Building a Viable Sustainability Practice in The Manufacturing Industry

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ?as a blueprint for making the global environment and individual’s lives more sustainable by 2030. Sustainability is often defined as meeting the needs of the present economically, environmentally, and socially without compromising future generations.

As the manufacturing industry looks for ways to reduce waste and costs, it is essential to simultaneously connect operational efficiencies with defined social and environmental values. TDK is committed to realizing the SDGs established by the U.N. and has established a plan to ensure sustainable growth. As a company, we believe that addressing corporate responsibility issues, such as materiality, is closely tied to the achievement of the SDGs.

Source: United Nations

Continual improvement as policy

From a manufacturing perspective, energy is needed to create goods. Therefore, it’s a company’s responsibility to use that resource as efficiently as possible, which means often re-evaluating processes. Some organizations think that their processes are already efficient, but there are always areas that can be refined for improvement. This concept of continual improvement is key – it’s how you ensure that your processes are efficient for both energy usage and resource consumption.

Industry-specific activities

Sustainability activities and actions are unique to each industry. Companies base their sustainability practices on CO2 emissions. Organizations with limited manufacturing facilities (such as Alphabet or Amazon) will have a different model than a manufacturer. Globally, manufacturers need to increase the availability of renewable energy. There is considerable activity and discussion in the industry around renewable energy facilities.

Once you establish a target, policy, and framework, you can develop measures and activities to meet sustainability goals. TDK has introduced KPIs to reduce water usage and waste emissions. Many of our individual sites are working on social activities that impact their community. For example, some locations are working in their communities to recycle waste cardboard. After finalizing our renewable energy transition plan, TDK will focus on the procurement of raw materials and working with customers around end-of-life activities to create a circular economy.

The Value of Sustainability Practices for Corporate Reputation

Transitioning to renewable energy is not free. There is a cost to the organization, but you also need to consider the impact of sustainability on your reputation. For several years, Korn Ferry has conducted a survey to identify the most admired companies in their industries and social responsibility is a primary factor.

Embedding sustainability practices is often a cultural shift, but people are realizing that sustainability and profitability pull the company in the same direction. Even if sustainable practices don’t directly impact positively on profitability now, without sustainability practices, future profitability will be jeopardized.

Also, consider who is buying a company's product and who will work for them. Customers who are also focused on sustainability activities are typically excited about companies’ transitions to more ethical, sustainable practices. Furthermore, the ability to attract talent often rests on a company’s reputation. Work is more than a 9-5 job to younger generations who expect change and actions now. An organization’s sustainability vision can solidify viability as an employer. Companies need to be concerned about younger generations not just purchasing their products but also considering whether they would consider potential employment.

There are several reasons why pursuing sustainability is the right direction for manufacturers, including operational efficiency, brand reputation, compliance, and long-term business viability and success.?Ultimately, these activities will protect the ecosystem and contribute to the sustainable development of society.

As the world confronts the reality of climate change, many in the manufacturing industry are looking at ways to reduce the environmental pollution prevalent in their processes. TDK Corporation recognizes the global environment as an important issue and is committed to sustainability practices throughout the organization.

Source: TDK

TDK is committed to transitioning our manufacturing facilities to renewable energy, and we are specifically identifying measures to reduce our CO2 emissions by 2050. Regarding targets, we have identified a transition to a net-zero CO2 by 2050 as our key target and established an interim target of transitioning to 50% renewable energy by 2025.

Initiatives being undertaken at our manufacturing sites to reduce our CO2 emissions are wide and far ranging . In April 2022, four electronic components plants in Japan switched operation with 100% green power by subscribing to Yorisou renewable energy supplied by Tohoku Electric Power Co., Ltd. In addition, we began the first phase of construction of our “Inakura Factory West Site” in Nikaho City, Akita Prefecture, Japan. The new factory operates with 100% renewable energy. The site also introduces an energy management system that brings together TDK's power generation and storage technologies to reduce CO2 emissions further.

Source: TDK

At TDK, managing energy and raw material usage efficiently has always been part of our corporate goals. When we decided to increase our social value (our impact on culture and society), that efficient use of raw materials and resources became the baseline for sustainability and the third core pillar of our business. We want to efficiently use what we need for today and ensure that there are resources available for future generations.

Our Production Engineering headquarters in Japan is also undertaking low energy (LE) activities, which differ from general energy-saving measures. One example is the development of the new sintering and bonding processes at the Monozukuri (Manufacturing Excellence) Center that use Xenon lamps for instant heat instead of conventional furnaces. Both processes, when scaled up for mass production, will raise productivity while making energy consumption visible for each semi-finished product. They also significantly reduce energy consumption throughout the entire manufacturing process.

With conventional sintering it takes a long time to heat the entire environment in the furnace and energy efficiency is extremely low. The new optical sintering process reduces energy consumption by about 60% and reduces sintering time from six hours to ten minutes. In addition, with optical sintering, it is possible to achieve a uniform temperature across the electronic components, such as RFI filters, NTC thermistors, and chip varistors, leading to significant quality improvements.

For component mounting, the conventional bonding process uses a reflow furnace to melt the solder paste to bond the component onto the printed circuit board (PCB). This process requires the furnace to be heated at a continuous temperature of up to 250°C, presenting issues of high energy consumption and low efficiency. Instead, with our innovative pulsed irradiation technology the Xenon lamp instantly heats and bonds the components. This new process reduces bond time from 300 seconds to 12 seconds and reduces energy consumption by 90%.

Investing in a Sustainable Future

And it’s not only what TDK does as a manufacturing company that can impact sustainability. TDK Ventures , TDK’s corporate venture capital subsidiary, focuses on digital transformation, energy transformation, and environmental transformation. With a mission to help accelerate early stage hard-tech entrepreneurs toward an attractive and sustainable future, we have championed several recent investments.

One of our latest investments is in startup company Verdagy and its water electrolysis technology for the large-scale production of green hydrogen. We believe that the sustainable production of hydrogen in abundance for fuel cell powered trains, planes and other commercial vehicles will play a key role in the transition to zero emissions.

We also believe that battery production for electric vehicles (EVs) will not be sustainable if we don’t recover and recycle materials. The costs of the raw materials used in lithium-ion batteries are going up every year. Ascend Elements recognized this by developing a process to transform today’s high-value waste materials for re-use, hence our investment in the company.

For the building sectors, there are many technologies that we are looking to invest in that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. GenCell , for instance, provides ammonia and hydrogen energy-storage fuel cell solutions for clean off-grid and backup power.

While TDK Ventures continues investing in technologies that help mitigate climate change, we also recognize the needs for climate adaptation. Recently, we invested in a startup called Divirod , which has established a global network of sensors that leverage freely available satellite input, enabling it to monitor the possibility of impending catastrophes, such as flooding or droughts. Such information provides decision makers, emergency services personnel, and insurers the real-time information they need to mitigate loss of life and the associated high costs.

Read more about TDK’s environmental charter and basic policy on the environment.

Read about TDK’s plans to achieve Sustainable Development Goals.

Learn how TDK is using its battery technology to develop Energy Storage Systems (ESS) for renewable energy.