Environmental Management

Supporting System of CSR & Environmental Affairs

Yokohama Rubber has established a system to plan for and promote important social responsibility issues facing the entire Yokohama Rubber Group, with the ultimate goal to build a trusted identify as a contributing member of the global community. The CSR Council led by the Chairman and CEO as well as the Environmental Council chaired by the President serve as the supervising bodies that promote CSR and environmental management. Each of these councils meets twice per annum. The CSR Council deliberates safety, quality, human rights, labor practices, social contribution activities, corporate governance and compliance matters. The Environmental Council evaluates the performance of the Yokohama Rubber Group’s environmental activities and the progress made in response to issues, and proposes improvements for subsequent fiscal years.
We also have three task forces, six committees, and one sub-council that promote CSR and environmental activities as sub-bodies within both councils.

Refer here for the CSR and environmental management promotion framework.

To practice consistent and high-level environmental management at all of our overseas business locations, we hold a Global Environment Council meeting each year, which is a gathering of managers from our overseas business locations. Fourteen people, including from major overseas factories and core distribution subsidiaries, attended the FY2013 event held on December 11. At this meeting we held discussions on matters such as the establishment local of environmental management frameworks for each region, CSR in accordance with ISO26000, and the external communication of environmental activities, and confirmed that we would further strengthen CSR activities at overseas business locations and environmental management.
It was decided to promote to establish local environmental management frameworks in each region, and during FY2013 we held an environment council, conducted joint environmental audits, and have promoted to establish common environmental objectives and environmental training and audit programs in China.

Refer here for the overseas CSR and environmental management and promotion framework.

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Enforcement of Global Environmental Management Based on ISO14001

We aim to keep up with the high-quality environmental management under the same standard both in domestic and overseas group companies; thereby we have placed ISO14001 which is the international standard of Environmental Management System as the basis of our management.
We are trying to get all our operation sites to obtain ISO14001; so far, a total of 15 operation sites in Japan, comprising ten from Yokohama Rubber and five from our group for domestic operations have obtained it, whereas overseas a total of 13 operation sites have been certified.
Note that during FY2012, ISO14001 integrated certification was acquired for the integrated environmental management of Yokohama Rubber’s ten production bases and the head office, reflecting the high level of homogenization.
In addition, our non-manufacturing sites are promoting environment management in accordance with ‘Environment GD100’ and our approach to the environment. The Yokohama Rubber head office in Japan and a Group distribution subsidiary in Australia have acquired ISO14001 certification, under which they are further advancing their environmental management.

Click here to refer to our Participation in Worldwide Approaches.

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Execution of Comprehensive Environmental Audit

We are conducting audits as to continual progression for improvement on the management system of environmental management, improvement on the environmental performance, and minimizing environmental risks per operation unit by conducting internal audits of business locations as a first-party audit, corporate wide environmental audits by the CSR and Environmental Affairs Department as a second-party audit, and an external audit as a third-party audit every year (all audits are based on ISO14001). Also, our CSR and Environmental Affairs Department is checking and verifying the score of self-evaluation at each business site in accordance with the guidelines of the "Environment GD100" for domestic distribution companies within our group.
Incidentally, there was no suspected item as to any violation against environmental legislation among all the auditing items in the fiscal year of 2013.

Internal Audit(ISO14001)

According to our manual of ISO14001:2004, we conducted likewise at all our operation sites in the fiscal year of 2013 as well.
Through our internal audit, we can make sure of our continual leverage of the function levels from our environmental management system. We conducted our audit not just to operate and maintain the "Environmental Management System", but also by setting our common themes as "whether our system is duly functioning for our purposes, whether each of our group is walking the talk by reviewing and setting up the guidelines, purposes, and target by shifting more focus on the reduction of environmental burden even more proactive manners during their normal business activities."

Corporate-Wide Environmental Audit

In order to make overall improvements to environmental management and work towards the cross deployment of key issues, corporate wide environmental audits are conducted by the CSR and Environmental Affairs Department.
In the fiscal year of 2013 as well, we thoroughly audited the chemical substance control system mainly for our production sites. Also, we were promoting various activities to contribute to the society and implementing checks focused on the level of communication with local residents nearby which is initiated by each of our operation site.

External Audit (ISO14001)

During FY 2013, an integrated EMS certification registration audit was conducted by an ISO audit registration organization that covered all of Yokohama Rubber's production bases and its Headquarters, and as a result certification was acquired. No serious flaws with our management system were pointed out during the audit. From FY 2014 the scope of the integration certification will be expanded to include domestic production subsidiaries (Yokohama Tire Retread, Yokohama Mold).

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Enforcement of Environmental Training and Enlightenment

Environmental Training

We have incorporated environmental training as one of the subjects for newly hired employees. Also, we are holding a "Techno College" which is CSR and environmental training by targeting our technicians and staff member who have been with our company for two to three years. Incidentally, a total of 50 persons attended this seminar in the fiscal year of 2013.
Meanwhile, in order for our managerial and supervisor level employees to thoroughly understand ISO14001, we are conducting "training classes for environmental internal auditor". Including 285 personnel who have completed this course to get certified in the fiscal year of 2013, currently total 1,716 personnel have been registered and are already active as our internal auditors.
We conducted skill improvement seminars to further improve the skill levels of employees with internal auditor qualifications. Lecturers from external educational institutions were invited twice in July and December to provide training on ISO14001 audit methodologies for a total of 32 environmental operations employees and lead auditors.

Enhancement of our Personnel Enlightenment

As part of our activities for personnel enlightenment for the environment, we are conducting something to aim for improvement by getting involved with our entire personnel by sending our President's message towards all our employees in the Energy Saving Month in February and the Environment Month in June every year. During our Environment Month in June, we are open for any proposals with regards to energy saving from all our employees, followed by awarding the ones among all the entries which have brought about significant improvement effect for energy saving. Also, in addition to our proposals for improvement, we are internally gathering environmental slogans and environmental posters. In the fiscal year of 2013, we were able to receive 5,688 entries for slogans and 124 entries for posters.

President's Award for Environmental Contribution

As a part of our strategy to raise awareness and enlighten with regards to the environment through our work operation, we have been giving out a "President's Award for Environmental Contribution" through our system. The fields for the award consists of a "Factory Award" for the production group, a "Products Award" for the groups of development and designing of environmentally-friendly products, and an "Office Award" for secretarial groups such as sales and administrative teams, as well as a “Special Award” that has been established for especially unique product development efforts and initiatives.
We select these upon screening and reviewing as to their activities for the past one year per case description of their field from all our groups of our entire corporation. The award winning groups from each award will receive the certificate from our President every year.
By implementing this "President's Award for Environmental Contribution", it is evident that all our employees can have even better awareness of "Getting involved with environmental contribution" from their daily operation work.

The President's Award for Environmental Contribution in the Fiscal Year of 2013

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Compliance with Various Legal Restrictions

Zero Environmental Accidents

There was no incident of Environmental Accident in the fiscal year of 2013.

Strengthening our Compliance with various Regulated Parameters

From fiscal year of 2008 onwards, we are trying to strengthen our control measures by setting up our voluntary control values in order to ensure our compliance of regulated parameters. We are reviewing our voluntary control values on a regular basis based on our measurement value in the past by reflecting onto statistical method. Also, we are fortifying our control system by internally defining terminologies such as "Environmental Trouble, Major Environmental Near-Accident, and Environmental Near-Accident".
We will act immediately for corrective measures in the event of any environmental trouble or major environmental near-accident occurring.

Definition of Terminologies

• Environmental Accident
  1. An accident that causes significant damage outside the company and was covered in the newspaper or other news media.
  2. An accident that results in a government cease and desist order, such as improvement order or suspension of use order.
• Environmental Trouble
  1. A situation that results government warning or instruction.
  2. A situation where the company failed to meet a pollution regulation requirement.
  3. A situation where an environmental pollutant such as carbon, waste oil or solvent is leaked or emitted into the environment from a factory, resulting in minor pollution.
  4. A situation deemed as an environmental trouble by the company’s environmental officer (General Manager of the CSR & Environmental Affairs Department).
• Major Environmental Near-Accident
  1. A near-accident in which environmental pollution was not caused outside the business site, but a liquid pollutant leaked or was at risk of leaking into the drainage canal or the street gutter connected to the drainage canal.
  2. A situation deemed as a major environmental near-accident by the company or site’s environmental manager because it has been identified as an emergency situation in advance after it exceeded the predetermined environmental impact score set for each site.
• Environmental Near-Accident
  1. A minor leakage of a liquid pollutant or scattering of a powdered pollutant not considered as an environmental accident, environmental trouble or major environmental near-accident above.
  2. A situation where the leakage of a liquid pollutant or scattering of a powdered pollutant was about to occur or was anticipated to occur.

Our Response to Environmental Troubles

There were two cases of environmental troubles (one casein Onomichi Plant, one case in Mie Plant) in the fiscal year of 2013; we had thereby taken corrective measures accordingly.
For any environmental troubles unable to comply with regulated values, we reported to the governmental body immediately after such occurrence.

Our Response to Major Environmental Near-Accident

There were eight cases of major environmental near-accident in the fiscal year of 2013 for water quality (including non-conformity of voluntary control value of water discharge); we thereby took corrective measures accordingly.
For major environmental near-accidents which exceeded their voluntary control values, we investigated the cause of each case and rolled out measures and disseminated information to ensure that similar near-accidents would not occur at each plant.