EnvironmentMessage from the Head of Product Supply Division (Environment)

Kenji Taguchi, Ph.D.
Executive Officer, Head of Product Supply Div.

The Product Supply Division is responsible for the production and supply of pharmaceuticals. Our mission is to process procured raw materials and products in factories and deliver a stable supply of high-quality pharmaceuticals to patients. Moreover, because production activities and pharmaceutical research and development are intimately associated with environmental risk, as a manufacturer it is our duty to provide a visual representation of these and to continue to try to reduce our impact on the environment.

In an effort towards environmental conservation, we have adopted (1) achieving carbon neutrality, (2) building a circular economy, and (3) conserving biodiversity as important environmental measures. We hope that by actively communicating these initiatives to society at large and maintaining communication with a variety of stakeholders, we will enhance our corporate value as a global drug discovery company that is trusted by the community.

Our business is globalizing rapidly, and our supply chains for procurement of raw materials, production, sales, and transport are expanding on a global scale. In recent years, business partners in Europe and other areas have begun to require that we disclose information related to the environment, reflecting the growing attention on environmental issues.

To respond to such societal demands, we have adopted the promotion of environment-friendly business as our materiality (a material issue), and are emphasizing carbon neutrality and a circular economy as we advance the cause of environmental conservation.

In recent years there have been a growing number of natural disasters such as extreme rainfall events and large-scale forest fires that are thought to be attributable to global warming. With a view to achieving carbon neutrality, we are moving ahead with measures to reduce our output of greenhouse gases significantly, such as switching to electricity generated using renewable energy at the Onoda and Yoshitomi plants. Plastic pollution of the marine environment is another increasingly serious issue, and we are promoting manufacturing with a focus on the three Rs, (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) from the product research and development stages, as well as material recycling of blister packages (also known as press-through packages (PTP) in Japan), with a view to achieving a circular economy.

Although we have been actively working to reduce our impact on the environment by protecting biodiversity and instituting measures to counter climate change, we had not previously participated in international initiatives such as CDP or STBi, or in task forces such as TCFD or TNFD, which disclose and assess the risks and effects of these efforts.

To disclose our environmental information based on these frameworks and be highly evaluated under the new system, we believe that we must engage in a variety of initiatives such as working with suppliers to reduce the greenhouse gases (Scope 3) emitted by other companies in the production and transport of the raw materials we procure, and be more proactive in efforts to preserve the biodiversity and the natural environment.

To that end, we have formulated a new Medium-Term Environmental Action Plan 25–30. We have raised the greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets from those in the current Medium-Term Environmental Action Plan 21–25 and set new targets for recycling ratios for plastic and other waste.

Under our new management structure, we will work actively to preserve the global environment in order to meet the targets of the Medium-Term Environmental Action Plan 25–30 and will seek to become a company that is highly regarded by society.