Establishment of a Recycling-Oriented Society

As a global healthcare company, the Eisai Group has established the ENW (Eisai Network Companies) Environmental Protection Policy and conducts business activities with an emphasis on global environmental protection. It is stated in our Action Guidelines that we will “4. Contribute to the formation of a recycling-oriented society by promoting the sustainable use of resources, including water, along with waste reduction and recycling” and as such, we are promoting proper disposal of waste and resource recycling initiatives, including water, on a global scale.

The Eisai Group in Japan is working to reduce the ratio of landfill waste to the amount of waste generated to 0.5% or less to achieve zero emissions in waste management with three goals in mind, i.e. to reduce the amount of waste generated, to increase the ratio of recycled waste, and to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.

To secure sufficient water resources is absolutely essential for the production of high-quality pharmaceuticals, and the Eisai Group is working to ensure the quality of water discharged from its production and research sites and also implementing initiatives to reduce water consumption.

The numerical target for zero emissions had been set at 1% or below, and since we have achieved this for 13 consecutive years, the target was improved to 0.5% or below in fiscal 2021. We also have the target of recycling 50% or more of our waste, including valuable waste. In particular, we seek to achieve the target of recycling 80% or more of our plastic waste based on our consideration of marine plastics issues.

We promote water conservation and recycling use, as well as appropriate management of water consumption through monitoring at each site of the Eisai Group.

The Eisai Group established the Company-Wide Environment and Safety Committee as a decision-making body for deliberation of important environmental issues. The committee is promoting global activities such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions and effectively using resources and is also strengthening activities to identify environment-related risks and develop countermeasures. Moreover, as a consultative body promoting the environmental activities of Group companies in Japan, the Eisai Group also established the Environment and Safety Conference of Group Companies in Japan to share information and discuss relevant activities.

Each operational site of the Eisai Group has established its own unique management system to promote environmental activities. The Eisai Group's main production sites in Japan as well as the Suzhou Plant in China and Vizag Site in India have all acquired ISO 14001 certification and are conducting activities based on the ISO standard while striving to raise awareness through environmental education and environmental risk management training. In addition to complying with environmental laws, ordinances and agreements, we periodically conduct internal environmental audits by a department specializing in internal auditing to identify and solve issues.

In fiscal 2021, the amount of waste oil (organic solvent) from the research and manufacturing of APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients) and waste plastics from pharmaceuticals packaging materials increased. We continue to actively promote the recycling of organic solvents used in the chemical synthesis of APIs, etc. and the sale of waste solvents for use as auxiliary fuel. Regarding waste plastics, we select excellent waste disposal contractors to avoid adversely impacting ecosystems through mechanisms such as marine pollution and the generation of microplastics.
We ensure the proper treatment of waste plastics by conducting onsite inspections. In fiscal 2021, the renovation of our head office temporarily increased the amount of scrap metals.
On the other hand, in the offices, we are making efforts to reduce the amount of paper waste generated by devising new ways of holding meetings and making paper copies and are also promoting the sale of wastepaper. We are also promoting paperless operations including digitization of stored documents. While continuing to treat waste appropriately in compliance with related laws and regulations, we are further promoting the reduction of waste generation and increasing recycling with the aim of effectively using resources as we pursue ways to contribute to the creation of a recycling-oriented society.

Keenly aware of the importance of water conservation, we implement measures such as the reduction of our industrial water consumption and the reuse of wastewater. Kawashima Plant and Tsukuba Research Laboratories consume a large quantity of groundwater and have systems in place to prevent groundwater pollution in compliance with the Water Pollution Prevention Act. Most of our production and research sites outside Japan use city water. According to an in-house survey based on a medium-term projection, none of our production and research sites are located in an area where they could easily become non-operational if a water shortage were to occur. However, according to the analysis of the database Think Hazard and Aqueduct, there is expected to be medium-level risk of water shortages in China, India and Indonesia. While always taking into account the risk of facing water shortages due to changes in the environment caused by the progress of climate change, we will strive to ensure stable supplies of high-quality products.

Following the intensification of our production and research activities, the total amount of waste generated rose 358 tons in fiscal 2021. However, the amount of waste recycled also rose 400 tons through the selection of waste disposal contractors that actively promote thorough sorting and resource recycling. (The amount of waste recycled including valuable waste rose 278 tons.) The recycling ratio is 36.1%, increased by 6.6% from the previous year. (The amount of waste recycled including valuable waste is 52.4%, increased by 2.7% from the previous fiscal year.) Meanwhile, the amount of waste sent to landfill decreased by 2.2 tons to 11.4 tons, achieving zero emissions.