Responsible Care Activity

Responsible Care refers to voluntary activities conducted by chemical companies to manage their products throughout their life cycles, from development through to manufacture, distribution, use, final consumption and disposal, with a view to protecting “safety, health and the environment” and promoting dialogue and communication with society by the public announcement of the activity results. We promote activities based on the Responsible Care Action Guidelines to fulfill our responsibility as a chemical manufacturer and contribute to a sustainable global society.

Responsible Care Action Guidelines

The Resonac established the Responsible Care Action Guidelines in March 1995. Since then, we have been promoting Responsible Care activities based on the action guidelines.
In addition, we signed the Responsible Care Global Charter in 2005, pledging our support for and implementation of the charter. When the RC Charter was amended in 2014, we re-signed, making clear our willingness to promote RC activities through global collaboration.

Responsible Care Global Charter
Signatory Certificate

Responsible Care Action Guidelines (The Resonac Group Action Guidelines)

1. Throughout the entire life cycle of products, we shall make our best efforts to review and improve business activities continuously from the view points of ensuring safety & health and protecting the environment.
2. We shall make our best efforts towards sustainable development by harmonizing our production activities with the global environment, not only through conventional approaches to environmental preservation, but also through promotion of changing raw materials, energy conservation, waste reduction and recycling, reductions in the release of chemical substances, etc.
3. In the development of new products and businesses and in the establishment, enlargement, and renovation of facilities, we shall undertake our best efforts to ensure safety and health and to protect the environment.
4. We shall promote R&D and develop technologies that will contribute to the improvement of safety and health and to the protection of the environment. We shall also promote the marketing of alternative or new products.
5. We shall enrich risk assessments and risk management concerning the effects of the products and materials we handle on safety, health, and the environment, and we shall provide information on the safe use and handling of our products to our stakeholders as well.
6. In overseas business activities, technology transfer, and international trading of chemical products, we shall give full consideration to ensuring safety and health, and protecting the environment.
7. We shall comply with international rules, domestic laws and regulations, and make our best efforts to cooperate with the relevant international organizations, domestic and foreign administrative bodies, etc.
8. We shall participate proactively in various activities related to the ensuring of safety & health and environmental protection, and make our best efforts to communicate with society to achieve better understanding and trust.

Promotion system

At the Resonac, the Responsible Care (RC) Promotion Council is placed under the Sustainability Promotion Council, which is composed of CXOs including the CEO. The RC Promotion Council discusses RC issues, such as environmental management, global warming, industrial waste, discharge of chemical substances, equipment safety, occupational health and safety, health management, safety of chemicals, and quality assurance. Important matters resulting from discussions are reported to the Sustainability Promotion Council, the Management Committee and the Board of Directors for discussion.

We are promoting Responsible Care at our major bases in Japan, including Group companies. At overseas Group companies (manufacturing) as well, we have identified achievements relating to Responsible Care and provided local guidance to expand the target scope.

Responsible Care Action Plan

The Resonac Group set the following targets as its Responsible Care vision for 2025.

Become able to contribute to the solution of global environmental problems through Responsible Care activities that focus on “Responsible production and consumption.”
Have nurtured a culture of safety across the Resonac Group and built the world’s top-class safety infrastructure.

In order to attain the long-term targets, we have been setting a medium-term Responsible Care action plan every two or three years as well as an annual action plan. Moreover, we make a specific action plan at each of our plants to promote Responsible Care activities.

Results and evaluation for major activities for 2021 and targets for 2022

Responsible Care Action Plan (Results for 2021 and Targets for 2022 as of the end of July 2022) in PDF format

TheResonac Group works to achieve continuous improvement in its Responsible Care activities through the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle of formulating Responsible Care activity plans (plan), implementing these (do), auditing and evaluating the results (check), and reflecting these via management review in the next round of objectives and activity plans (act).We will continue to promote active engagement in these efforts to meet our targets.

The PDCA cycle

Education system

The Resonac Group, employees receive Responsible Care education that focuses on occupational safety, environment preservation and compliance when they join the company or are promoted. Internal auditors for environmental management systems and occupational safety and health management systems are also provided with annual training.
The following table shows the collective training held by the head office in 2019.(For safety education, chemicals safety education and other field-specific education, please refer to the pages for each of the items.) Participants in the training make use of what they have learned in the training in the activities conducted at their sites.

Date	Name	Target	No. of participants
Apr., Jun., Aug. and Oct. 2021	Training for internal auditors for ISO 14001	Applicants from Group sites	104 in total
May, Jul., Sept. and Nov. 2021	Training for internal auditors for ISO 45001	Applicants from Group sites	104 in total
Apr. 2021	RC training for new employees	New employees	38 in total
Dec. 2021	RC training for new manufacturing section managers, etc.	Managers including newly appointed section managers	14 in total

Auditing structure

Showa Denko and its major Group companies conduct audits as described below for their worksites to assess and improve their Responsible Care activities.

Self-audit

Workplaces of the Resonac and its major Group companies evaluate their own Responsible Care systems and implementation statuses based on a checklist, so as to reflect the results in the following year's targets and action plans in order to move forward with continuous improvement.

Worksite auditing

The Environment & Safety Office and the Chemicals Assessment & Management Center audit the worksites of the Resonac and other major Group companies to make evaluations and improvements regarding their Responsible Care-related performance, including the level of compliance with the requirements, measures to meet challenges, improvement of management systems and how they are sharing information about on-site accidents. The results of worksite audits are reported to the Management Committee, which deliberates on them to reflect them in policies, goals and plans on a company-wide basis and across the Group. In 2021, we audited 32 sites (including our headquarters, branch offices, business divisions and overseas affiliates). Also, we annually carry out annual quality diagnoses at the Group’s sites, including divisions, plants and Group companies, to clarify their strengths and weaknesses and share the findings.

Management system

The Resonac Group continues improving its management system through receiving and maintaining certification of conformity to management system standards including those for environment, quality, and industrial safety and hygiene.