Endeavor to create a circular economy

The Mitsui Chemicals Group believes that, as a chemicals company, we have an important role to play in helping to build a sustainable society that can limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Therefore, in November 2020, we declared our commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050. We developed a carbon neutral strategy which is centered around the two pillars of (1) reducing our own GHG emissions (Scopes 1 and 2), and (2) maximizing the avoided emissions of our products over their entire life cycle, and have implemented concrete measures that contribute to the transformation of society.

We are considering investing an amount to the scale of 140 billion yen in carbon neutrality by 2030, and we will flexibly invest funds across the entire Group.

The Mitsui Chemicals Group aims to reduce its GHG emissions by 40% by fiscal 2030 relative to fiscal 2013 levels to make important progress toward the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This is one of our non-financial targets in VISION 2030. To facilitate progress, we have defined a clear roadmap toward carbon neutrality in full consideration of prospective plant construction (new plants and expansions) and other factors. Specifically, we plan to transition to low-carbon raw materials and fuels, conserve energy by installing highly energy-efficient equipment, and adopt renewable energy. By 2050, in addition to implementing the aforementioned measures, we intend to achieve 80% or more of these reductions mainly through the development of new technologies and the transition of our business portfolio—though this presupposes markets, customers, and other aspects of the external environment falling into place or changing. We also plan to move forward with the development and implementation of carbon-negative technologies, such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), to handle the remaining 20%.

In addition, since fiscal 2019, we have implemented an internal carbon pricing (ICP). By adding internal rate of return (IRR) that takes ICP into account (c-IRR) to our investment decision-making, we are discussing the necessity of investments from the perspective of not only economic opportunities but also a risk that environmental impact may increase in the future. As a measure to accelerate our strategy, we revised our ICP from 3,000 yen/tCO₂e to 15,000 yen/tCO₂e in fiscal 2022.

Through our supply of Blue Value™ products that make significant environmental contributions, we aim to maximize GHG emissions avoided over the entire product life cycle. In this way, we intend to help all of society achieve carbon neutrality. We have set a 40% Blue Value™ products sales revenue ratio as one of our non-financial targets in VISION 2030, and we have reflected this in the strategy of each business. In addition, for some of our Blue Value™ products, we calculate the contribution of avoided emissions under the review of outside experts. By sharing the results of the calculations with our stakeholders, we have continued efforts to make our contributions more visible. In fiscal 2023, we estimated avoided emissions of approximately 4 million tons per year.