Kagome Group Water Policy
The Kagome Group uses large amounts of water in the cultivation of crops that serve as the raw ingredients for products as well as in the processing stage. While Japan has relatively abundant water resources, there are also regions in the world facing serious water shortages. For this reason, it is essential to reduce water stress as best as we can.
Kagome is implementing sustainable measures tailored to each region to preserve the water resources in regions where it operates.
- 1.The Kagome Group and its major suppliers understand water-related risks.
- 2.The Kagome Group and its major suppliers strive to reduce water intake and use water efficiently to protect local water resources.
- 3.The Kagome Group and its major suppliers clean used water before returning it to the local communities.
- 4.Factories in areas where water-related risks are high take measures for water that are appropriate for the local areas.
Assessing and Responding to Water Risks
The Kagome Group's overseas plants and major suppliers are assessing water-related risks at each location utilizing WRI Aqueduct provided by World Resources Institute (WRI). The findings are shared with overseas plants and regions with high water risks are identified given the actual condition. Consequently, we have noticed that out of eight overseas plants of the Kagome Group, our plant in Australia is at high risk for drought and heavy rain.
Meanwhile, there is no manufacturing location with particularly high water-related risks within Japan.
At Kagome Australia Pty Ltd., major damage to tomato crops occurred due to heavy rain in April 2017. Following investigation of past data, with the risk for heavy rain being high in the later part of April, we have been cultivating tomatoes outside of the high risk period starting in 2018 in order to adapt to climate change. Since there is also risk of drought in Australia, the water used at our plants in the winter is placed into a dammed reservoir and then supplied to nearby farmers in the spring. This forms part of our efforts for water recycling.
CDP Water Security Evaluation Result
CDP is an international non-profit organization that evaluates corporations for their initiatives on climate change and water. Evaluations are conducted according to the eight scores of A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, and D-. Kagome received a score of A for CDP Water Security in 2021.
Reducing Water Intake
Kagome Group's Water Intake and Discharge
| Business locations | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Water intake | Water discharge | Water intake | Water discharge | Water intake | Water discharge | |
| Japan | 3,137 | 2,889 | 3,111 | 2,654 | 3,067 | 2,719 |
| United States | 241 | 148 | 212 | 12 | 268 | 183 |
| Portugal | 3,641 | 2,977 | 3,673 | 2,889 | 4,002 | 2,948 |
| Australia | 322 | 322 | 358 | 358 | 330 | 330 |
| Italy | 82 | 71 | 61 | 51 | 91 | 74 |
| Taiwan | 75 | 47 | 103 | 61 | 110 | 68 |
| Total | 7,498 | 6,132 | 7,517 | 5,666 | 7,868 | 6,323 |
Reducing Water Usage at Domestic Plants
Promotion of Efficient Water Use and Recycling
Since a large amount of water is used at Kagome's plants to clean agricultural produce as raw ingredients and to cool products, we are promoting the efficient use and recycling of water to cut back on water usage.
Water Quality Preservation
We are benefiting the community by installing a wastewater treatment facility at each plant, which treats water used at the plants to the standard determined by law before releasing it into rivers. In addition, in areas where our plants operate that have water quality preservation ordinances* in place, we strive to observe these standards in order to conserve the water environment.
*Drainage standards in Kasumigaura and Kitaura waterways of Ibaraki Prefecture
The 8th Total Volume Reduction Plan in Aichi Prefecture
