Responsible Care Activities

To practice the spirit of Responsible Care (RC), the Daicel Group established the Daicel Group Basic Policies for Responsible Care and is promoting across-the-board RC activities in the Daicel Group to contribute to the sustainable development of society.

RC activities are undertaken by businesses that engage in the manufacture or handling of chemicals to preserve the environment and ensure health and safety at every stage of their operations, from product development, manufacture, distribution, and use to disposal. With chemical manufacturers around the world taking part in these efforts on a voluntary basis, the disclosure of results and dialogues with society are also positioned as key RC activities. Recognizing RC activities as one of the important social responsibilities of the Daicel Group, the RC Council, operating directly under Daicel’s president and CEO, is committed to promoting the activities.

On February 21, 1995, the Daicel Group established its Basic Policies for Responsible Care (RC) based on “The Guiding Principles for the Improvement of Environmental, Health, and Safety Conditions” of the Japan Chemical Industry Association (JCIA) and supplemented the items on the preservation of biodiversity on April 1, 2011. Subsequently, the Policies were updated to the Daicel Group's Basic Policies for Responsible Care on April 5, 2017 in response to the revision of JCIA's guiding principles. The Basic Policies were established and revised with the approval of the President and CEO.

Our Group has established the "Responsible Care Promotion Rules" and built a promotion system for responsible care to steadily implement the six Responsible Care (RC) items: "Occupational Safety and Health," "Process Safety and Disaster Prevention," "Environmental Preservation," "Chemical and Product Safety," "Distribution Safety," and "Communication with Society." As part of this system, we have established an RC council, which meets regularly.

The RC Council is chaired by the officer responsible for the Safety and Quality Assurance Headquarters and is appointed to oversee RC by the President and CEO, who bears ultimate responsibility for RC activities. The council comprises, among others, the representative of the Daicel Workers’ Union Executive Committee and heads of administrative divisions appointed by the chairperson as well as the Responsible Care Center (RC Center) of the Safety and Quality Assurance Headquarters, which serves as the secretariat for the council.

In addition to formulating basic policies, the RC Council receives reports on RC activities from each business site of the Daicel Group at the end of the fiscal year and in turn reports to the Planning Meetings attended by management to propose targets and action plans for the next fiscal year, which are subsequently approved at the Management Meetings. The RC Council reports the status of the initiatives at the Management Meetings and conducts RC audits in accordance with the Rules on Responsible Care Audits.

Audits by the Safety and Quality Auditing Division of the Assessment Headquarters

The RC Center promotes RC activities by discussing the progress in RC implementation plans, occupational health and safety, and process safety and disaster prevention, as well as the status of initiatives to address environmental concerns at Daicel and each domestic Group-company business site, and actively encouraging problem-solving.

In FY2026/3, in addition to the domestic business sites of Daicel Corporation, we reviewed the implementation status of various initiatives and their operations on the Fuji Plant of Polyplastics Co., Ltd. (currently the Fuji Plant of Daicel Corporation); the Iwaki Plant of Dainichi Chemical Co., Ltd.; Daicel Logistics Service Co., Ltd.; the Isesaki Plant of Daicel Pack Systems Ltd.; the Kameoka Plant of Daicel Beyond Ltd., Toyama Filter Tow Co., Ltd., and Daicel Safety Systems India Pvt. Ltd. Chennai Plant. In addition, we discussed the plant regarding major challenges. By recognizing issues at the site level, we identified challenges that need to be addressed in the short and medium term and clarified specific, effective action items.

The RC Center and individuals charged with supervising the Environment and Safety Divisions at Daicel’s business sites and the Fuji Plant of Polyplastics Co., Ltd. (currently Fuji Plant of Daicel Corporation) regularly hold Safe Environment Managers Meetings. They also hold Group Company Safe Environment Managers Meetings with Dainichi Chemical Co., Ltd., Daicel Logistics Service Co., Ltd., Daicel Pack Systems Ltd., Daicel Beyond Ltd., and Toyama Filter Tow Co., Ltd. 

These meetings were held six times in FY2026/3, and participants exchanged information and discussed RC-related issues, such as occupational health and safety, process safety and disaster prevention, and environmental preservation, as well as the revised Industrial Safety and Health Act and other regulations.

Each fiscal year, the RC Council recognizes good deeds and contributions to RC activities in order to promote further strengthening and growth of our Group.
In FY2026/3, three cases were selected, and 17 members of the Logistics Center of Arai in Daicel Logistics Service Co.,Ltd., Ohtake Plant, and Daicel Value Coating Ltd. were commended.

The award recipients have contributed to improving safety and reliability in various ways, including standardizing work procedures based on past experience, continuing training, responding quickly and accurately to equipment malfunctions, and creating systems that enhance initial response capabilities during disasters.
Furthermore, by sharing these initiatives within the Company and expanding them to other locations, we have contributed to raising the overall safety level across the entire organization. This series of activities is highly regarded as a steady implementation of RC's fundamental principle of "ensuring safety."

So that all Daicel Group employees can understand the importance of RC activities and take action, we provide relevant in-house training and education.

The Daicel Group operates a Total Environmental, Health, and Safety Assessment System (Total EHS Assessment System) as a means for evaluating risk in its business activities.

The Total EHS Assessment System assesses the launching of new products in all business activities, including research and development, production, consumption, and disposal, as well as plans for modifying existing processes and equipment (new plans). Led by the general manager of the Safety and Quality Assurance Headquarters, the Total EHS Assessment System is a mechanism for conducting advance assessments of a diversity of risks across all business activities, covering everything from the environment to health and safety.

To achieve the aims of our medium-term strategies, with the goals of improving the precision and decision-making speed of new plans formulated throughout the Company, we made revisions in FY2023/3, such as expanding the range of business sites and SBU responsibilities, narrowing the scope of Corporate Total EHS Assessments for cases that could have a material impact on people’s lives or our business, and establishing Advisory Sessions to better utilize knowledge and technologies throughout the Company.

Including assessments of new plans from overseas production sites, the total number of Corporate Total EHS Assessments conducted since the introduction of this system stands at 1,207, and the number of Advisory Sessions has reached a total of 48.

All of these assessment results are reviewed, and the assessment system is constantly evaluated to improve the accuracy of future plans.

We are working on assessments that respond to the expansion and diversification of our Group’s business areas by enhancing structures to effectively utilize the knowledge and experience of internal experts and advice from external specialists.

For safety system-related products in categories such as pharmaceuticals, foods, cosmetics, healthcare equipment, and automotive products, the Daicel Group is enhancing its product risk assessments of product safety to ensure that it always provides customers with safe and reliable products. In FY2016/3, the Group began conducting Product Crisis Assessments, which identify and monitor product safety-related risks and review response systems for handling crises. Furthermore, in addition to conducting product safety-risk assessments internally, since FY2018/3 the Group has been holding Product Safety Advisory Meetings chaired by outside experts to conduct assessments from an even more expert perspective.

In FY2026/3, there were no major product safety accidents that impacted the bodily health, lives, or property of our customers.

The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), an international RC activity organization, put in place the Responsible Care Global Charter in 2005 with the aim of promoting sustainable development within the chemical industry while contributing to society as a whole through RC activities. Since Daicel is in complete agreement with the goals and principles of the charter, we became a signatory in 2008.

In order to more specifically detail the issues requiring attention with respect to the management of chemical product safety, improvements in the quality of life through the delivery and use of chemical products, and contributions to sustainable development in an easier to understand manner, the ICCA revised the charter in 2014. That same year, Daicel declared its support of the revised version of the Responsible Care Global Charter and confirmed its ongoing participation as a signatory.