Conservation of biodiversity, along with action on climate change, is becoming increasingly important for establishing a sustainable society, and is widely recognized as a global environmental issue that should be tackled in tandem with action on climate change. Over the past 50 years human activities have caused the extinction of species and the degradation of ecosystem services. Kureha Group is committed to understanding the dependence and impact of its business activities on natural capital, and to formulating and promoting initiatives for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity.

The Kureha Group applies the LEAP approach for assessing nature-related risks and opportunities, as recommended by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD).* The Leap approach is based on four phases: Locate a business’s interface with nature and specify priority locations to assess and report on, Evaluate its dependencies and impacts on nature, Assess nature-related risks and opportunities, and Prepare to respond and report information on those nature-related risks and opportunities.

At present, the Kureha Group is at the Locate phase of assessing its Specialty Chemicals business, its largest business in terms of operational scale.

To identify its natural capital-related issues at the Locate phase, the Kureha Group has determined its dependencies and impacts on nature by using ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks, and Exposure),* and selected the “manufacture of basic chemicals” and “manufacture of other chemical products” categories of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) for its Specialty Chemicals business. The results of the assessment showed that the Specialty Chemicals business’s dependencies on nature may have a comparatively high dependence on water supply services, soil and sediment retention services, water purification services, flood mitigation services, storm mitigation services, and water flow regulation services. The results also showed that the business appears to have an impact on nature with respect to its volume of water use, emissions of GHGs, emissions on non-GHG air pollutants, and generation and release of solid waste, and a very high impact on nature with respect to its emissions of toxic pollutants to water and soil, as well as noise and light disturbances.

Based on results of the assessment of its business’s dependencies and impacts on nature, the Kureha Group has specified 11 of its chemical production and processing sites around the world as priority locations for assessments and information disclosure.

In its priority locations, the Kureha Group has assessed physical water risks, specifically water stress¹ and flood risks, using Aqueduct² water risk analysis tools. This confirmed that none of its directly operated sites are in areas where the risk of water stress is high or extremely high, while five directly operated sites in Japan and other countries in the Asia/Oceania region are in areas where the risk of water stress is medium to high. At these sites, steps are being taken to appropriately manage and reduce water usage. The assessment also confirmed that the flood risks are high at two sites, one in North America and the other in the Asia/Oceania region. These sites have established emergency response plans and official procedures for dealing with floods as a means to mitigate disaster risks.

In the future, at the Evaluate phase of the LEAP approach, the Kureha Group will conduct assessments of priority locations identified at the Locate phase. To quantitatively assess its dependencies and impacts on nature, the Group is reviewing the environmental data it collects.

To lower the impact of its business activities on natural capital and to conserve biodiversity, the Kureha Group is working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and waste disposal, properly manage chemical substances, and implement measures for reducing environmental impact.