Environmental Protection

Handling Environmental Complaints

Environmental Accounting

Here at Mitsui Chemicals, we invest as much as is necessary in responsible care (RC), including environmental initiatives and occupational health and safety. We also compile and publish our environmental accounts in accordance with the Environmental Accounting Guidelines set out by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment in 2005.
We invested approximately ¥4.6 billion and spent a further ¥23.0 billion to protect the environment in fiscal 2011, maintaining roughly the same levels as fiscal 2010. This money helped fund specific measures to save energy, reduce CO₂ emissions, prevent water pollution and recycle industrial waste.
Including savings in resources and energy, our environmental initiatives in fiscal 2011 had an economic impact worth approximately ¥2.1 billion.

Environmental accounts

Environmental costs and benefits

Scope:
Period: April 1, 2010 – March 31, 2011
Unit: Million yen
* Due to an increase in substances subject to the PRTR Act

Environmental preservation costs					Environmental preservation benefits
Category		Main initiatives	Investment	Expenditure	Item	Fiscal 2011	Fiscal 2010
1	Cost of reducing the environmental impact of production and service activities within our business area (business area costs)		3,752	17,228
	1-1 Cost of preventing pollution	Measures to reduce VOC emissions (air), odors, wastewater sludge, etc.	712	14,994	Emissions subject to the PRTR Act (tons)*	1,749	693
					Emissions of hazardous air pollutants (tons)	64	56
					VOC emissions (tons)	2,171	2,332
					NOx emissions (tons)	3,049	2,976
					SOx emissions (tons)	527	709
					Soot and dust emissions (tons)	106	151
					Total COD (tons)	1,229	1,157
					Total nitrogen (tons)	1,312	1,197
					Total phosphorous (tons)	31	27
	1-2 Cost of protecting the global environment	Energy saving equipment	1,841	255	CO₂ emissions (1,000 tons)	4,631	4,648
					Tap water consumption (million m³)	1	1
					Industrial water consumption (million m³)	95	94
					Seawater consumption (million m³)	398	395
					Effluent (million m³)	473	465
					Wastewater (million m³)	50	49
	1-3 Cost of recycling resources	Recycling waste plastic	1,199	1,979	Total industrial waste (tons)	130,322	117,169
					Industrial waste sent to landfill (tons)	17,622	18,267
					Recycling rate (%) (Waste recycled ÷ waste sent off-site)	65.6	62.2
2	Cost of reducing the environmental impact of production and service activities in upstream or downstream areas (upstream/downstream costs)		0	0
3	Cost of environmental management activities (management activity costs)	Maintaining environmental management systems, training employees, etc.		897
4	Cost of environmental research and development activities (R&D costs)	Developing products and processes to protect the environment, reduce environmental impact, etc.		3,800
5	Cost of environmental social activities (social activity costs)	Funding measures to combat pollution, increasing greenery, etc.		294
6	Cost of remediating environmental damage (environmental damage costs)	Remediating pollution, etc.	882	570
Total			4,634	22,789

Economic impact of environmental initiatives

Category	Main benefits	Monetary value
Income from recycling	Recycling waste into resources	503
Income from saving energy	Saving energy	2,100
Income from saving resources	Improving our raw material intensity index	2,100