Environment | In harmony with nature
Minimizing footprint

Bridgestone’s environmental mission is “to help ensure a healthy environment for current and future generations....” The environmental mission includes three focal points: existing in harmony with nature, valuing natural resources, and reducing CO₂ emissions. The mission’s “In harmony with nature” refers to biodiversity conservation and the Group’s efforts to minimize the impact of operations on the overall ecosystem.

The Group is engaged in various activities to help minimize the impact of its business activities on wildlife and natural habitats, while also engaging in numerous activities to help improve the ecology at the production sites and the communities it calls home. These include reducing emissions, conserving water and other important natural resources, and implementing ecological improvement and education-related projects at business locations and in local communities.

The Bridgestone Group intends to be even more ambitious in its activities in response to the continued importance of social and environmental issues, and the potential impact on the environment caused by its business growth. Building on the various initiatives introduced in the previous mid-term target to reduce environmental impact on an ongoing basis, the Group is working to improve on these achievements and minimize its footprint even more.

The Bridgestone Group has introduced a Global Sustainable Procurement Policy, which reflects its commitment to reducing environmental footprint and creating a thriving and sustainable supply chain for all materials, including expectations of suppliers regarding no deforestation, no development on wetlands, biodiversity considerations, water management, conserving resources and reducing waste, reducing energy usage, greenhouse gas emissions, and control of chemical substances.

The policy is distributed to all suppliers, and the Group conducts third-party assessments to quantify suppliers’ environmental and social performance and governance and promote improvements by advising and supporting its suppliers on required solutions.

Consumption of natural rubber is forecasted to increase relative to rising global demand for tires. It is imperative for the Bridgestone's Group's business to foster a sustainable natural rubber supply chain. The Group embraces and recognizes sustainable natural rubber as a key issue for both the general tire industry and for the Group's sustainable growth.

As a large user of natural rubber, the policy describes its expectations with respect to critical issues within the complex global natural rubber supply chain. To align with stakeholder expectations, including the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) Policy Components that were approved in September 2020, the Group has revised its Global Sustainable Procurement Policy in 2021 accordingly.

For the details of sustainable natural rubber, see “Procurement.”

The Policy sets out actions to ensure that water resources are used equitably and sustainably. Specifically, the Group believes that achieving equitable and sustainable water use requires understanding of the local water situation, improving its efforts at the local level, and maintaining water balance while complying with regulatory and internal standards.

Based on the Water Stewardship Policy established in 2020 for equitable and sustainable water use, the Group will develop and implement specific water stewardship plans by 2030 according to each local environment, focusing on its manufacturing facilities located in water stress areas^*1. As of June 2022, seven of the 25 sites in scope had completed the development of water stewardship plans. These site-based plans include the actions outlined in OUR WAY of the Water Stewardship Policy, such as “reduce water withdrawal and increase water-use efficiency.” In 2022, the Group will promote the implementation of the plans at their respective sites as well as develop plans for other production sites in water stress areas.

*1 Water stress areas: Area with the risk of deterioration of fresh water resources in terms of quantity and quality.

The Bridgestone Group conducts water risk assessments at business sites worldwide using World Resources Institute (WRI) Aqueduct. Based on our latest Aqueduct analysis in 2022, 11 Bridgestone Group sites correspond to "extremely high risk" in India, Indonesia and China. These sites were assessed as being at risk of not getting enough water in the quality and quantity needed for their operations. However, all these sites are relatively small within the Group, with the total water withdrawal volume of all 11 sites accounting for only 2.5% of the Group's total.

When building new tire manufacturing facilities, the Bridgestone Group conducts a risk assessment for water quality and volume to ensure that it takes efficient use of water resources and wastewater into consideration.

Overview of Bridgestone Group’s manufacturing facilities (As of September 2022)

● Manufacturing facility with high water risk

● Other manufacturing facility

In order to minimize the potential risk of business operations on water resources, before constructing the Aiken Off Road Radial Plant, which began operations in 2014 as the production base of large and ultra-large radial tires for construction and mining vehicles in the U.S., the Group created a drainage basin map so it could conduct a preliminary assessment of the potential impact of the plant’s construction on the river basin. The risk assessment findings for water resources on and near the site were reflected in the plant’s design. As a result, the Group was careful to install appropriate drainage treatment and water storage facilities by specifying a drainage system that best suited natural drainage properties. It also built drainage ditches to prevent seepage of facility wastewater into surrounding onsite wetlands even during heavy rainfall in order to preserve the area’s biodiversity.

The Group is currently working on developing and implementing Water Stewardship Plans based on the Water Stewardship Policy. The site-based plans may involve local stakeholders, depending on local water conditions.

Bridgestone Argentina S.A.I.C (BSAR), located in a water stress area, reduced water withdrawal per unit of production by 55% in 2021 compared to a 2005 baseline. Furthermore, in 2019, the plant began a partnership with cement manufacturer Loma Negra to reduce overall water withdrawals in the Llavallol suburb of Buenos Aires. Using the reverse osmosis water filtration system within its operation site, BSAR recycles wastewater generated from its operations, and provides Loma Negra with approximately 1,200 m³ per month of filtered water typically for industrial use in manufacturing cement.

This partnership realizes the Group's long-term vision of minimizing its footprint while enhancing its environmental contribution by reducing impact of water discharge and water withdrawal in the water stress area.

The Bridgestone Group has set continuous improvement of water withdrawal intensity as one of its key actions to reduce water withdrawal and improve water use efficiency through innovation and continuous improvement. As one of the activities to achieve Milestone 2030, the Group is continuously working to improve water withdrawal intensity year by year (such as 1% improvement) thorough Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. In the reporting year, water withdrawal intensity improved by 12.5% compared to 2020.

Bridgestone’s water withdrawal is verified by LRQA Limited, a third-party institution, to ensure the accuracy and transparency of this information.

Independent Assurance Statement (243KB)

The Bridgestone Group reuses or recycles water at manufacturing facilities worldwide. The Group is also working on using water resources more efficiently and reducing water consumption by improving production processes and utilizing harvested rainwater where possible.

For example, at the Izmit, Turkey facility operated by the Bridgestone Group, employees identified ways to reduce the site’s dependence on groundwater by recovering, treating and using rainwater and wastewater. Through these steps – and an education campaign on the importance of using water wisely – the facility nearly cut its water withdrawal in half over 10 years.

The Sao Paulo plant of Bridgestone Americas launched a joint initiative with the city in 2016 designed to promote water recycling in order to help reduce the consumption of deep well water. Since the project was launched, over 50% of water used for cooling system and boilers in the facility is recycled water supplied from a wastewater treatment company.

Bridgestone India Private Ltd. (BSID) installed an effluent treatment plant (ETP) and sewage treatment plant (STP) for the treatment of industrial and domestic wastewater. At BSID Pune plant, the ETP has a capacity of 400m³/day and STP 250m³/day, and at BSID Indore plant, the ETP has a capacity of 60m³/day and STP 360m³/day. After the treatment, water is reused for gardening purposes inside the plant premises. All the treated water is used for almost 45% of open land of the green belt in the plant premises; thus, not a single drop of treated wastewater is discharged outside the plant. All the treated water parameters are checked internally and externally by the government authority and are found to be well below legal limits and BSID internal limits. As a result, BSID is a “Zero Liquid Discharge Plant.”

The Bridgestone Group defines minimum requirements for manufacturing facilities to prevent negative environmental impact from its wastewater in the Global Environmental Standard. The Group manufacturing facilities take measures to comply with wastewater regulations and to prevent any spills being discharged externally based on the standard.

Wastewater treatment systems are installed in facilities if necessary to comply with regulatory limits. Secondary containment vessels for large tanks are installed to prevent contamination of groundwater and wastewater, and/or monitoring and shut-off systems are installed to prevent any spills being discharged externally. A global Group procedure has been released to prevent wastewater contamination.

The Bridgestone Group defines continuous improvement as ongoing efforts to improve its environmental performance year by year (such as 1% improvement) thorough PDCA cycle. Because continuous improvement in reducing volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions is a key action of Milestone 2030, the Group is working to switch to alternative chemical substances from substances with potential negative environmental impact, such as high VOC solvents, and to reduce the overall amount of chemical substances used in the manufacturing process.

The Group has a VOC reduction target in Europe, Russia, Middle East, India and Africa (EMIA) region to keep solvent consumption per production volume to 1.56 kg/tonne in 2021. The result is important considering the increase in production volume in non-EU plants where solvent consumption is higher. The actual result in 2021 was 1.38 kg/tonne, achieving the target. After almost 20 years of research, and in collaboration with the Bridgestone Technology Center in Europe, tire manufacturing facilities operated by Bridgestone in Bilbao and Burgos (Spain), Bari (Italy) and Poznan (Poland) succeeded in drastically reducing VOC emissions related to the use of solvent in the production process by reducing total amount of solvent use by approximately 92% in Europe.

In particular, the Burgos plant eliminated all cement adhesives in the production process, contributing to an approximately 98% reduction in VOC emissions from the use of solvents since 1998, while enhancing the quality of the final products. Going forward, the Group will continue to work to further reduce VOC usage at its business bases around the world.

The Bridgestone Group defines continuous improvement as ongoing efforts to improve its environmental performance year by year (such as 1% improvement) thorough PDCA cycle. Continuous improvement in reducing its environmental footprint is a key action of Milestone 2030, and the Group is working to reduce emissions of sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) at its manufacturing facilities by shifting from heavy fuel oil to natural gas. In 2021, its emission of SOx was of 588 tonnes, for a reduction of 2.4% compared to the previous year and its emission of NOx was of 1,839 tonnes, for a increase of 12.8% compared to the previous year due to production recovery.