group

To better respond to increasingly stricter regulations worldwide, Toray Group is working to enhance its chemical substance management by utilizing management systems and improving in-house training. Since 2019, the Toray Chemicals Management System (TCMS) has been used to centrally manage product substance content as well as legal and regulatory information. TCMS is also used to check the registration status of chemical substances in destination countries, and to tabulate volumes of exports to countries outside Japan. In 2021, the Group conducted online employee training concerning product SDS preparation, as well as a new chemical substance notification system related to the Japan's Industrial Safety and Health Act and the Act on the Evaluation of Chemical Substances and Regulation of Their Manufacture. This has helped to raise the knowledge levels of relevant employees involved in frontline operations.

CSR Roadmap 2022 Targets

1. 3 Volatile organic compounds
2. 4 Act on Confirmation, etc. of Release Amounts of Specific Chemical Substances in the Environment and Promotion of Improvements to the Management Thereof

Looking to the Future

Toray Group will continue to carry out safety, accident prevention and environmental preservation activities based on international frameworks such as ISO 14001 and Responsible Care as well as the Group’s medium- and long-term and single-year goals. The Group is committed to protecting the health and safety of employees and the public and reducing its environmental impact.

Activity Reports and Environmental Data

Click below on activity reports for fiscal 2021