Social Activities
Environment
Toward the goal of achieving harmony with the global environment, the Mitsui Chemicals Group engages in a variety of environment communication activities.
Mitsui Chemicals Group Clean-up Caravan
To tackle the problem with plastics, the Mitsui Chemicals Group aims to encourage the recycling of resources and promote a circular economy model by implementing our Biomass strategy and Recycle strategy and measures to address the marine plastic waste issues. The problem of marine plastic waste owes to plastics that have escaped from the process for recycling resources and ended up in marine environments due to inappropriate waste management. Stopping waste from flowing into rivers and the sea is of utmost importance.
Mitsui Chemicals has undertaken clean-up activities in areas around our sites. In fiscal 2019, we launched a group-wide initiative, the Mitsui Chemicals Group Clean-up Caravan, calling on our affiliates in Japan and overseas to join in these activities. Going beyond the range of activities around our sites, the scope of the activities was broadened to allow for more employee initiatives, now including participation in clean-up activities organized by nonprofit and governmental bodies as well as clean-ups following community events. A total of 8,855 people have participated in the Caravan campaign, collecting 69,875 kg of waste since fiscal 2019.
World Heritage Support Project
The Mitsui Chemicals Group is working on the World Heritage Support Project in an attempt to protect and preserve world heritages, which are common assets of humanity.
In the first round (in fiscal 2017), we donated NONROT™* benches made by Yakusugi (Yakushima cedar) craftsmen using thinning wood in Yakushima Island to Yakushima Town, which is working to improve the attractiveness of the island as a world heritage, because there was no bench for many visitors from within Japan and overseas to relax, see the beautiful views, and rest.
In the second round (in fiscal 2018), we donated NONROT™ benches and signboards that effectively used felled bishop wood, a non-native species, with the aim of bringing back Morus boninensis, an endemic species in the Ogasawara Islands that was designated as an endangered species in the red list of the Ministry of Environment due to the invasion of bishop wood.
In the third round (in fiscal 2019), we donated three NONROT™ tree decks for the Ponhoro Forest, the location of Shiretoko Nature School courses, which aim to ensure that Shiretoko’s magnificent natural environment can be passed on to the next generation.
We will continue to conduct these activities in fiscal 2022 onwards.
*NONROT™ is a highly safe timber coating that makes full use of wood’s natural breathability. It offers outstanding water-repellency, UV resistance and protection against rot, fungus and insects.
NONROT™ has become the wood protective coating of choice for many architects, designers and their clients, as it allows the wood to breathe, enabling users of products treated with the coating to enjoy the pleasant scent of the timber itself.
Hidakagawa Honshu Chemical Industry Forest —Ongoing participation in the Corporate Forest project—
Honshu Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., a Mitsui Chemicals affiliate has been participating in the Corporate Forest project* aimed at preserving the forest environment, which has been promoted by Wakayama Prefecture as part of its environmental protection activities for ten years since 2010. Honshu Chemical Industry employees and their family planted approximately 1,500 broad-leaved trees in a forest (1.32 ha in area), and the employees remove undergrowth and perform complementary planting thereafter every year under the instructions of Kichu Forestry Association, which manages the forest on behalf of the company. In 2020, Honshu Chemical Industry signed an Agreement on Forest Preservation and Management with Wakayama Prefecture and Hidakagawa Town, with the aim of extending the effort for ten years. A signing ceremony for the new agreement was held in the Governor’s office at the Wakayama prefectural office, in which Mr. Nisaka (Governor of Wakayama Prefecture), Mr. Kurume (Hidakagawa Town Mayor), and Mr. Ohori (General manager of Wakayama Works at Honshu Chemical Industry) signed the agreement.
*Corporate Forest project:
An environmental contribution program in which Wakayama Prefecture, the Forest Association, and companies join forces to participate in global environmental protection together with locals using the rich natural environment in the prefecture.
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