Safety

Process Safety and Disaster Prevention

• Targeting Zero Process Accidents
• Plant Safety Initiatives

Targeting Zero Process Accidents

The Kaneka Group considers safety its highest management priority and has established a Basic Policy on Safety to ensure that safe practices are thoroughly implemented and firmly embedded throughout the organization.

Basic Safety Policies

• Safety forms our management foundation, and is the basis of all corporate activities.
  We take action with priority given to ensuring safety in all activities in the company.
• Safety is the foundation of local and worldwide communities’ confidence in Kaneka.
  We do our best to develop their trust.
• Safety is based on our belief that “All accidents can be prevented.”
  We always move forward without being satisfied with lukewarm results.
• Safety is the responsibility of every employee in accordance with his/her duties.
  We fulfill our responsibilities by mutually clarifying the duties we have assumed.
• Safety must be maintained continuously.
  We ensure safety through steady efforts on a daily basis.

Measures to Prevent Leakage Accidents

To prevent leakage from storage tanks, we conduct risk assessments of all chemical storage facilities in accordance with the KGSS (*1) process safety standards for the storage and handling of chemical substances, and continuously improve our safeguards by applying multiple layers of protection.

*1 KGSS (Kaneka Global Safety Standards)
A set of global safety standards shared across the Kaneka Group, both in Japan and internationally, established to eliminate process accidents and occupational accidents. We have established implementation standards under the respective management standards for each area (17 for occupational safety, 7 for process safety, and 1 for emergency response). A key feature of our approach is conducting annual gap analyses between our standards and current practices, and ensuring that any gaps are addressed to maintain compliance with our standards.

Plant Safety Initiatives

Emergency Response Training

Every year, all parent manufacturing sites hold comprehensive disaster drills that simulate emergencies such as major earthquakes, leaks of high-pressure gases or hazardous materials, and fires. These drills include initial response measures such as in-house firefighting, and are conducted jointly with local authorities and nearby industrial complexes to prevent the spread of damage.

Emergency Response and Evacuation Drills (Examples in FY2024)

Comprehensive Disaster Drills

We advance countermeasures against natural disasters in order of priority, including promoting the earthquake-proofing of equipment in preparation for large-scale earthquakes, and implementing risk assessment for typhoons, heavy rains and floods, which have frequently occurred in recent years, based on hazard maps for all parent manufacturing sites and Group companies in Japan.
We also learn how to initially respond to a fire and how to use a hydrant to prevent the spread of a fire through daily training to ensure that we can immediately perform self-defense fire-fighting operations. To constantly improve our disaster coping skills and strengthen anti-disaster activities, we join a hydrant operation competition held locally, ranking higher every year.

Training Safety Engineers

Kaneka conducts advanced risk assessments and implements engineering controls to strengthen safety at its facilities. We are committed to maintaining safe and secure manufacturing sites. We began plant safety engineering training in FY2023 to develop safety engineers capable of meeting these challenges. The training invites external experts to serve as instructors. Participants gain specialized knowledge in areas such as safety engineering and reliability engineering, which are essential for plant safety. In FY2024, we launched an advanced course to further develop technical expertise. Twelve participants completed the program.

At Kaneka, we conduct various safety management and safety technology training sessions for newly appointed manufacturing general managers, production managers, and dedicated safety engineers.
We evaluate the safety of our facilities using HAZOP (*2). The evaluation is mandated to be conducted by individuals registered as evaluators under our internal certification system. We also conduct HAZOP training annually to develop evaluators.
We continue to improve safety technologies by establishing methods to assess the risks of chemical interactions and thermal runaway during reactions, thereby ensuring plant safety.

Learn more about our safety training details and achievements here.

*2 HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Studies): A safety assessment method for identifying hazards in processes and operations. This systems engineering approach was originally developed for chemical plants.