E2 Initiative™
The E2 Initiative Concept
Mr. Eco-MoleculeE2 Initiative campaign character
In 2009, JSR launched a project that investigated possible approaches to two major goals: addressing risks related to environmental and energy issues, such as regulatory requirements for global warming mitigation, and finding ways to create new business opportunities. The E2 Initiative is the product of this endeavor. Named after the two initiatives it comprises, Eco-innovation and Energy Management, the E2 Initiative shows the outlook of JSR's Group-wide effort to create value on both aggressive fronts, such as the development of environmentally-friendly products, and defensive fronts, such as CO2 emission reductions at Group plants.
Schematic Concept of JSR's E2 Initiative
E2 Matrix
The E2 Matrix will serve as the benchmark for bringing the E2 Initiative into being. This illustrative tool shows how we added "environmental impact"—the assessment of a product's impact through lifecycle assessment (LCA), including end-use—to the set of confirmation items used in product development. In all future product development, both "environmental impact" and "economic performance" will be prerequisites, meaning that no products with a large environmental impact will be permitted even if it has great economic potential. In this way we will seek to expand our line of environmentally friendly products and instill the virtue of "environmental performance" into our corporate culture.
Environmental Management at JSR = Symbolic Benchmark of the E2 Initiative: The E2 Matrix
Aggressive Creation: Eco-innovation
Eco-Innovation is our initiative to create new business opportunities by offering an increasing number of eco-friendly products that provide society with the value of environmental performance. With our 2013 medium-term plan, JSR20i3, which looks ahead to 2020, we conducted demonstration experiments with eco-friendly products we developed at our plants and confirmed their effectiveness. We have now started using LCA in product development.
Yokkaichi Plant main administration building practicing the E2 InitiativeTM
Main administration building of the Yokkaichi Plant
The main administration building, completed in December 2013, uses E2 products at various locations and takes measures to reduce CO2 emissions for the purpose of conducting demonstration experiments for E2 products and providing information to society.
Key eco-friendly products used at the Yokkaichi Plant’s main administration building
For thermal storage and insulation materials and lithium-ion capacitors, see the feature article “Opening up New Frontiers in Power Conservation with Materials Innovation.”
Defense: Energy Management
In our efficiency promotion project, E-100plus, all companies in the JSR Group are deploying advanced energy-conservation technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. Monthly emissions for each division and product are now being quantified to help "visualize" progress, with recognition given to particularly successful divisions and products through a newly created award program. We are also aiming to make CO2 reduction a permanent part of business activities when starting new R&D projects or mass-scale production, for example by including the cost of CO2 emissions in their budgets. Thanks to these efforts, by FY2013, we were able to establish a system that enabled us to reduce CO2 emissions by 6%. And for newly developed products with energy-saving features, we are trying to combine such products with our "aggressive" strategy by first testing them internally and then marketing only those that demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing emissions.
Supplying Environmentally-friendly Products
JSR has set goals for raising the percentage of its products that are environmentally friendly. In order to facilitate the incorporation of environmentally-considerate design into product development, JSR defined environmentally-friendly products in FY2010 and classified them into the following five categories:
(1)Non-fossil-fuel-derived; (2) energy saving; (3) renewable energies; (4) reduce, reuse, recycle; and (5) non-harmful substances.
Going forward, JSR is committed to contributing to the preservation of the environment by developing and supplying environmentally-friendly products.
S-SBR used for fuel-efficient tires, etc.
EXCELINK used for automobile window frames
Lithium-ion capacitor
Approaches to LCA & LCI
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) refers to the quantitative assessment of the total impact a product has on the environment throughout its lifecycle, from the procurement of raw materials to the manufacture, sale, use, and disposal of the product.
LCA stages
To conduct LCA, it is necessary to understand resource input required for production, environmental discharge, CO2 emissions at each stage, and other LCI data.
The entire synthetic rubber industry teamed together to define how to compute LCI data for notable synthetic rubber materials. Needless to say, JSR was also actively involved. The computation results are registered in the database of the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry (JEMAI) LCA Forum*. LCI data for fine chemical products also allows us to determine the amount of CO2 emitted during production processes.
We have started to operate systems that enable us to apply LCA at the R&D stage and factor CO2 emissions data into the product design process. We have implemented LCA for about 67 product groups (98 main grades) (as of March 31, 2014). We will expand the LCA analysis for newly developed product groups and grades as well.