Environment
Environmental Management
The Sumitomo Electric Group recognizes that addressing global environmental issues including climate change is one of its key management issues, and continues to engage in environmental protection activities from a global perspective, in accordance with the Environmental Policy established in 1997.
Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation
Each division is endeavoring to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect the precious global environment.
Preventing Environmental Pollution
The Group is committed to properly managing chemical substances contained in its products, communicating information on chemical substances throughout the supply chain, properly managing chemical substances used in manufacturing at its factories, and reducing the amount of harmful chemical substances released into the environment, with the aim of complying with laws and regulations, earning the trust of its customers and consumers, protecting the health and safety of its employees, and contributing to environmental protection.
Promoting Circular Economy
Waste Reduction and Recycling Promotion
In recent years, the problems of marine plastic waste and resource depletion due to an increasing world population and economic development have attracted attention, making the transition to a recycling-oriented society a challenge that must be tackled. The Group has always considered the issues of resource depletion and the saturation of landfill sites to be important challenges and has therefore been working to reduce the volumes of waste discharged and promote recycling.
Promoting Raw Material Recycling
Recovering resources from used products after providing products to customers plays a major role in building a circular economy. The Group promotes the recycling of copper, the main raw material of our products, and rare metals, which are limited resources. In addition, we collect used electric wires and cables, optical fiber cables, and cemented carbide chips for cutting processes and recycle them as raw materials for our products.
Water Resource Management
In recent years, the problem of water resources has emerged as a risk that could have a major impact on business operations, and investors and customers are calling on the Group to address this problem.Water-related issues include not only a shortage of water supply, but also deteriorating water quality, flood damage, stricter government regulations, and relations with surrounding local communities. The Group is working to identify and address these challenges.
Biodiversity Conservation
Our operations are supported by the blessings of nature (ecosystem services) in terms of, for example, the procurement of raw materials and manufacturing of products. We believe that in order to continue our operations, we need to contribute to ecosystem conservation and community environmental preservation.
Contributing to Global Environment Through Our Business
Sumitomo Electric Group is striving to increase environmentally friendly products as an environmental policy and when developing new products, as well as when making major design changes to existing products, we perform environmental assessment of products to promote energy saving and reduce use of resources. Calculating the contribution to society of the products, we certify the products with particularly outstanding environmental features as “Eco products.” From fiscal 2023, through “Go for Green 2025,” a mid-term target which aims to realize a greener environmental society, we are striving to increase the sales of products and services capable of making green contributions (a business activity that helps realize a greener environmental society).
Sumitomo Electric Group’s GX
Sumitomo Electric Group makes a concerted effort, leveraging its full strength, to promote GX (green transformation) toward the realization of a green society. We introduce the Group’s products, technologies, and services that contribute to GX, as well as the Group’s initiatives related to GX, such as those related to decarbonization, circular economy, and nature positivity.
