Our daily lives depend greatly on plentiful global resources. MC believes it is important to simultaneously generate three kinds of value: economic value, societal value, and environmental value - while benefiting in a sustainable manner from limited resources within our planetary boundaries. MC’s Environmental Charter positions this as a key consideration in business activities by clarifying that we will promote the sustainable use of natural resources including energy, minerals, food stocks, wood and water throughout our global business operations. Specifically, MC strives to recycle, reuse, and efficiently use resources, reduce the ecological footprint of our business activities, maintain healthy stocks in fishing activities, and otherwise efficiently utilize resources in accordance with our business operations.

Reference:Mitsubishi Corporation Environmental Charter

Reference:Diagram of the Sustainability Promotion Framework

Risk Management

When reviewing and making decisions on loan and investment proposals, MC conducts a comprehensive screening process which considers not only economic aspects, but ESG factors as well. This includes considering measures to address recycling and closed-loop businesses, waste management and related matters. Besides screening new investment and exit proposals, MC also strives to make improvements to existing business investments by monitoring their management practices.

Reference:Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence

With regard to waste emissions in its Head Offices, in principle, MC aims to reduce emissions by 1% from the previous fiscal year, and targets are set based on the previous fiscal year’s results. In addition, with regard to recycling rates, MC has set a goal of achieving zero waste emissions offices^＊, with the aim of recycling at least 95% of the waste produced by MC.

＊ MC defines “zero emissions” as cases where vendors are contracted to recycle 95% or more of waste produced by its Head Offices. MC also promotes waste reduction, reuse, and recycling, and manages Head Office activities with waste emissions targets.

Scope of aggregation (Non-Consolidated): Mitsubishi Shoji Building, Marunouchi Park Building, and certain other offices in Tokyo

Recycling and Closed-Loop Business Initiatives (Chuo Kagaku)

Since its establishment, MC subsidiary Chuo Kagaku Co. Ltd. (Chuo Kagaku) has been promoting business operations with consideration of the environment in mind. As the world becomes increasingly concerned about solving environmental issues such as global warming, marine plastic waste, garbage, waste, and food loss, Japan enacted the Plastic Resource Circulation Act in June 2021. Chuo Kagaku is accelerating its efforts to address environmental issues in response to these developments in Japan and overseas. Specifically, Chuo Kagaku is developing and expanding environmentally friendly materials and products, and strengthening recycling efforts.

One example of an environmentally-friendly material and product that can be used safely in all food products is CHUO A-PET GREEN (C-APG), an ECO MARK certified product, and which makes effective use of resources by using recycled PET as the raw material for plastic containers. Its safety has also been ensured by meeting voluntary industry standards that comply with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The product epitomizes the company’s drive to address social issues pertaining to the environmental and safety.

Chuo Kagaku has also developed "TALFA", which uses talc (a natural resource) as its main raw material, "MAPKA", which uses paper powder as its main raw material, and "BioCT" and "BioCF" which use more than 10% plant-derived plastic, each of which contribute to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Also, the company is also actively developing "Ever Value", a highly functional gas barrier container that extends the expiration date and reduces food waste by sealing freshness-preserving gases within the container to inhibit food oxidation and the growth of bacteria.

In recycling, it has been voluntarily collecting used plastic food containers from consumer co-ops, supermarkets and other organizations since 1990. Working closely with local service providers, MC promotes recycling at the regional level by selecting the most effective method after analyzing various options, and thus reducing its environmental burden. Chemical recycling uses steel mill facilities to pyrolyze basic chemical materials, which are then turned into plastic materials, some of which are returned to food trays. In thermal recycling, the material can be crushed and solidified to represent an alternative to coal and other fuels. It can also be used as boiler fuel for paper companies and power generation facilities. In material recycling, the materials can be transformed into recycled products, such as benches, through crushing, melting, and other processes.

In FY 2020, the company collected a total of 1,669 tons of used plastic food packaging containers, and was awarded the Silver Prize in the "Eco Mark Award 2016," organized by the Eco Mark Secretariat of the Japan Environment Association. In the future, we will continue to develop and expand environmentally friendly materials and products, as well as strengthen recycling.

Furthermore, Chuo Kagaku has formulated environmental impact reduction plans every five years since 2006 and is forging ahead with environmental initiatives. In 2017, MC established the Third Five-Year Plan to Reduce Environmental Impact (2017–2021).

Chuo Kagaku Co., Ltd.’s Third Five-Year Plan to Reduce Environmental Impact (2017–2021)

(2) Promoting collection and recycling of used plastic food containers from stores

With the cooperation of consumers, retailers such as supermarkets, and packaging material stores, Chuo Kagaku collects used plastic food packaging at stores and employs a variety of recycling processes to transform such materials into usable resources again. Chuo Kagaku also fulfills its obligations as a manufacturer of plastic food containers under Japan’s Containers and Packaging Recycling Law, with regard to recycling used plastic food containers collected by municipalities nationwide. The amount collected over the past 31 years has been 932.26 million tons, or 23.3 billion sheets (1 sheet equals 4 grams ).

Nosan Corporation, a consolidated subsidiary of MC, uses Eco Feed^＊ as a raw material for its formulated livestock feed, with the aim of helping to increase the food recycling rate and enhance the livestock feed and food self-sufficiency rate. Currently, Nosan Corporation uses approximately 7,000 MT per year of dried Eco Feed recycled from discarded by-products of food production, unsold food products, leftovers from cooking etc., and approximately 20,000 MT per year of by-products from bakeries and confectionery factories (bread crumbs, cake flour). These are used as raw materials for livestock feed.

＊ A livestock feed manufactured using by-products of food production (by-products obtained from the food production process), unsold food products (bread and boxed lunches, etc.) leftovers from cooking (cut vegetable scraps and other leftovers from cooking) and residual farm products (imperfect farm produce, etc.).

Recycling and Closed-Loop Business Initiatives (Livestock Business)

Japan Farm Holdings Inc., a consolidated subsidiary of MC, is a large-scale livestock company which won the Fiscal 2016 Eco-Feed Award from the Japan Livestock Industry Association for its work building a closed-loop recycling model. The model is centered on reusing waste generated from a primary industry, specifically the lees left over from producing the distilled liquor shochu. Japan Farm is located in Kagoshima Prefecture, which is famous for sweet potato shochu manufacturing. The by-product waste known as lees from shochu manufacturing had been an ongoing issue. To solve this problem, Japan Farm worked in collaboration with local distilleries for over two years to develop feed that reuses the shochu lees. The feed is used for breeding pigs for “Brand Pork.” Along with reducing waste disposal costs and CO₂ emissions, a closed-loop model has been established in such a manner where the manure from the pigs given the feed is recycled into fertilizer sold by vendors such as local agricultural cooperatives.
Japan Farm also maintains and operates a biomass power generation facility that uses chicken manure from the farm as fuel to generate "steam and electrical energy" for effective use. The electricity generated is used as a power source for the facility, while the steam generated by the boiler is used as a heat source. Ash generated during incineration is sold to outside parties as a raw material for fertilizer containing effective minerals, and surplus electricity generated during the night is sold to electric power companies.

Reference:From the Japan Livestock Industry Association website page providing eco-feed information (Japanese only)

http://ecofeed.lin.gr.jp/excellent/uploads/files/jirei2016_japanfarm.pdf
 

Paper Consumption (Non-Consolidated)

Scope of aggregation: Head Offices, six Japan-based branches and offices under each branch’s jurisdiction

Scope of aggregation: Consolidated (Main Japan-based subsidiaries)
Calculation method: Total wastewater volume for Non-Consolidated and consolidated.

Reference:Water Withdrawal, Water Recycling Volume and Rate

ESG Data marked with a star (⋆) for the year ended March 2021 has received independent practitioner’s assurance from Deloitte Tohmatsu Sustainability Co., Ltd.

Reference:Independent Practitioner’s Assurance Report