Sustainability Vision “TSV2050/2030”

The Toyo Ink Group began our efforts to improve the environmental friendliness of our products in the early days of the Group. In the 1990s we started releasing environmentally friendly products. In recent years, our product development has been focused on environmental value and also the comfort in people's lives, their health and welfare, and safety and reliability. These efforts have enabled us to launch a diverse array of products that are able to contribute to the enhancement of the sustainability of society, thus providing lifestyle value.
We saw the formulation of the TSV2050/2030 as an opportunity to add criteria for products with lifestyle value to our existing criteria for environmentally friendly products and redefined them as Toyo Ink Group Sustainability-Enhancing Products. As a result of this expanded definition, products with functions and features with diverse lifestyle value, including materials related to digital technologies for IoT and high-speed communication and sensor materials (impacting the safety of autonomous driving and the comfort of residential environments) as well as biomedical materials (medical care, drug discovery, and healthcare).

At the Toyo Ink Group, we have set a quantitative target of increasing the ratio of the sales of these sustainability-enhancing products to the net sales of the entire Group to 100% globally by 2050. In addition, we have set the interim target of achieving a 0.8:1 ratio by 2030.

Environmental value and lifestyle value defined for sustainability-enhancing products, their direction, and examples

Helping customers achieve decarbonization, which is the other target, reflects our commitment to our corporate customers who aim to reduce their use of carbon, decarbonize, and reduce their CO₂ emissions as we are doing within the Toyo Ink Group. When the products sold by the Toyo Ink Group, a B2B material manufacturer, are seen from the perspective of the product lifecycle or the overall supply chain, the Group is positioned upstream in the supply chain from the customer's perspective. The CO₂ emissions from our production activities and corporate activities greatly affect our customers' CO₂ emissions, especially the CO₂ emissions related to raw materials (Scope 3, Category 1).

To support and cooperate with customers' efforts to reduce their use of carbon, decarbonize, and reduce their CO₂ emissions as their supplier, we develop products through the consideration of efficient, low-carbon transportation, the reduction of energy and fuel consumption in our customers' product manufacturing, and ease of recycling for the consumers disposing of the products, in addition to the reduction of CO₂ emissions from our products themselves (such as by selecting low-carbon raw materials and using low-carbon energy in manufacturing), thus driving the reduction of CO₂ emissions throughout the supply chain.

The Toyo Ink Group has been striving to reduce CO₂ emissions from our production bases in Japan and other countries since we launched the CO₂ Reduction Project in fiscal 2010. Guided by the SIC27 long-term corporate vision we started in fiscal 2018, we set a new medium- and long-term environmental goal. The goal is to reduce CO₂ emissions in Japan by 26% by fiscal 2030 (from the fiscal 2013 level). We also used the backcasting method to set science-based interim targets for the final years of the three-year medium-term management plans.

Thanks to omnidirectional reforms aimed at achieving these goals, our CO₂ emissions in Japan in fiscal 2020 were 76,843 t-CO₂, which is far below the target of 78,600 t-CO₂ for the final fiscal year of SIC-III (fiscal 2026).  In response, following the SIC-II medium-term management plan launched in fiscal 2021, we declared that we would achieve carbon neutrality by fiscal 2050 as a higher-level target and set this as the central target of TSV2050.

In TSV2030, the milestone toward TSV2050, we set the target of reducing CO₂ emissions in Japan by 35% from the fiscal 2020 level, to 50,000 t-CO₂, a 50% reduction from the fiscal 2013 level. Our measures to achieve this target can be classified into three aspects, the reduction of energy consumption, the shift to low-carbon energy, and the shift to low-carbon power. In addition, we have defined carbon offsetting through emissions trading as one of our strategic options. We are also eying negative emissions (initiatives to reduce emissions to a negative value) in the future.

Example of measures for reducing CO₂ emissions

However, regarding CO₂ emissions from our overseas locations which are key bases for the future growth of our business, we have set the target of 95,000 t-CO₂, which is a 35% reduction from the fiscal 2030 BAU level.* At overseas locations, we will focus our efforts on the shift to low-carbon power because the ratio of indirect emissions is higher (the energy mix is shifting to electricity rather than fuels) than in Japan.

BAU level: Level of emissions assumed if no countermeasure have been taken to prevent the increase of CO₂ emissions resulting from the growth of business ("business as usual" emissions)

Since the 1970s, when the Waste Disposal Act (Act on Promotion of Recycling of Small Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) came into force in Japan, the Toyo Ink Group has been advancing measures to control the waste emissions from our business activities and recycle waste, in our efforts to reduce waste emissions and achieve zero emissions at all of our business locations.*
The amount of waste treated off-site in Japan in fiscal 2020 was 10,822 t.* To break this down, waste oil was 55%, waste plastics was 12%, and wastewater was 10%, so the top three types of waste were approx. 80% of total waste. We will effectively move forward with measures by focusing on these types of waste, aiming to reduce the amount of waste that is treated off-site by 50% compared to the fiscal 2020 level by fiscal 2030.

Breakdown of waste (FY2020 in Japan)

We cannot completely eliminate waste emissions as long as the Toyo Ink Group remains a chemical manufacturer and continues to expand its production activities. However, we aim to minimize the amount of waste treated off-site through initiatives such as the development of production processes which are unlikely to generate waste, considering methods for treating waste, promoting the reuse and recycling of resources, and globally sharing knowledge about how to reduce waste.

Zero emissions: The Toyo Ink Group defines zero emissions as a state where the ratio of the final disposal volume of waste at business locations to the volume of waste generated is 1% or lower. In fiscal 2020, the ratio of final disposal volume to the total volume of waste generated in Japan was 0.03%, and we achieved zero emission at all of our business locations.

Amount of waste treated off-site: The amount of waste that was sold as a valuable resource, or that was generated at our business locations and discharged from the premises without being recycled or transferred outside our business locations to outsource its disposal to waste disposers.

The Toyo Ink Group uses a large amount of water, including process water (water used for water-based chemical reactions, the washing treatment of products, and similar purposes), cooling water and washing water. Water resources are important natural resources used by the Toyo Ink Group, and we recognize that the more sustainable use of water is an important issue. In fiscal 2020, approx. 73% of the water we took in was freshwater from land, such as groundwater and industrial-use water (water taken from rivers and lakes).  We have been striving to reduce water consumption and purify wastewater by enabling circulation cooling and ensuring the reuse and recycling of used water. Further, moving forward, we will reduce our overall water consumption through measures such as the development of production processes that do not require water and the introduction of new technologies for the use of water. Thus, we will use water under the assumption that it is necessary to protect the environment and preserve biodiversity.

Regarding wastewater purification, we have been striving to manage and reduce the emission of harmful chemical substances because we are a chemical manufacturer.* The amount of chemical emissions was 68.2 t in fiscal 2020. We will take thorough measures to prevent leakage and direct emissions and increase the optimization of the cost efficiency of wastewater treatment equipment, with the goal of reducing harmful chemical substance emissions by 30% from the fiscal 2020 level by fiscal 2030.

Harmful chemical substances: Herein, they refer to Class I designated chemical substances listed under the PRTR Act and substances designated by the Japan Chemical Industry Association.