F: Last year, we conducted many CSR activities, including the issuance of our group's first CSR report. What are your thoughts, reflecting back on the past year?
Y: What stood out the most for me in last year's CSR activities was the “Creating environmentally conscious merchandise” which was one of the Offensive CSR that I led as the general manager of the Research & Technical Development Division That is still in focus for this year. In 2025, we aim to have more than 75% of the products shipped by our group be environmentally-friendly merchandises. Last year, we achieved 73%. We're almost there!
More specifically speaking, we want to sell bio paints. As of today,the exhibitions at EXPO 2025 are finished with microalgae-based bio paint, which is still being developed for further improvement. I am happy to see that the project we had started about two years ago with the support from partner companies is now finally about to bear fruit.
F: Although the amount of oil that could be drawn out from algae is still small and not ready for mass production, I look forward to it too. I see that its gradually taking form to become a product. We definitely will continue to strive for development of microalgae-based bio paints!
Y: China has the best track record regarding the sales of environmentally-friendly merchandises. Manufacturing is hot in China and many have highly recognized our water-based paints, especially from those involved in manufacture of consumer appliances. Originally, we were highly recognized for our soft feel coating. Even with the water-based soft feel coating, we were able to demonstrate the same texture and performance as the conventional solvent-based products. And so, our customers highly recognize these too.
To “enrich the world with our colors and technology” as we aim to
achieve as our group's purpose with these environmentally-friendly merchandises, cooperation from raw materials manufacturers is a must. We had members from procurement, environment management, and development share our group's policy on environmental preservation as well as the individual policies that each team had. It all started from getting our raw materials manufacturers understand and agree upon these policies.
Y: Currently, about 75% of our group's sales is made by our sites overseas. When our customers in Japan advance into the overseas market, we, too, follow their journey and make effort to produce paints in their locality. If it has been determined to produce locally, considering costs and supply, we then start with adopting local raw materials as this leads to the regional development that our customers want to see in their country/region.
F: When adopting local raw materials, the activities that we do everyday without giving them much thought... in other words, actions taken for defensive CSR such as quality management, assurance of safety, and chemical substance management, all play an important role, don't they?
Y: Yes, that's right. We make it a rule to first check that the raw materials we sought for satisfies our group's green procurement standards as well as the laws and regulations of each country before actually registering them to our group's database. I think it is important that we take each procedure with care to be able to meet the needs of our customers. People may first think merchandise development falls under offensive CSR, but both defensive and offensive actions must be considered for merchandise development.
We add on values on top of that to make these merchandises to be conscious. For example, bio paints developed with considerations to achieve carbon neutrality can be used to address the problem of global warming while UV curing-type paints can be used to address the conservation of energy. As of today, 2K curing-type paints is most typical. These need to be dried for about 30 minutes at 80 ℃. Meanwhile, UV curing-type paints can form coating films with drying of about 5 minutes at 60℃ and some UV irradiation.
Since we know that the electricity consumed during the drying process has an impact of the emission of CO2 , we plan to further enhance the development of UV curing-type paints. On the other hand, from perspective of factory facilities, the energy that we consume most at our group is electricity. Last year, we finished installing solar panels at our site in India. We plan to gradually reduce the ratio of fossil fuel-based power used and reduce the volume of CO2 emission.
F: I look forward to seeing the results. Creating an environmentally-conscious merchandise is never easy as one needs to overcome many technical challenges. However, I can see the strong will and passion carried out by top-notch technical developers such as yourself, Mr. Yamamoto. I was deeply moved by everyone's stance on fighting until the end.
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