Conservation of Water Resources
1. Philosophy
Water is an essential resource for living beings. Globally, freshwater, in particular, is an extremely valuable resources. In Japan, as in other countries, water resources are being affected by natural disasters caused by abnormal weather events, some of which are a result of climate change. This makes the appropriate management of water resources a necessity.
JSR Group uses such water resources for drinking water, of course, but also as a raw material and coolant in its manufacturing processes. We strive to recycle water in our processes. At the same time, we purify and check the quality of the water when discharging it outside of our processes. In this way, we work to conserve water resources through appropriate management and treatment.
2. Usage of Water Resources by JSR Group
In FY2021, JSR Group consumed 21,710,000 m3 of water (up 16% year on year) and discharged 16,258,000 m3 of wastewater in total (up 11% year on year).
We spun off our elastomer business in April 2022. If we make an estimate based on the post-spin-off boundary, our water consumption and amount of wastewater becomes approximately 4,000,000 m3.
We will continue to strive to appropriately manage increasingly important water resources in the future.
3. Other Information on Water Resources
(1) Usage of Water Resources
In FY2021, JSR used 15,133,000 m3 of industrial water, groundwater* and tap water as water resources. We recycled and used 28.6% of that in the processes in our plants.
We will continue initiatives in the future with the target of maintaining this recycling usage rate.
* Groundwater is not used at the Yokkaichi and Chiba Plants.
Breakdown of water consumption (by intake source)
| FY | 2013 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial water | 14,734 | 13,667 | 14,790 | 14,309 | 13,193 | 14,672 |
| Tap water | 167 | 200 | 172 | 171 | 169 | 186 |
| Groundwater | 234 | 393 | 313 | 408 | 259 | 275 |
| Total Water Consumption | 15,134 | 14,259 | 15,275 | 14,888 | 13,620 | 15,133 |
Amount of Recycled Water Used
| FY | 2013 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Usage of recycling water | 4,496 | 4,250 | 4,481 | 4,210 | 3,624 | 4,322 |
| Recycling rate (%) | 29.7 | 29.8 | 29.3 | 28.3 | 26.6 | 28.6 |
(2) Water Risk Assessments
JSR Group uses the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas of the World Resources Institute (WRI) as a tool to assess water risks in each of our production bases in and outside Japan. Together with ascertaining the current state of the overall water risks in our main production bases, we have confirmed that the overall water risks in all our bases is 3* or less. We are taking measures to reduce the respective risks at our bases with relatively high water risks.
* The Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas contains a risk assessment (five stages). A higher value indicates a higher water risk. The assessment is calculated from the situation of the indicators selected for each category in each of the physical quantity, quality and regulations/reputation items.
Efforts at JSR Micro N.V. (Belgium)
A large amount of water is used in the production process of the Life Sciences Division. The wastewater is then treated off-site. We started building an on-site wastewater treatment facility from October 2021 to reduce the amount of wastewater we generate. We completed construction of the facility in September 2022 and started test operation from October of that year. We expect this facility will make most off-site wastewater treatment unnecessary and will allow us to reuse 70% of the wastewater. We will also be able to greatly reduce the CO2 emissions we generate by transporting wastewater to off-site treatment facilities.