Environmental Management

The Kubota Group has formulated environment-related rules and regulations based on its internal control system, targeting Kubota Corporation, all of its consolidated subsidiaries and a part of its affiliated companies accounted for under the equity method that are highly significant in its environmental management.
The rules and regulations are classified as follows:

These rules and regulations are reviewed every year, according to the business environment and revisions of laws and regulations. The latest version of these rules and regulations are available on the Group portal site, allowing employees around the world to refer to them.

In order to practice environmental conservation activities on a global scale, the Kubota Group utilizes the “KUBOTA Ecology Data E-System” (KEDES) to collect environmental data, which includes information from our business sites on their energy usage, amounts of generated and discharged waste, water usage, and VOC emissions, etc.
“KEDES” is a system that collectively manages environmental data at global business sites. Staffs at each business site register monthly environmental data, which is used for target management of their own site. The Environmental Protection Department aggregates and analyzes the data, and uses it for reporting inside and outside the group. The boundary of the environmental data aggregation covers Kubota Corporation and all (100%) of its consolidated subsidiaries.

Each year, the Environmental Protection Department conducts an environmental audit that incorporates a document audit targeting all production sites, service sites, offices, and construction and maintenance management departments in Japan, as well as overseas group production sites.
Moreover, in addition to the environmental audit by the Environmental Protection Department, annual internal environmental audits are conducted at production sites. Through these means, and by taking the initiative to self-check the status of environmental management, every effort is being made to further improve management levels.
All of the audit results are reported to the President and management at the Company-wide Risk Management Committee in accordance with the company-wide internal control system.

• 

  FY2019 Environmental audit Kubota Baumaschinen GmbH (Germany)
  ^* Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the environmental audit was not held in FY2020.

Environmental risks for facilities are evaluated from the function and management methods, etc., of environment-related equipment, and for facilities that are deemed to require countermeasures, risk reduction activities are promoted to strengthen equipment and management countermeasures until environmental risks are at an acceptable level.
The Kubota Group is proactively working to further reduce environmental risks by conducting environmental audits and environmental risk assessments - two activities with differing perspectives in parallel.

• 

  Environmental risk assessment
  Kubota Tsukuba Plant

At each site, environmental patrols are carried out to meticulously assess the entire site and confirm the absence or presence of conditions that may lead to environmental accidents or violations of environmental laws and regulations. The Kubota Group aims to reduce environmental risks by conducting environmental patrols and finding situations that may cause any abnormalities at an early stage.

• 

  Environmental patrol
  Kubota Sakai Plant

The Kubota Group is working to identify and minimize environmental risks associated with its business activities through risk-specific response procedures.
We are also conducting drills each year based on response procedures that assume the outbreak of environmental accidents or situations that could arise in environmental accidents, in order to mitigate the impact on the ambient environment.

• 

  Training based on an oil leak scenario Nagasaki Office, KUBOTA Construction Machinery Japan Corporation.

In order to promote the proper treatment of waste and other materials including valuable resources at its operating sites in Japan, the Kubota Group is increasingly employing the services of top-rated certified operators.
At the same time, the Group has stipulated internal rules for conducting on-site investigations of industrial and other recyclable waste treatment contractors as well as purchasers of valuable resources. As far as industrial waste where there are large numbers of treatment contractors, the Kubota Group conducted investigations using its own on-site investigation appointing system that is run by its production sites, offices, sales companies, and other companies.
In FY2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on-site investigations were conducted only at sites where on-site checking was required due to local government ordinances and so forth. At other sites, we conducted investigations based on published information of treatment contactors and so forth. Looking ahead, we will continue to conduct investigations that increase validity to promote appropriate treatment.

We conduct environmental education and awareness raising for Kubota Group employees through rank-based training, professional training by subject, and e-learning.

The Kubota Group presents the Environmental Achievement Awards to commend individuals and groups that have made notable contributions to environmental conservation, as well as to boost the Group’s employees’ environmental conservation awareness and activate their environmental activities.
In FY2021, environmental conservation activities were evaluated targeting five categories: production, non-production, product, education and awareness raising, and social contribution. Twenty activities were awarded for their achievements in energy saving, waste reduction, VOC reduction, environmental risk reduction, development of environment-friendly products, social contribution activities and so on. Five of these were awarded as the Excellent Prize.
We will continue to award excellent initiatives that contribute to regional or global environmental conservation, and encourage sharing of the details of such initiatives within the Group, with the aim of further activating environmental conservation activities.

The list includes non-production sites.

LRQA: Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance Limited(U.K.)
DNV: DNV Certification B.V.(Netherlands）
JUSE: Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers ISO Center
ICJ: Intertek Certification Japan Limited
JICQA: JIC Quality Assurance Ltd. (Japan)
JSA: Japanese Standards Association
JQA: Japan Quality Assurance Organization
MSA: Management System Assessment Center (Japan)
BCJ: The Building Center of Japan
JCQA: Japan Chemical Quality Assurance Ltd
MASCI: Management System Certification Institute (Thailand)(Thailand)
SGS(U.S.): Systems & Services Certification，a Division of SGS North America Inc.(U.S.)
TÜV: TÜV Rheinland Cert GmbH(Germany)
SGS: SGS United Kingdom Limited(U.K.)
BSI: BSI Assurance UK Limited(U.K.)
BV: Bureau Veritas Certification Holding SAS - UK Branch(U.K.)
CCSCC: China Classification Society Certification Company(China)
CQC: China Quality Certification Centre(China)
BV(France): Bureau Veritas Certification France(France)
CQS:Certified Quality Systems Limited(U.K.)

IHK: Industrie- und Handelskammer fur die Pfalz（Germany）