Environmental Management System

The NSG Group promotes environmental management that involves the entire Group in environmental conservation activities. To ensure the effectiveness of these activities, NSG Group has introduced an environmental management system and is forging environmental measures and policies for the entire Group based on this system.

The NSG Group has completed ISO 14001 certification procedures at each of its domestic facilities and finished deploying its environmental management system at major domestic affiliates in fiscal 2007.

In addition, Pilkington has nearly completed the introduction of the ISO 14001 standard at key facilities. Notable is the introduction of a globally integrated environmental management system in the automotive glass business division. Based on this, the NSG Group has constructed a system that enables it to supply products from any plant in the world under uniform environmental policies.

Environmental Audit

The NSG Group has conducted environmental audits of domestic plants since 1991. The audits deal with the effectiveness of environmental management systems, progress toward key environmental targets, and hazardous materials management and reduction. They include both paperwork audits and inspections of material and workplaces. Especially good audits are used as "model cases" and, in an effort to improve results at each facility, every effort is made to share the information and know-how that produced the excellent results.

The Environment, Safety & Health Control Department, established as an independent department in fiscal 2006, performs environmental safety and health control audits that further enhance both the environment and safety and health.

Environmental audits were conducted at ten domestic facilities in fiscal 2007, including Nippon Muki's Yuki facilities, which comprise a significant part of the company's glass fiber business. These audits were intended to emphasize three key issues: environmental risk management; energy conservation; and the reduction of the volume of waste generated. There were no significant discrepancies of the sort linked with pollution or major accidents. Environmental management activities utilizing management systems were progressing at every facility and were linked to voluntary risk-reduction programs.

Currently, NSG Group is deploying this environmental audit system throughout the entire Group, including Pilkington.

Green Procurement of Office Supplies

In Japan, the NSG Group is a leader in environment-friendly procurement of such items as office supplies, paper, office furniture, PCs, copy machines, air conditioners and automobiles, as well as in the percentage of products that conform to energy-saving standards based on the Rationalization in Energy Use Law.

In Japan, this method of procurement is called "green procurement" and in fiscal 2007, NSG Group maintained a 99.9 per cent green procurement rate for office supplies at all of its domestic facilities (please refer to "Management of Environmental Harmful Substances" and "Suppliers" regarding green procurement of raw materials, etc.).

Environmental Accounting

As a key index for environmental management, the NSG Group has adopted environmental accounting based on the Ministry of the Environment’s “Environmental Accounting Guidelines.” Although capital investments for environmental protection in fiscal 2007 totaled ¥1.33 billion (a 2.1 per cent year-on-year increase), environmental expenses amounted to ¥2.96 billion (a 33.6 percent year-on-year decrease).

Environmental investments were made in recycling facilities, industrial water recycling system, and measures to reduce environmental impact on the atmosphere and water quality, and have contributed to boost environmental performance. Despite changes in production volume and other factors, energy consumption increased only slightly. The NSG Group will continue to use environmental accounting to obtain an accurate picture of environmental conservation costs and environmental effects.

Environmental protection costs(million yen)

Item		Principal activities	Capital investments for environmental protection		Environmental expenses
Major divisions*1	Intermediate divisions		Fiscal 2006	Fiscal 2007	Fiscal 2006	Fiscal 2007
Business area costs	Pollution prevention costs	Prevention of air pollution, water pollution and noise pollution	447	584	1,057	951
	Global environmental protection costs	Energy conservation; prevention of global warming	114	109	1,301	97
	Resource circulation costs	Reduced volume of waste generation, reuse of materials, efficient and reduced use of water	497	421	1,346	1,071
Upstream and downstream costs		Green procurement, recovery of products and packaging materials	21	14	27	3
Administration costs		Environmental education, operation of environmental management system, monitoring and measurement of environmental impact	44	43	156	413
R&D costs		Development of products that contribute to environmental protection and reduction of environmental burden in manufacturing and distribution processes	108	90	313	252
Social activity costs		Conservation of nature, support for community programs, environmental advertising, and other activities	23	8	53	40
Environmental remediation costs		Remediation of soil contamination and damage to nature; insurance and pollution levies, etc.	49	61	196	129
Total			1,302	1,330	4,448	2,955

Environmental protection benefit (material effect)

Item		Material effect
Major divisions*1	Intermediate divisions	Type of effect	Fiscal2006	Fiscal2007	Changes
Environmental protection benefit within business areas	Related to pollution prevention	Volume of SOx emissions (tons)	797	804	7
		Volume of NOx emissions (tons)	1,607	1,615	8
		Volume of Particulates emissions (tons)	94	66	-28
		BOD pollution load (tons)	2	2	0
		COD pollution load (tons)	19	21	2
		SS pollution load (tons)	29	28	-1
	Related to global environmental protection	Volume of CO2 emissions (tons)	731,717	735,428	3,711
		Total volume of energy consumption (PJ)	11.3	11.5	0.2
	Related to resource recycling	Total volume of waste generation (tons)	175,375	192,143	16,768
		Total volume of waste consigned to final disposal (tons)	2,829	1,674	-1,155
		Total volume of industrial water use (thousand m3)	9,668	9,937	269
Upstream and downstream environmental protection benefit		Recycled cullet (thousands of tons)	134	149	16

Environmental protection benefit (economic benefit)(million yen)

Item		Economic benefit
Major divisions*1	Intermediate divisions	Fiscal2006	Fiscal2007
Business area costs	Pollution prevention costs	313	201
	Global environmental protection costs	190	205
	Resource recycling costs*2	337	346
Upstream and downstream cost		9	8
Administration costs		66	35
R&D costs*3		3,790	4,548
Social activity costs*4		16	18
Environmental remediation costs*5		200	100
Total		4,920	5,461

*1 Environmental protection cost category in accordance with the Ministry of the Environment’s Environmental Accounting Guidelines 2002.
*2 Reduction in raw materials costs, sale of unneeded assets, and reduction in waste treatment and disposal subcontracting costs, etc.
*3 The difference between heating and cooling costs using double-glazed glass and Spacia, and those same costs using ordinary flat glass.
*4 Coverage volume～advertising expenses (when ads result in a negative impression, cost is recorded as a negative figure)
*5 When an investment of ¥5 million or more is made to prevent environmental remediation, a constant amount of ¥20 million is posted to the account. (However, this is limited to once per fiscal year with the same conditions.)

 

CSR Report 2007