Environmental Initiatives
Santen creates a mechanism to contribute to the society through the business as well as to fulfill its social responsibilities, with full recognition of conserving the global environment as one of the most important common challenges of humankind.
Information on environment initiatives is disclosed in Environment Data
Santen Group Environmental Conservation Policy
Santen has established the "Santen Group Environmental Conservation Policy" in order to promote and develop environmental conservation activities globally.
Santen Group Environmental Conservation Policy
To contribute to the conservation of the sustainable global environment based on Santen's Values-Tenki ni sanyo suru(*)-the Santen Group devotes positive efforts to preserving local environments, helping prevent global warming, enhancing the effectiveness of resource use, and conserving biodiversity and forests in all countries/regions where it operates. For this purpose, the group promotes the following initiatives:
- Establishing an environmental management system
We will establish an environmental management system that allows us to conduct activities for environmental conservation effectively and continuously.
- Carrying out continuous improvements
We will assess environmental risks, set targets and plans based on the assessment, and strive to carry out continuous improvements through implementation, examination and review.
- Complying with laws and regulations
We will comply with environment-related law, ordinances and agreements, and also with our voluntarily established environmental standards.
- Preventing environmental pollution and reducing environmental loads
- To help prevent global warming, we will strive to lower our greenhouse gas emissions, to contribute to achieving a decarbonizing society.
- We will promote the waste-related initiative of the 3Rs-reduce, reuse and recycle-and use resources in a sustainable way, to contribute to building a circulating society.
- We will promote the preservation and efficient use of water resources.
- We will strive to prevent air and water pollution and appropriately manage chemical substances.
- We will promote the conservation of biodiversity and forests.
-
Raising employees' environmental awareness
We will provide employees with environmental education, and conduct activities to enhance their environmental knowledge, to raise their awareness of environmental conservation.
-
Disclosing information appropriately
We will positively disclose information related to our environmental conservation activities.
- "Tenki ni sanyo suru": Santen's original interpretation of a passage from chapter 22 of Zhongyong (The Doctrine of the Mean) by Confucius, meaning "Exploring the secrets and mechanisms of nature in order to contribute to people' health"
This policy has been approved by the Board of Directors.
Environmental Vision for 2050
We have established "Santen Vision for the Earth 2050" which includes target in 2030 such as the amount of CO2 emissions reduction. Santen makes a full commitment to the following two areas in all countries and regions of its operation. The first commitment area is "Measures against Climate Change", which are aimed at the achievement of net zero greenhouse gas emissions toward the Realization of a Carbon-free Society mainly through technological innovation toward an energy shift and thorough reuse and highly efficient use of resources at plants and other facilities. The second commitment area is "Environmental Load Reduction", which is aimed at the Establishment of a Recycling-based Society mainly through the full utilization of sustainable resources and materials based on technological innovation for all products.
Environmental Targets and Progress towards 2030 for Santen Vision for the Earth 2050
| Theme | Targets | Progress in FY2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Measures against Climate Change | Contribution to a carbon-free society
Targets
|
|
| Environmental Load Reduction (Measures for water resource and resource saving) | Conservation of limited resources, including water as the life of eye drops
Targets
|
|
| Environmental Load Reduction (Measures against plastic) | Reduce and shift from plastic, and become plastic-free
Targets
|
|
- Scope 1 emissions: Direct GHG emissions from sources owned or controlled by the Company (fuel combustion and industrial processes)
Scope 2 emissions: Indirect GHG emissions from the generation of purchased energy, such as electricity, heat, and steam
Scope 3 Category 1 emissions: Scope 3 emissions denote indirect GHG emissions, other than Scope 1 and 2 emissions, resulting from a company's value chain activities, which are not owned or controlled by the Company. Among them, Category 1 emissions are emissions from all purchased goods and services. - SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative): A joint initiative to encourage companies to set and achieve science-based targets for GHG emissions reduction in line with the Paris Agreement
- Paris Agreement: An agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which has set the target of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2℃ above pre-industrial levels
- Based on figures that do not include estimated CO2 emissions derived from gasoline for overseas sales vehicles.
- In FY2022, water consumption increased temporarily due to the launch of a new building at the Shiga Product Supply Center. If this effect is deducted, the water usage per production quantity in FY2022 is 13.5m3/10,000 bottles.
Environmental Management System
We have established environmental conservation systems integrated with business activities at all Group companies, as well as addressing various environmental challenges, promoting environmental conservation initiatives through every single employee's autonomous activities. Noto Plant, Shiga Product Supply Center and Suzhou Plant in China have acquired ISO 14001 certification, which is the international standard for environmental management systems, and conduct environmental audits.
Acquisition of ISO 14001 Certifications
| Organization | Area | Acquisition date |
|---|---|---|
As integrated organization
| Manufacture of Medicinal Chemicals Cleaning of Aseptic and Dust-free Gownings | December 2014 |
| Suzhou Plant(China) | Production of pharmaceuticals | February 2019 |
Environmental Audit
Each plant takes the initiative in conducting regular internal audits to check whether the environmental management system is appropriately operated, in addition to the external ISO 14001 audit. Furthermore, Santen accepts on-the-spot audits by commissioned companies of the process of commissioned production, providing good opportunities to learn about other companies' efforts, and contributing to improving our environmental measures.
Environmental Impact of Our Products
We strive to minimize the environmental impact of our products and manufacturing processes. In research and development activities, a compound to be the active ingredient for a product undergoes non-clinical studies in order to estimate its pharmacokinetics and safety following the rigorous standards mandated by GLP(*). Chemical substances used in our laboratories and plants are properly handled with assessing their toxicity and hazardousness and determining the amount released or transferred to the environment. We focus on environmental concerns from the entire product lifecycle perspective, by replacing plastic materials for eye-drop containers with biomass plastic, reducing plastic materials for packaging materials, and giving priority to the use of recycled paper for outer boxes.
- Good Laboratory Practice, or a set of guidelines for non-clinical safety studies.
Grasping the Overview of Environmental Impact and Environmental Accounting
Santen grasps the overview of environmental impact, comprised of input such as energy usage, input of materials, and input of water resources, and output such as release into the air and water, and the release of waste and other materials. It also grasps and analyzes the costs of environmental conservation efforts (investments and costs) and their effects (economic effects and environmental conservation effects) to promote effective activities for mitigating environmental impact.
| FY2021 | FY2022 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Investments | Expenses | Investments | Expenses | ||
| Business area costs | 5.4 | 149.0 | 46.9 | 214.2 | |
| Pollution prevention | 3.7 | 64.7 | 9.3 | 72.2 | |
| Global environmental conservation | 1.8 | 53.4 | 29.6 | 76.7 | |
| Resource circulation | 0.0 | 30.9 | 7.9 | 65.3 | |
| Upstream/downstream costs | - | 11.5 | 0.0 | 14.0 | |
| Administration costs | 2.9 | 131.4 | 3.2 | 134.0 | |
| R&D costs | - | - | 0.0 | 0.0 | |
| Social activity costs | - | 1.4 | 0.0 | 1.5 | |
| Environmental damage costs | - | 99.1 | 0.0 | 7.5 | |
| Total | 8.4 | 392.4 | 50.1 | 371.2 | |
- Good Laboratory Practice, or a set of guidelines for non-clinical safety studies.
- The cost includes the depreciation amount and was accounted for the same way as the accounting.
- Current investment includes both the investment amount and expense.
- otal number was only a rough estimation because the totals were rounded off.
- The employment cost of the environmental management department and operation and maintenance of the environmental management system was accounted for as administration costs.
- “－” means no cost or no activities.
| FY2021 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|
| Profits from sales of waste etc | 57.5 | 84.4 |
| Cost reductions | 13.2 | 21.8 |
- Only economic effects that can be determined with a high degree of certainty are included in the calculation.
Environmental Accidents
There was no accident that causes environmental pollution, i.e. soil contamination, and no infraction of laws or regulations related environmental issues, at our business sites in Japan or other countries in FY2022.
| FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accidents | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Complaints | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Official SNS
