Water

Approach to Water｜Targets and Results｜Water Initiatives

  • Approach to Water

    Water is the source of life, which nurtures diverse ecosystems while circulating and interacting with the atmosphere, soil, oceans, and rivers on the earth. It is also an important resource indispensable for people’s lives and economic activities. Water shortages and increased flood risks due to global population growth, economic development, water pollution, and climate change have become important social issues, raising concerns about the serious impact on ecosystems, people’s lives, and economic activities.

     

    For the SHIONOGI Group (“SHIONOGI”), water is an essential resource for business continuity, and needs to be appropriately conserved and managed. SHIONOGI has identified “water” as Environmental Materiality. We assess the impact of water risks, such as water stress*1 and flooding, on our business, as well as the impact of our business activities on the water environment, and promote efforts to appropriately manage them.

     

    *1 Condition of strained water supply and demand

Targets and Results

Medium- and long-term targets

Graph of water consumption and productivity
Water consumption by source, Drainage by destination

Water Initiatives

Establishment of new medium- and long-term targets

SHIONOGI has set “Keep total water withdrawal at or less than 1,340 thousand m3 (around the FY2018 level) in FY2024” as the medium-term target for water, and has promoted water-saving measures at each operating site. However, in recent years, increased activity at research laboratories and plants has inevitably led to an increase in water withdrawal, heightening the need for SHIONOGI to align its business growth with its water-related target setting. Therefore, when reviewing the SHIONOGI Group EHS Action Targets in FY2023, we set a new target that is not dependent on an increase in water withdrawal due to business expansion: “a water resource return rate of 85% or more in FY2035.”*2 The water resource return rate (total water discharge volume divided by total water withdrawal volume multiplied by 100) is an indicator of the extent to which valuable water resources in the catchment area of each operating site have been returned to the said area. By establishing indicators that will easily reflect improvements made through on-site efforts, such as reducing the amount of wastewater discharged as waste and the use of steam in manufacturing processes, we will strengthen our efforts to conserve water resources.

*2 Actual results for the new targets will be published from FY2025 based on the results of the FY2024 survey.

Visualization of water consumption

To protect water resources, SHIONOGI has strived to control water consumption at each operating site by raising employee awareness of water conservation, thoroughly managing the withdrawal of tap water and industrial water, and reviewing manufacturing equipment operation and cleaning plans to promote water conservation. To further improve the accuracy of water use management, we believe that it is necessary to visualize the details of water consumption, water use purposes, and water discharge balance at SHIONOGI’s operating sites. In FY2023, we created the Water Balance Sheet for all plants with large water consumption in Japan and began considering measures to control water consumption based on it. In the future, we plan to roll out similar measures to our research facilities and overseas Group companies.

Pharmaceuticals in the Environment

Pharmaceuticals released into the environment are drawing an increasing amount of attention, as attested to by the report on Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (PiE)*3 published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). To responsibly utilize water during the pharmaceutical manufacturing process and appropriately control the inclusion of pharmaceuticals in industrial wastewater, when starting new product manufacturing processes, SHIONOGI confirms that drug concentration in wastewater is designed to be at a level that does not have any impact on the natural environment.

 

In particular, as the responsibility of a company that deals in infectious disease drugs, SHIONOGI inactivates antimicrobials in the wastewater from the manufacturing buildings at antimicrobial drug plants, and confirms that their content is at a level that does not affect the natural environment before discharging the wastewater outside via in-house treatment facilities. By taking these thorough measures, we are striving to control the release of antimicrobials from the plants and prevent the emergence of new antimicrobial resistance (AMR) caused by SHIONOGI’s manufacturing facilities. 

 

See the section “AMR” for more information on the environmental release management of antimicrobials.

*3 OECD “Pharmaceutical Residues in Freshwater” (External website)

Water risk assessment

Quality water is essential for pharmaceutical research and development as well as manufacturing at plants. Water depletion or flooding in the areas where our manufacturing plants are located can seriously impact our business continuity. Therefore, SHIONOGI assesses water risks, such as water stress and the probability of flooding, in the areas where our operating sites involved in manufacturing and research are located, using Aqueduct,*4 an internationally recognized assessment tool provided by the World Resources Institute (WRI), to consider measures to reduce the impact of and prevent water risks.

 

In-house deliberations based on the water risk assessment results and past experience and knowledge have led us to conclude that physical water risks at SHIONOGI’s operating sites are low. Meanwhile, in recent years, the impact of climate change and other factors has led to record-breaking heavy rains and floods in various parts of the world, and we recognize the need to assess water risks from more diverse perspectives in the future. Through discussions with experts, we will prepare for future water risks by gaining a better understanding of the flood risks specific to the catchment area where each operating site is located and identifying water issues, including assessing water risks in consideration of the intensification of disasters.

 

We have also incorporated risk assessment based on Aqueduct into the selection of our suppliers to clarify their latent risks and minimize the impact of such risks.

*4 Water risk assessment tool developed and published by the World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct | World Resources Institute (wri.org) (External website)

WRI Aqueduct assessment (water stress)

Country

(operating site location)

 No. of operating sites Risk level / No. of operating sites Future water stress change
High High to medium Medium Medium to low Low

Japan

 (Iwate, Shiga, Osaka, Hyogo, Tokushima, Akita, and Kanagawa)

 9 － 2 － 7 0

Change to low to high levels by 2050

China

(Jiangsu)

 1 － － － － 1 No major change until 2050
WRI Aqueduct assessment (water depletion)

Country

(operating site location)

 No. of operating sites Risk level / No. of operating sites
High High to medium Medium Medium to low Low

Japan

 (Iwate, Shiga, Osaka, Hyogo, Tokushima, Akita, and Kanagawa)

 9 － － － 7 2

China

(Jiangsu)

 1 － － － － 1

Selected as an A List Company for the Second Consecutive Year in CDP Water Security 2023

In the Water Security Report 2023 published by CDP*5, an international non-profit organization that works on environmental information disclosure, we received the highest rating of A for the second consecutive year.

 

Isao Teshirogi, Representative Director, President and CEO of SHIONOGI, delivered a speech at the CDP Awards Japan 2024 on SHIONOGI’s initiatives as a double-A company in “Water Security 2023” and “Climate Change 2023.”

 

In the speech, he expressed SHIONOGI’s intention to promote business transformation to create new healthcare solutions and deliver them globally, and at the same time to grow as a company needed by society while realizing a sustainable society through efforts to preserve the global environment.

Speech video (CDP Awards Japan 2024) (External website)

Speech video (Message from the executives of A List Companies) (External website)

*5 CDP

CDP is a non-profit organization whose main activities involve requesting companies and local governments to disclose information on their actions for climate change control, water resource protection, forest conservation, and other environmental issues based on the request of institutional investors and major corporate clients around the world with a strong interest in environmental issues, thereby promoting actions to tackle environmental issues. CDP is now one of the world’s most useful information disclosure platforms on environmental issues.