Promoting Zero Emissions

The "3R" concept (Reduction, Reuse, and Recycling) promoted by the Yokogawa Group is indispensable to global environmental conservation. The Yokogawa Group defines zero emissions as recycling and reusing 99% or more of the total amount of waste generated. Up to now, the Yokogawa Electric Headquarter and five main factories have met the goals of zero emissions.

The waste emissions in fiscal year 2008 amounted to 0.17 t per 100 million yen on a unit sales basis (634 tons in total). The Yokogawa Group has taken specific initiatives to reduce waste by reutilizing unwanted office furniture, returning direct mails to the senders and so on. Furthermore, Yokogawa Electric was recognized as an Eco Partner (a waste reduction and recycling promotion company) by the city of Musashino for its separating, reutilizing and recycling of the waste and enthusiastic environmental activities.

• * The Eco Partner (waste reduction and recycling promotion company) system was established by the city of Musashino, Tokyo to recognize the achievement of companies that are actively committed to reducing waste and the consumption of energy and resources.

In Yokogawa manufacturing Tachikawa office, the Yokogawa Eco-Boxes were developed for transporting the products. The Yokogawa Eco-Box is a tote box and the size of the box is adjustable according to the quantity and size of the products. This type of tote boxes began to be used for transporting products between Yokogawa manufacturing Kofu factory and Yokogawa Electric China Co., Ltd. in Suzhou in June, 2009. When using conventional tote boxes, since the size of the box is not adjustable, the spaces need to be filled with excessive cushion materials during transportation. However, when using the Yokogawa Eco-Box, the box can be adjusted to four different sizes; largely reducing the usage of cushion materials. Moreover, the measurement of the box is designed according to the size of container so that when piling up the boxes in a transportation container, the idle space in the container is minimized. This development largely reduced the cushion material waste and transportation cost, consequently, the CO2 emissions are also reduced. In the future, this transportation method will be introduced for transporting products between the group companies in Korea and Japan.

In Yokogawa Manufacturing Komine factory, reutilization of recyclable resources from the waste was put into practice to reduce food garbage from the cafeteria.

Until recently, the food garbage from the cafeteria was mainly disposed as burnable trash. Recently, neutralizing the food garbage by earthworm composting method which is reportedly adopted in a number of foreign countries was practiced in Komine factory as an effort to reduce organic waste. First, an earthworm composting box was prepared, then 1250 Sima earthworms were put into the box. The earworms are fed using the garbage from the cafeteria. This effort reduced the organic wastes by 1%. In the future, Komine factory plans to compost more earthworms to reutilize more organic garbage to reduce organic waste.