CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility): Feature

Feature 2
Aiming to Establish a Sound Material-cycle Society

The TANAKA Precious Metals has continuously recycled precious metals since its founding. Today, all employees engage in the recovery of the bullion under the slogan "Any bullion is Money" and even trace amounts of bullion attached to uniforms, etc., in addition to bullion in production facilities, are carefully recovered.
In the meantime, while many companies mention a decarbonized society in their basic environmental policies, we have consistently aimed to help create a sound material-cycle society through business activities.
In the TANAKA Renaissance Plan, which is a new medium-term plan initiated in fiscal 2021, we reorganized our activities in the three fields of direct materials, indirect materials and industrial waste to enhance our measures to establish a sound material-cycle society and realize a Circular Economy.

田中貴金属グループ 環境基本方針

Direct Materials Cyclical Use of Precious Metals

Actions of the Japanese Government for the Establishment of a Sound Material-Cycle Society

The Fundamental Plan for Establishing a Sound Material-Cycle Society, which was approved by the Cabinet in March 2003, set the diagram of material flow in Japan as a whole and three indicators, namely resource productivity, cyclical use rate and final disposal amount.
In the meantime, Environmental Reporting Guidelines 2018 was published in June 2018. In this revision, entities are required to not comprehensively report on the overall material flow but independently identify and disclose the material environmental impacts they must address.

Schematic Material Flow Diagram in Japan (fiscal 2018)

Formulation of Original Environmental Indicators

Accordingly, the TANAKA Precious Metals formulated its original environmental indicators in fiscal 2018. In response to the revision of the Environmental Reporting Guidelines in the 2018 edition, we defined the material environmental impacts that our business activities directly have as "the amount of precious metal bullion inputs and the recycled amount" and established the bullion flow diagram and two indicators of "resource productivity" and "cyclical use rate" in accordance with the material-cycle fundamental plan of the Japanese Government. Note that we have not established an indicator equivalent to the final disposal amount for the Japanese Government because we do not dispose of any precious metal.

Bullion Flow Diagram of the TANAKA Precious Metals (fiscal 2020)

  • Kinds of precious metals: Platinum, gold, silver, palladium, etc.
  • External procurement: Bullion purchased through the market from trading companies, mining companies, etc.
  • Recovery and refinement: Bullion refined from the items recovered from customers.
  • Internal recycling: Part of bullion generated in the manufacturing process but not used in products. Returned materials.
  • The weight of the input is not necessarily the same as that of the output because bullion is repeatedly reused.
  • Shipped products: Bullion shipped as products.

Resource productivity

Cyclical use rate

Resource productivity represents the profit per ton of externally procured bullion and can be regarded as the earning power from an environmental perspective. Cyclical use rate indicates the ratio of the amount of bullion recycled internally to the total amount of bullion inputs and has been around 80%. The figure for resource productivity reached a record high in fiscal 2020. In the future, we will improve those environmental indicators to contribute to the establishment of a sound material-cycle society and the realization of a Circular Economy.

* Concept to concurrently achieve a sound material-cycle society and economic activities. It is required to generate wealth from waste materials and from waste in business activities.

Recycling Activities through RE: TANAKA (jewelry purchasing service)
RE: TANAKA is a recycling service to purchase precious metals jewelry that is no longer needed and reuse it for industrial products and various other purposes to make it useful again in society. Through this service, we aim to promote cyclical use of rare precious metals resources and help reduce damage to the natural environment caused by mining development.

田中貴金属の貴金属ジュエリー買取 RE:TANAKA[リ・タナカ]

Indirect Materials Recycling of Copies of the CSR Report

Recycle

What Is LIMEX?

LIMEX is mainly made from limestone, which can be extracted from the earth almost inexhaustibly. This new environmentally friendly material uses almost no water or wood chip and can substitute paper and plastic.
Each copy of the TANAKA Precious Metals CSR Report 2021 saves approximately 19 liters of water.

Main LIMEX products
Main LIMEX products

Why LIMEX Was Adopted

The TANAKA Precious Metals distributes its CSR Report to all employees every year and conducts a questionnaire survey at the same time. In this employee questionnaire, we received opinions like "Printing of the CSR Report may be a waste of resources" and "Other companies have eliminated printed copies and now prepare a PDF version only." On the other hand, the secretariat was afraid that the elimination of printed copies to issue the PDF version only might reduce the number of employees who read the CSR Report.
Therefore, we printed the CSR Report 2019 on LIMEX sheet, continuously distributed the printed report to all employees and collected the copies from employees who had finished reading them. The collected copies were used as raw materials for producing coasters.

Coasters (fiscal 2020)
Coasters (fiscal 2020)

Collection of Copies of the CSR Report

A total of 2,640 copies of the CSR Report that employees had finished reading were collected and sent to TBM Co., Ltd. in April 2021.

Collection box (in the headquarters building)
Collection box
(in the headquarters building)

CSR Tsushin Issue No. 1934 (issued on October 29, 2020)
CSR Tsushin Issue No. 1934
(issued on October 29, 2020)

Recycling of Copies of the CSR Report

The copies of the CSR Report collected were shredded and pelletized to produce cups in a plant of TBM Co., Ltd.

Recycling

Distribution of Cups That Were Produced by Recycling LIMEX to All Employees

The cups were finished and distributed to all employees in July 2021. We received various feedback from employees, including "The logo is interesting because it mentions that the cup is made from the CSR Report," "The color and design are wonderful" and "I guess the cup can also be used as other items such as a pen holder and a small planter."
This CSR Report 2021 is also printed on LIMEX sheet and we will continue to collect the copies that employees have finished reading for recycling.

Topic
Received 2020 Excellent Enterprise Award for Environmental Human Resource Development

In recognition of our contribution to the circular economy through resource recycling efforts such as the adoption of original environmental indicators and the recycling of the CSR Report, we received the Award of Excellence in the large enterprise category of the Environment and Human Resource Development Enterprise Award 2020.

表彰状

Industrial Waste Reduction of Industrial Waste

For the reduction of industrial waste, see Protection of the Global Environment