The Kikkoman group has started shifting electricity used in each department to "renewable energy sources."
We have shifted electricity used at Kikkoman Noda Head Office, Kikkoman R&D Center, Kikkoman General Hospital, and production factories one after another. This resulted in a big reduction in CO₂ emissions domestically and internationally.

In addition, as for Natural gas, we have started utilizing carbon-neutral LNG at Kikkoman Noda Head Office, Kikkoman R&D Center, and Brewing Development Center.

The Kikkoman Corporation is a member of the Carbon Neutral LNG Buyers Alliance.

Moreover, we have installed solar-electric power generators (solar panels) on the roofs of the facilities to produce clean electricity from sunlight (energy). We use this electricity for production activities to reduce CO₂ emissions.

The production divisions have been improving of production method equipment and energy efficiency to reduce greenhouse gases.

An update of two chiller unit systems in March 2021

We monitor the temperature at the coolant inlet of the chiller unit systems to keep the inside of the coolant tank at a constant temperature. We have introduced models that allow efficient continuous operation. We expect a 600 to 800-t reduction in CO₂ emissions per year.

An update of four out of 18 compact boilers in September 2021

We have introduced models that recover heat waste of exhaust gases efficiently for reuse. We expect a 200-t reduction in CO₂ emissions per year at the completion of installation of new 18 boilers.

Unification of raw ingredient silos

At Kikkoman Food Products Company's Noda Factory, we improved the large silo on the factory site to use it for various purposes and unified the raw ingredient storage. We discontinued the long-distance (appx. 300m) pneumatic conveyance from the large silo outside of the site and decommissioned the large blower for the pneumatic conveyance. This resulted in a reduction in energy used for the large blower that was equivalent to 94t-CO₂ emissions per year.

Change in temperature in the mirin fermentation and aging tank

At Nagareyama Kikkoman Co., Ltd., we succeeded in setting a proper temperature to process rice in the fermentation and aging process of moromi to produce mirin and establishing the agitation method to shorten the aging time. This saved steam used to heat the fermentation and aging tank in summer. We expect a 25.8-t reduction in CO₂ emissions per year that used to be produced by steam generation.

The Kikkoman group directs attention to CO₂ emissions in the distribution departments such as our consolidated subsidiary, Sobu Logistics Corporation in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, and pursues a reduction in these emissions.

In May 2004, we unified our distribution center and storage facilities, and facilitated a better distribution system to avoid wasteful truck trips. We also unified the procurement distribution of raw ingredients and packaging materials such as soybeans, wheat and plastic bottles, and the product distribution. Higher ratio of loading trips to total trips (less unloaded trips) resulted in a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions in distribution.

In addition, we introduce fuel-efficient trucks with low gas emissions and encourage truck drivers to thoroughly practice ecological driving to reduce more CO₂ emissions.
Sobu Logistics obtained the Green Management Certification issued by Foundation for Promoting Personal Mobility and Ecological Transportation that raises awareness among the transportation industry and enterprise customers.
Sobu Logistics also pursues active use of railway freight transportation that has less CO₂ emissions per unit transportation volume and obtained the Eco Rail Mark company certification issued by the Railway Freight Association in FY2005.

In the Kikkoman group’s offices, we are strongly pursuing a wide range of approaches. They include controlling room temperatures in summer (28°C) and winter (20°C), encouraging staff to be Cool Biz in summer, introducing LED lighting fixtures, turning off lights when not in use, strictly controlling the use of OA equipment, encouraging video conference calls, practicing ecological driving of company motorcars, and purchasing fuel-efficient, hybrid or electric vehicles.

The Kikkoman Noda Head Office building in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture was designed to be an "environmentally sustainable office." In keeping with the goal of maintaining harmony with the natural environment and lowering environmental loads, various advanced technological devices are employed.
The building was highly evaluated by specialists. It received the New Office Promotion Award of the Nikkei New Office Award and the Architectural Culture Award of Chiba Prefecture in 2001, the Examination Committee Encouragement Prize of the 9th Environmental and Energy Saving Architecture Award in 2002, the 4th Sustainable Architecture Award by the Japan Institute of Architects (JIA) in 2003, and the Special Award "Ten-Year Award" of the Society of Heating, Air-conditioning and Sanitary Engineers of Japan (SHASE) in 2011.

The Noda Head Office compound consists of an Office Building (North Building) and a Conference Room Building (South Building).
In the rectangular-shaped Office Building stretching from east to west, office rooms are arranged on the north side that is less affected by sunlight to ensure stable work environments. On the south side is the entrance hall built in a wellhole style. In addition, we installed large windows to make full use of natural sunlight and winds. We also installed other devices to pursue a reduction in energy usage for lighting and air-conditioning. They include the dimming lighting system controlled by the daylight sensor, the horizontal external louvers to control sunlight into the rooms, double-glass air flow to enhance insulation, and the warm-water thermal storage (summer) and the ice thermal storage (winter) system using energy from the heat-recovery type of pump.
With these measures, power consumption for lighting in the building per fine day (lighting time from 6:00 to 20:30) was reduced by appx. 42% and perimeter annual load (PAL) was reduced by appx. 29%.

Furthermore, lamps at the lounge, entrance hall, and restrooms have been replaced with LED lighting fixtures for the sake of saving electricity.

We introduce these approaches in each company at occasions such as an environmental conservation promotion committee to promote the measures to other offices.

Kikkoman General Hospital

The Kikkoman group has been managing Kikkoman General Hospital as part of contributions to the local community in Noda City, Chiba Prefecture, the birthplace of Kikkoman.

With a base-isolated structure, the new building constructed in 2012 is designed to maintain its functional integrity even in times of disaster. Additionally, due consideration has been given to the environment through enabling full use of natural lighting, placement of solar panels at the entrance to enable power generation, efficient use of well water, and implementation of energy saving equipment and instruments.

The Kikkoman group actively takes part in surveys conducted by external organizations and uses evaluations on its environmental conservation activities to improve them.
We utilize external evaluation provided by CDP, which is a non-profit organization that motivates enterprises to disclose their approaches to address environmental issues such as climate change, greenhouse gas reduction, water resource conservation, and forest conservation and their impacts on the environment and natural resources and take action to reduce them. CDP asks relatively large capitalization value enterprises in major countries for responses, evaluates and scores the results, and discloses them.
The Kikkoman group has been responding to the CDP Climate Change Questionnaire since FY2014 and utilizing the result as a tool to understand a level of its approaches on environmental conservation activities, especially on a reduction in CO₂ emissions through business activities, from objective and global perspectives.

According to the evaluation result in CDP Climate Change Report in FY2022, the Kikkoman group is classified as a leadership level and acquired an A- score. (The global average, the Asian regional average, and the food industry average are all C.)

The Kikkoman group keeps pursuing even more reduction in CO₂ emissions.