Current Status of Environmental Impact and Environmental Targets and Outcomes

The following tables outline the environmental impact (material balance) of the manufacturing activities at KIOXIA Group.
Although the environmental burden shows an increasing trend, as we are increasing production capacity in response to the growing demand for communications infrastructure, we continue to work on reducing this burden by means of various initiatives.
We have set specific targets for the reduction of the environmental impact per storage capacity output and other indicators to plan and implement measures, and to verify levels of achievement.

For details of the environmental impact of each manufacturing site and its activities aimed at helping to protect the environment, see manufacturing site’s environmental reports.

KIOXIA Group promotes business activities that contribute to the realization of a sustainable society by setting its own environmental targets. The following table summarizes the environmental targets of KIOXIA for FY2021 and their achievement status.

We again achieved all environmental targets in FY2021 thanks to our energy-saving activities promoted across the organization and our efforts to reduce the amounts of used and discarded chemical substances at our flash memory manufacturing plants. We are also actively engaging in social contribution activities with employee participation and biodiversity conservation activities, primarily at our manufacturing plants.

We adopted the “rate of change of environmental impacts per storage capacity output FY2013 basis” as our target, excluding the reduction of CO₂ emissions from energy sources. Accompanying our plans for production line expansion, the environmental impact of KIOXIA’s activities is expected to have increased in FY2022 compared with the previous year, and our cross-functional environmental initiatives will continue.

Although the amount of waste generated is tending to increase as the scale of our factories expands, we are striving to promote effective use of resources throughout our entire supply chain with the aim of reducing our environmental footprint. In addition to collecting and recycling waste generated during manufacturing, we are also proactively reducing our consumption of chemicals and gas by improving manufacturing processes and using environmentally friendly packaging.

By processing waste materials generated during the product manufacturing process, we collect resources and extract value from them, thereby reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill. We have reduced the amount of sludge containing hydrofluoric acid by about 30% by treating the hydrofluoric acid wastewater generated in the manufacturing process at an artificial fluorspar manufacturing facility and recovering it in the form of calcium fluoride (artificial fluorite). The artificial fluorite recovered is used as an alternative to fluorite, an imported natural resource, and is a material used by fluorinated product manufacturers. These efforts contribute to reducing the import volume of fluorite, which is a rare resource.

KIOXIA has been extending its use of environmentally friendly packaging. Memory chips and silicon wafers are transported between KIOXIA and subcontractors or material suppliers during manufacturing and processing. To maintain the quality of these delicate components, we use durable plastic cases that provide effective protection during transportation and ensure cleanliness. We inspect and reuse these cases after use, and the reuse ratio is approximately 60% for memory chips and nearly 90% for wafers.

When packaging SSD products for delivery to corporate customers, we use both plastic inner trays that achieve high shape accuracy to firmly anchor the contents and recyclability*⁶, and cardboard packaging materials (examples: outer box for transportation, inner box, etc.) that are strong and easy to recycle. In FY2021, we reduced the inner box’s unfolded dimensions by approximately 15% by reviewing its design.*⁷