Initiatives That Help Make Us a Leading Environmental Company
Received the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award (METI Minister’s Award) in the Energy Conservation Grand Prize Project
In the fiscal 2020 Energy Conservation Grand Prize project organized by the Energy Conservation Center, Japan (ECCJ), TS TECH received its first METI Minister’s Award, the project’s top award, in recognition of its new Head Office building, a ZEB*1 that also delivers economic efficiency. The Energy Conservation Grand Prize project recognizes outstanding initiatives for energy conservation at enterprises and workplaces that serve as a model for others as well as products and business models with outstanding energy conservation features.
Following receipt of the prize, State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hideki Makihara visited the Head Office in February 2020 to get a firsthand look at the office’s ZEB features.
- ZEB (Zero Energy Building): A building that delivers significant energy savings while maintaining the quality of its indoor environment and is designed to achieve net zero energy consumption through the use of renewable energy
Selection for CDP A- Rating
Based on its outstanding GHG emission reduction efforts and information disclosure initiatives, TS TECH was selected as an A- company, which corresponds to leadership level, in the Climate Change Report 2019: Japan edition, a climate change study published by NPO CDP, based in the U.K. Under our 13th Medium-Term Management Plan, we focused on the “creation of a foundation for ESG management,” and we worked on climate change countermeasures Groupwide in terms of both capital investment and management. Initiatives include upgrades to LEDs and air conditioning, the incorporation of renewable energy, reconstruction of the Head Office building to save energy, and the introduction of ISO 50001. Going forward, we will continue expanding our environmental initiatives with the aim of contributing as a Group to the realization of a sustainable society.
Overview of the New Head Office Building
The new Head Office building, completed in March 2018, is an environmentally and community-friendly structure that was built with highly-efficient operations and superior hospitality in mind. In addition to a range of energy-saving equipment, such as a system to efficiently operate air conditioning and lighting using photovoltaic sensors and operating schedule programs, the new building maximizes the use of renewable energy through solar power generation, reducing the volume of electricity purchased by around 40% compared to the old building, where we had been working on energy conservation for some time.
The new building also incorporates the reuse of rainwater for general service water and more on-site greening. As a result, annual energy consumption was 78% less than ordinary buildings. The new building was certified as an energy-saving building and received a “Nearly ZEB”*2 rating under the Building-Housing Energy-efficiency Labeling System (BELS).*3 During its first year of operation, the actual annual primary energy consumption for the new building was 86.9% less than that of a standard building. It also earned the highest ranking of “S” in the Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE),*4 which rates environmental performance. Additionally, an onsite digital signboard displays the building’s target values and real-time usage information for electricity, gas, and water, encouraging employees to be mindful of saving energy.
- Certification rank
ZEB: A building with zero or negative net annual primary energy consumption
Nearly ZEB: A building that comes as close as possible to ZEB by nearing zero annual primary energy consumption
ZEB Ready: An advanced building with a ZEB focus that is furnished with an exterior with superior insulation properties and high-efficiency energy-saving equipment - Building-Housing Energy-efficiency Labeling System (BELS): A system in which a third party evaluates and certifies the energy-saving performance of new and existing buildings based on the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s guidelines for indicating the energy consumption performance of buildings
- Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency (CASBEE): A comprehensive evaluation system for building quality that not only takes into account environmental considerations such as energy conservation and use of materials that have low environmental impact but also indoor comfort and scenery
Major Initiatives Leading to the Receipt of the Award
The TS TECH project team and Takenaka Corporation (design and construction) worked together from the outset to consider an optimal combination of energy-saving technologies with outstanding versatility and cost performance and to balance comfort with energy-saving performance while achieving an economical ZEB without installing special technologies or expensive equipment. As cost is one of the issues of ZEB, this idea of “accessible ZEB” garnered high praise and led to receipt of the award.
Outstanding energy savings that exceeded the target values at the time of design were also well received. Even after the building’s completion, TS TECH and Takenaka have proceeded to work on continuous energy management to make operations even more efficient through such means as analyzing monthly energy data and reflecting the results in the settings of equipment, including air conditioning and lighting.
ISO 50001
ISO 50001 is an international standard for energy management systems (EnMS) published in June 2011. The standard is based on the achievement of better energy performance, namely energy conservation and energy cost reductions, through improvements that use visualization of energy use and efficiency to eliminate unreasonable, inconsistent, and wasteful operations.
Since the standard configurations of ISO 50001 and ISO 14001 are similar, organizations that have implemented ISO 14001 can incorporate ISO 50001 into their environmental management systems and solidify an approach that emphasizes performance based on quantitative data as well as create synergies that stimulate an environmental management system.
ISO 50001 Initiatives
TS TECH began its ISO 14001 initiatives in 1999, and it obtained ISO 50001 certification at all of its sites in Japan in March 2019 in order to promote more efficient, faster reduction activities amid a movement to reduce CO2 emissions globally, exemplified by the Paris Agreement*5 and the SDGs*6.
We have created the Global EnMS Guideline, a compilation of management techniques and TS TECH’s operational know-how, and we are deploying it throughout the Group, starting with our affiliates in the Americas and Japan. We will continue our commitment to implementing and consolidating ISO 50001 in collaboration with affiliates while taking into account differences in culture, approach, and management level at each location.
- 5 Paris Agreement: A globally agreed upon long-term commitment to keep the increase in global average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels
- 6 SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals): A set of international goals for 2030 established by the United Nations for sustainable development