Sekisui Chemical Co. is a plastics manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo. It has 26,000 employees and works in 21 countries. Founded in 1947, it has a dominant market share in three businesses: interlayer film, foam products, and conductive particles. It is committed to sustainability and has upped the ante on its greenhouse gas reduction goals, including its march to net zero by 2050.
In 2018, the chemical makers committed to the Science-Based Target initiative to comply with the Paris climate agreement to keep temperature increases in check. It set a target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% by 2030 from a 2013 baseline. It is replacing aging facilities and buying more renewable energy to get there. It also electrifies facilities that consume fossil fuels by switching to low-carbon fuels. The results?
In 2021, 20 of the company’s business sites — inside and outside Japan — switched 100% of their purchased electricity to renewable energy, and 12 sites installed solar power facilities. Clean energy thus became 20% of the company’s purchased electricity portfolio — double what Sekisui had initially set out to do. Moreover, it reduced its heat-trapping emissions by 21% from 2013 levels.
“Our vision for the planet in 2050 is one where biodiversity is maintained in which many of the issues facing us have been resolved, and biodiversity is preserved in a healthy condition,” says the company’s environmental statement. "Recognizing that our corporate activities rely on the planet’s natural and social capital, we will work to resolve global issues such as climate change, resource recycling, water risks, and biodiversity.”
It has been updated. For Scope 1 and 2, it had to reduce heat-trapping emissions by 26% by 2030 compared to 2013 levels. Now it is to reduce them by 50% compared to 2019 levels — the equivalent of what it would take to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. Scope 1 refers to those emissions generated at the company’s operations whereas Scope 2 refers to those fuels it buys from other companies. Its Scope 3 emissions linked to its supply chain have been revised upward.
Sekisui will continue to switch to renewable to run its corporate offices. But the major change will be the pursuit of electrification at its production plants.
“From 2023, Sekisui Chemical will shift to electrification and the use of low-carbon fuels in its facilities that use fossil fuels. Specifically, to electrification and the use of renewable energy for air conditioning systems that use fossil fuels, from heavy oil to LNG for boilers, and to HVs and EVs for business vehicles,” the company says.
It will allocate 40 billion yen, or $271 million, through 2030 to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions. In 2021, it installed 7.7 megawatts of onsite solar power to fuel its Scope 1 operations. The company plans to convert all electricity purchased within Scope 2 to renewable energy sources by 2030.
It aims to reduce its Scope 3 emissions through resource circulation initiatives. The goal is to cut them by 27% by 2030 compared to 2016. Specifically, it will replace raw resin materials, which account for 50% of purchased product services, with non-fossil origin materials and the use of recycled materials. It will also recycle plastics and make concerted efforts to reduce waste from operations.
Sekisui is “steadily promoting corporate activities that will help realize a nature-positive future by addressing such environmental issues as climate change and resource recycling,” the environmental statement says. “The aspects of the Group that place a heavy burden on biodiversity include raw materials, chemical substance emissions, and the disposal of sold products.
“Moreover, to reduce the impact on nature and expand return to nature, we recognize the importance of developing products and technologies that contribute to decarbonization, as well as of perfecting services and technologies that reduce the disposal of sold products and promote resource recycling,” it says.
In 2020, it formulated a recycling plan to accelerate its decarbonization efforts. Its focus is on plastics. Until this point, it had focused on reducing the waste generated per production unit. As such, it reused scraps to avoid waste. Its new policy considers bioplastics and other recycled materials that are not derived from fossil fuels. Furthermore, it is working on its product design and supply chain to purify the sorting and separation phase — a step that ensures less is wasted, and more is reused.
“By designing new products and revising the various processes for existing products, we are promoting initiatives for innovation that will accelerate resource circulation,” Sekisui says.
Sekisui has two goals: to minimize water risks and contribute to resolving water-related issues in the communities in which it operates. To that end, the company plans to limit the water it consumes. Therefore, it relies on recycling while improving the chemical oxygen demand index for the quality of water it discharges into rivers.
In 2021, water intake at production sites increased by 4.3% compared to 2016. It increased by 8.3% compared to 2015. The increase is because the company added four production sites overseas. It’s also because the product of synthetic resins at its factories increased.
However, the chemical oxygen demand for water discharged fell by 1.2% compared to 2016. But it increased by 12% between 2020 and 2021, which coincided with greater production volumes for synthetic resins.
“To improve this situation, we undertook comprehensive capital investments aimed at reducing the water intake from fiscal 2018,” the company says. All investment plans were completed in 2020. As a result of these efforts, we are now able to ascertain where industrial water is used and the usage volumes, as well as make adjustments to usage volumes. We are also working to reduce the water intake volume by reusing purified water in the cooling towers installed within the site.”
