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CSR Activity Report (CSR Guideline Activity Reports) - Safety, Accident Prevention, and Environmental Preservation
Initiatives for Managing Water Resources
Toray Group is working to provide solutions to water resources problems around the world, based on the following policies. In its own operations, the Group effectively uses and recycles water and properly manages water resources.
- Toray Group recognizes that water is one of the most important resources for humanity, and that people are confronting problems related to water resources in many areas of the world.
- Toray Group is committed to helping to solve global water resources problems through its products, technologies and services.
- Toray Group continuously monitors the state of regional water resources, and conducts appropriate management of water resources, such as avoiding excessive water withdrawal so as to share these precious resources with the local communities where the Group operates.
Toray Group operates a variety of businesses around the world, and depending on the location, it may be greatly affected by water withdrawal restrictions. Its assessment, therefore, is that the Group faces a large risk regarding limits on water usage.
Accordingly, Toray Group uses the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, a water risk assessment tool provided by the World Resources Institute (WRI), to identify locations of high stress through water stress surveys in regions around the world where the Group’s manufacturing sites and offices are located. In addition, the amount of water used in business activities in each region is monitored annually using a questionnaire from Toray Industries. Toray Group has determined that approximately 3.9% of its entire water withdrawals at all sites, including plants and offices, comes from regions where water stress is assessed to be high or extremely high.
Dyeing effluent is reused at Toray Sakai Weaving & Dyeing (Nantong) Co., Ltd. utilizing Toray reverse osmosis membranes.As stated in the Toray Group Sustainability Vision, a target has been set for reducing water usage per-unit of revenue by 2030. The Group understands the effects of water stress and promotes the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) for water resources through improvement of manufacturing processes, water-saving activities, and utilization of recycled water.
The Group fully understands local regulations regarding effluent and constantly monitors water quality, such as COD, before releasing effluent from its plants into public bodies of water. For example, Toray Sakai Weaving & Dyeing (Nantong) Co., Ltd., located in Nantong, China, recycles all water used for its looms and, additionally, purifies approximately 1,300 tons/day of effluent from the dyeing process using Toray reverse osmosis membrane water treatment technology before the effluent is drained. In this manner, group companies overseas reuse cooling water and recycle wastewater in an effort to reduce the amount of new water withdrawals taken from outside as industrial water.
Related Information
See the following page for information on how Toray Group handles water hazard risks (floods, storm surges, etc.).
Water Usage Management
Water usage per unit of revenue (%)
- ■Reporting scope
- Toray Group
- ■Target
- At least 25% lower than fiscal 2013 (Fiscal 2022)
Result in fiscal 2022
31.9%1
In fiscal 2022, Toray Group used 214 million tons of water, approximately 10 million tons less than the previous fiscal year. Compared to the amount used per unit of revenue in fiscal 2013, set to an index value of 100, usage in fiscal 2022 was 68.1 points, down 3.6 points from the previous fiscal year. In fiscal 2022, the total volume of water used decreased and water usage per unit of revenue improved, thanks to the reuse of cooling water and effluent in the manufacturing process.
- 1 The calculation of the figure for the baseline of FY 2013 includes data for companies that joined the Toray Group in FY 2014 or later.
Related Information
Comparative Water Usage Per Unit of Net Sales (Per Unit of Revenue)*(Toray Group)
| (FY) | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comparative Water Usage Per Unit of Net Sales (Per Unit of Revenue) |
90.9 | 82.5 | 77.9 | 77.1 | 82.4 | 71.7 | 68.1 |
- * Per unit of net sales until fiscal 2019, as Japanese GAAP was used until then, and per unit of revenue from fiscal 2020 onwards, as International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have been adopted since then.
Click here for the main initiatives for CSR Guideline 3, “Safety, Accident Prevention, and Environmental Preservation” in CSR Roadmap 2022.