Environmental Policy

Nifco's vision for the future is a prosperous and sustainable society, and manufacturing environmentally friendly products is a strong driving force to achieve this.

Nifco Group Environmental Policy Basic Policy

Nifco* recognizes that environmental conservation is one of the most important issues for realizing a sustainable society and is committed to biodiversity and global environmental conservation throughout its value chain, including business activities and products.

  • *

    Nifco: All companies belonging to the Nifco Group Action Guidelines

Code of Conduct

  • We will share this environmental policy with all employees in order to implement and maintain it. We will also present this policy to our suppliers and ask for their cooperation in protecting the environment.

  • We will comply with environmental laws, ordinances, agreements, etc.

  • We will establish and implement environmental targets to the extent technically and economically feasible, review them periodically, and strive to continuously improve our environmental management system and prevent environmental pollution.

  • We will promote energy conservation and resource recycling and strive to prevent global warming and realize a recycling-oriented society.

  • We will strive to reduce all waste generated in our business activities.

  • We will thoroughly manage chemical substances contained in products.

  • We will promote the development of clean and comfortable products that are environmentally friendly and strive to reduce environmental impact.

  • We will promote environmental awareness among all employees and strive to participate in and support environmental conservation activities.

  • We will disclose information on our environmental preservation activities as appropriate and communicate with society.

Environmental Management System

We have established an Environmental Management System (EMS) based on the international standard ISO 14001. Since obtaining ISO 14001 certification in March 2001, we have been developing systems, establishing mechanisms, and promoting environmental activities as an EMS linked to our business activities.
In particular, we plan, implement, evaluate, and improve activities on a PDCA cycle on a division-by division basis, with a focus on contributing to society through our products and reducing the environmental impact of our business activities.
The effectiveness of the EMS is confirmed through periodic internal audits and management reviews, and improvements are made to address issues in order to raise the level of our efforts.

System for promoting EMS

Environmental activities managers have been appointed at all sites to which the EMS is applied and are working on a management program that takes into account the characteristics of their operations. In addition, reviews are conducted by management as a summary of annual activities to evaluate conformity, appropriateness, and effectiveness.
74.9% of our Group companies have obtained the ISO 14001 certificates, including three companies (nine sites) in Japan and 24 companies overseas.

Compliance with environmental laws and regulations

We regularly check the status of compliance with applicable environmental laws and regulations at each domestic business site, and there were no violations of environmental laws and regulations in FY2021.

Toward the development of expert personnel

We conduct training for EMS practitioners to enhance the expertise of employees who promote environmental activities. The program is designed to be useful in practice, with participants learning how to integrate operations and EMS and implement PDCA and related regulations, etc. In FY2022, 86 employees participated in the program.
In the past, we have focused on improving the skills of existing auditors, but in light of the need to develop new human resources, we conducted training for new internal auditors in FY2022, and we certified 66 auditors as qualified internal auditors.

Supply chain collaborations

Nifco promotes environmental initiatives together with its suppliers, who are important business partners. We have long agreed on environmental preservation standards and have asked each of our suppliers to comply with them.
In FY2022, as in the previous year, we audited 14 suppliers on site, mainly from the perspective of compliance with environmental laws and regulations, and 69 suppliers were asked to conduct voluntary audits. After the audits, their respective issues and countermeasures are shared with our company to help lead to further improvements.

Introducing IT tools for substances of concern (SOC) management

We have been actively using IT tools for SOC management since 2004, which is ahead of other companies in the industry. And in 2018, we revamped them as “N-SOC” and introduced them to all of our sites in Japan. In 2018, we renewed them as “N-SOC” and introduced them to all domestic bases. By linking the system with our core system, IMDS, a reporting
tool for the automotive industry, and chemSHERPA, a reporting tool for all industries, we are now able to respond promptly to environment-related regulations, which have recently been tightened, especially in Europe. We plan to introduce these systems to our overseas offices in the future.

Results of SOC-related surveys in FY2022

Following the revision of the POPs Convention,* which is the basis of SOC-related regulations in various countries, Europe and other countries are strengthening their SOC-related regulations. In response, Nifco received many inquiries and survey requests from customers regarding PFCAs (organic fluorinated compounds), UV-328 (ultraviolet absorbers), and other substances. We received requests for 36,127 items, a 84% increase over the previous year (2nd highest level ever) . We investigated all of them and confirmed that there were no violations of laws and regulations.

  • *

    The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants （POPs） is an international convention for the control and management of persistent organic pollutants, particularly toxic substances.

Publication of NCSL: Nifco Chemical Substances List Rev 5.0

In addition to the chemical substances that are required to be banned or reported by environmental regulations, Nifco also deals with chemical substances that suppliers are required to ban or report on their own as customer-specific requirements. Every year, we prepare the Nifco Chemical Substances List (NCSL) and distribute it to all suppliers, requesting that they prohibit and report these substances.