Background

The 2015 Paris Agreement pledged to limit the increase in the global average temperature to less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The subsequently adopted Glasgow Climate Pact clarified that the 1.5°C figure was no longer a target to be aimed for, but a de facto common goal. To achieve this, the world must reduce CO₂ and other greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to 2010) and net zero by 2050. Nineteen percent of global energy-related CO₂ emissions are from direct emissions by the building construction and materials industries, and another 18% are due to indirect emissions from buildings and homes in use.^*1

Total household water use has increased six-fold since 1960 due to population growth and other factors.^*2 As of 2022, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water,^*3 and five billion people across the globe are expected to face water shortages by 2050.^*4

Furthermore, the volume of natural resources extracted from the earth has tripled in the past 50 years and is expected to increase by another 60% by 2060.^*5 To help change this situation, the world is gradually shifting from a one-way economy, which mines new resources, makes products in large quantities, and eventually discards them, to a circular economy that closes resource loops.

*1 “Beyond foundations: Mainstreaming sustainable solutions to cut emissions from the buildings sector” by UNEP (A new page will open) >
*2 World Resource Institute (A new page will open) >
*3 “Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2022” by UNICEF and WHO's Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (A new page will open) >
*4 “2021 State of Climate Services: Water” by WMO (A new page will open) >
*5 “Global Resources Outlook 2024“ by UNEP (A new page will open) >

Our Strategy

Material Issues

LIXIL believes that making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere is founded on sustainable living in coexistence with nature. Grounded in its Purpose, Water Conservation and Environmental Sustainability is one of the pillars of LIXIL’s Impact Strategy. At the same time, LIXIL also identifies the following six areas as priority material issues.

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Water Sustainability
Circular Economy
Environmental Impact of Product Lifecycle
Environmental Management
Conservation of Biodiversity

Learn more about LIXIL’s Material Issues >

LIXIL Environmental Vision 2050

Three Focus Areas to Achieve Our Vision

Determining the Three Focus Areas for Achieving Our Vision

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

LIXIL seeks to achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050 by both striving to reduce the environmental burden of our business processes and providing environmentally friendly products and services. Furthermore, we believe that it is important not only to reduce the CO₂ emissions generated directly by LIXIL’s business processes, products, and services, but also to reduce CO₂ emissions across our society as a whole.

LIXIL is transitioning towards the realization of a low-carbon society and has set long-term targets to reduce CO₂ emissions to net zero by 2050. This long-term target became the first in the Japanese building materials industry to receive SBT Net Zero approval in March 2024.

Learn more about SBT Net Zero approval >

We also promote ways to adapt to climate change by providing products and services to help mitigate the damage caused by climate change, such as higher rainfall, large-scale typhoons and other natural disasters, and rising temperatures.

Learn more about Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >

Water Sustainability

As a leading company in water technology products such as toilets, kitchen systems, prefabricated bathrooms, and faucets, LIXIL is advancing efforts towards global water sustainability today and for generations to come, so everyone can fully enjoy the benefits of bountiful water.

To this aim, our initiatives are focused on conserving and enhancing the value of water. From actively pursuing water use efficiency in our business processes and particularly by reducing water consumption at water-stressed sites to contributing to reductions by offering water-saving products and services for users, we are driving the responsible use of water. In areas that lack access to water and sewerage, we work with governments, institutions, and the broader public sector to improve access to safer water. At the same time, we provide water-purification solutions for safer and better-tasting tap water.

Learn more about Water Sustainability >

Circular Economy

LIXIL uses a variety of resources, including metals, timber, resin, and ceramics. We pursue company-wide initiatives for the sustainable use of raw materials and the recycling of resources across all stages of the product lifecycle: from procurement to manufacturing, product use and disposal. We are moving towards circular manufacturing supported by the use of recycled materials and informed product designs to facilitate reuse. Guided by the LIXIL Plastics Action Statement, our initiatives include reducing the amount of, and closing the loop for the plastics we use, and by developing alternative materials.

Learn more about Circular Economy >
Learn more about Addressing Environment-related Laws and Regulations (Japanese only) >
LIXIL Plastics Action Statement (A new page will open) PDF: 1.3MB >

Conservation of Biodiversity

Conservation of Biodiversity has been positioned as a key material issue that serves as the common foundation for our three priority focus areas in the environmental domain, and vital to ensuring LIXIL’s sustainable growth. LIXIL’s business activities are reliant on water, minerals, forestry, and other resources formed in nature (natural resources), which themselves are supported by biodiversity. Today, the world’s precious biodiversity is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Biodiversity plays an important role in ensuring stable and healthy natural resources through carbon and water recycling, water purification and climate adjustments. It also helps prevent or mitigate the damage caused by flooding, drought, and other natural disasters.

We are developing comprehensive measures to avoid and mitigate the negative effects of our business. To understand and identify LIXIL’s impact and dependencies on nature, LIXIL applies the LEAP approach recommended by the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) throughout its value chain, including upstream activities.

LIXIL’s Green Procurement Guidelines includes established policies for conserving biodiversity. We have also conducted supplier outreach to seek for their understanding and support of LIXIL’s procurement activities.

Disclosure report in response to the TCFD and TNFD recommendations (A new page will open) PDF: 283KB >

Defining Our Strategic Approach and Mid-Term Targets

LIXIL has set mid-term targets and is accelerating its efforts to achieve its Environmental Vision 2050. To go beyond fulfilling our corporate responsibilities and create new value to maximize LIXIL's impact, we have formulated comprehensive and strategic approaches for the focus areas and defined three phases - Our Operations, Our Value Chain, and Expanding Our Impact. Setting mid-term targets by phase, LIXIL is steadily advancing its efforts to create greater impact, while reducing environmental risks and seizing business opportunities for sustainable growth.

LIXIL Environmental Vision 2050 and Mid-Term Targets

Three Phase Approach

1. Our Operations
   Business processes at our production sites, offices, and sales bases, involving our employees and residents in the surrounding areas.
2. Our Value Chain
   Processes including activities related to products and services that we procure, such as mining and processing of raw materials, as well as activities related to products and services that we sell, such as packaging for transportation, logistics, and end use of our products. This involves interaction with external stakeholders, such as our business partners and end users across our whole value chain.
3. Expanding Our Impact
   This goes beyond the production and end-use phase of our products in the value chain, and extends to providing solutions that address the environmental challenges of the world. It also means contributing to the future of the planet by going beyond the framework of our existing business.

Our Governance

LIXIL has established a governance system in which the Board of Directors oversees all sustainability initiatives. We have also established an Environmental Strategy Council (ESC)^*1, chaired by the Chief Environmental Impact Officer (CEIO) who is appointed by the Board of Executive Officers. Composed of members appointed by executive officers, the ESC meets six times a year in principle, to formulate rules and policies related to environmental governance, to deliberate on measures to address climate change, natural capital and biodiversity loss, among other environmental topics; including their risks and opportunities, and to manage and monitor progress toward achieving company-wide environmental targets.

The results of ESC discussions and resolutions are reported to the Board of Executive Officers through the Impact Strategy Committee quarterly. The Board of Executive Officers discusses and approves targets and action plans on environmental and other material issues. The progress is elevated to the Board of Directors twice a year for discussion and oversight. Important matters, such as our response to climate change, and other environmental issues are also reported to and discussed at the Governance Committee.

In FYE2024, the Environmental Strategy Committee discussed and decided on formulating a transition plan to achieve CO₂ emissions reductions by 2030, applying to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for LIXIL’ s 2050 net zero emissions target^*2 verification, and commencing analysis of biodiversity based on the TNFD framework and recommended LEAP approach.

*1 The name of the body was changed from Environmental Strategy Committee to Environmental Strategy Council from FYE2025
*2 90% reduction in Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, with up to 10% residual emissions reduced to zero through carbon removal

Environmental management structure

Our Targets and Progress

*1 By FYE2031

*2 Excluding products used for hot tub filling or full-body bathing that are not intended for use as energy- and water-saving faucets

*3 Excluding products designed for housing complexes

*4 By FYE2026

*5 By FYE2025

*6 Aluminum alloy 6063

We have established action plans for achieving our targets in each focus area and promote relevant initiatives. Please refer to the following items for more details.

Learn more about Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation >
Learn more about Water Sustainability >
Learn more about Circular Economy >

Environmental Management

We are strengthening company-wide management to reduce environmental risks and expand the environmental benefits we offer to society as outlined in our LIXIL Environmental Vision 2050.

LIXIL Environmental Sustainability Principles

Striving to help people live in harmony with the planet, LIXIL is committed to continuing our environmentally sound efforts across all of our processes, from design of products and services through procurement of raw materials, production, distribution and logistics, use and disposal of our products. LIXIL Environmental Sustainability Principles covers five elements to foster our commitment. These principles apply to all officers and employees including directors and executive officers, and serve as a policy for collaborating with our stakeholders, including suppliers and other key business partners. Any revision of the principles is determined by resolution of the Board of Executive Officers.

• Continually improve environmental management systems and performance
• Adhere to rigorous compliance
• Develop and provide environmentally friendly products and services
• Reduce environmental impact in every process of the business operation
• Promote stakeholder engagement

LIXIL Environmental Sustainability Principles (A new page will open) PDF: 189KB >

Environmental Auditing

Internal Auditing

Our internal environmental auditing system covers all our production and non-production sites, including subsidiaries in Japan. We conduct internal audits at production sites based on ISO 14001 to confirm and verify that our Environmental Management Systems (EMS) are effective and compliant with laws and regulations. We implement a structured management system based on ISO 14001 to ensure appropriate management of hazardous waste and air pollutants and to further improve our energy and waste performance, water efficiency, and recycling ratio. At non-production sites and subsidiaries, we conduct internal audits according to our own ISO-based environmental management system and have been continuously expanding coverage. We follow up on any matters identified by these internal audits to confirm that improvements are being implemented to ensure the effective operation of our management systems. The Environmental management department at our head office also conducts audits for environmental managers at individual business units.

Acquiring ISO 14001 Certification

We are strengthening environmental governance by expanding ISO 14001 certification at production sites. In FYE2024, ISO 14001 certified sites reached 95.9% and the remaining 4.1% are also guided by ISO 14001 standards in their environmental management.

ISO 14001-Certified Sites (FYE2024)

List of ISO-certified sites (A new page will open) PDF: 281KB >

Environmental Education

We actively engage with employees to improve their understanding and build awareness of LIXIL’s environmental strategy and our proactive initiatives which include but are not limited to our efforts to address climate change, reduce energy and water consumption and the amount of waste we generate by promoting the circular use of resources. We explore and introduce appropriate educational training programs and awareness-raising campaigns that are tailored for the intended target group. We provide basic environmental training opportunities for new recruits on LIXIL’s environmental strategy, its overall approach, and our strategic targets and goals. We also distribute environmental education content for all employees via e-learning channels every June that reflects our core initiatives and the trends surrounding environmental issues for the given year. We provide more specialist environmental training on operating our Environmental Management System (EMS) and to uphold relevant laws and regulations for EMS promotion managers and operators at each site. We also distribute monthly reports on environmental trends and activities to directors, executive officers, and other senior managers, and we publish the same reports for all employees to read on our internal social media.

Internal Evaluation

Regarding compensation for executive officers, we have introduced a stock-linked compensation system that helps encourage their contribution to improving the company’s mid- to long-term corporate value, including environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. For officers who are expected to improve the company’s value over the medium- to long-term, including from an ESG perspective, the ratio of stock-linked compensation to total compensation is set higher based on the deliberation of the Compensation Committee.

Our robust environmental strategy is embedded in our business as a key strategic management initiative in the LIXIL Playbook, which sets out the path for achieving our medium- to long-term management indicators. The annual LIXIL AWARDS recognizes employee contributions to LIXIL Playbook goals. In June 2024, LIXIL AWARDS recognized over 850 projects, including those awarded for their environmental dimension to push efforts that reduce CO₂ emissions, improve energy efficiency, or perform practical investigations to implement more environmentally sound production processes.

Learn more about Award System >

Separately, we hold award campaigns in our technology departments in Japan to recognize business sites and units that contribute to addressing environmental issues. Every year awards go to activities that reduce environmental burden at production sites in pursuit of the LIXIL Environmental Vision 2050, and initiatives that promote the development of products and services to help address environmental issues.

Reducing environmental burden throughout the Product Lifecycle

We operate in over 150 countries, and our products are used by more than one billion people, every day. It is essential to reduce the burden on the environment across the product lifecycle, from raw materials procurement through manufacturing, consumer use, and disposal to further contribute to the conservation of the global environment.
LIXIL has included “The Environmental Impact of Product Lifecycle” as one of its material issues, and is advancing company-wide initiatives towards mitigating the environmental burden of products through activities driven by the Environmental Strategy Council.

Environmentally Conscious Design

Product-Related Environmental Assessment

In Japan, we conduct an environmental assessment at each stage of the product development process to ensure compliance with environmental laws, and to help reduce the environmental burden in all three product lifecycle stages: production, consumer use, and recovery.

Product-Related Environmental Assessment Steps

Evaluation Criteria for Product-Related Environmental Assessment

* F☆☆☆☆ (four-star) is the highest rating in the formaldehyde emissions level rating scheme.

Acquiring EPD and Introducing LCA in Each Region

The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a third-party verified report issued following a quantitative calculation of environmental effects, including such as CO₂ emissions, during a product’s lifecycle based on ISO 14025 – Type III Environmental Declarations. LIXIL is working to obtain EPD certification in each region to serve as third-party verification of life cycle assessment (LCA) results that quantify environmental impact through accumulated inputs and outputs across the product lifecycle; from the procurement of raw materials through production, consumer use, disposal, and recovery.

With increasing regulations for the calculation of CO₂ emissions for buildings in the EU, in FYE2024, the GROHE brand acquired International EPD certification for 18 groups of products (including 776 SKUs). In Japan, we acquired the EcoLeaf environmental label for two sash windows for buildings and our PremiAL series of low-carbon aluminum profiles. LIXIL currently has a total of 54 EPDs for GROHE, American Standard, and LIXIL branded products (as of March 2024). We have also set up guidelines to calculate CO₂ emissions for other products by measuring the amount of emissions generated by the consumption of energy, water, and raw materials during each stage of the product creation process. Based on the GHG protocol, LIXIL’s LCA has been streamlined to reflect the characteristics of its business and is being applied to calculate CO₂ emissions in the supply chain for procurement, production, sales, distribution, and consumption.

Management of Chemical Substances

Across all of our business processes, LIXIL has been seeking to appropriately manage chemicals and reduce substances of concern that can affect human health and environment, helping to resolve environmental pollution issues and improve people’s comfort and lifestyles.

Learn more about Management of Chemical Substances (A new page will open) PDF: 107KB >

In Japan, LIXIL’s corporate functions of Environment, Procurement, and Quality partners with technology functions under the direction of the CEIO to encourage appropriate management and operation of chemical substances in products. We have also established chemical substance management systems at sites and business in countries outside Japan and are pursuing relevant initiatives to establish a management platform to further strengthen our governance to help maintain and enhance compliance within the organization.

LIXIL is committed to the appropriate management of any chemical substance contained in its products based on the laws and regulations of each market in which it operates (EU RoHS Directive, REACH Regulation, etc.) and based on our own guidelines.

In Japan, the environmental management department and procurement department work together to ensure suppliers’ compliance to the LIXIL Chemical Substances Management Rank Guidelines that stipulate substances which are not allowed to be included in our products. We require our suppliers to provide information on material composition to prove the non-use of chemical substances in our guidelines. We regularly gather data and information on legal and regulatory trends both inside and outside Japan which are reflected as revisions to our Chemical Substances Management Rank Guidelines when applicable to LIXIL. To facilitate understanding, relevant departments are informed on the latest legal and regulatory developments. A dedicated management system for chemical substances has been introduced in Japan which is used to appropriately manage information for collecting details of the chemicals in the products from our suppliers and internal data accumulation, and for disclosing such information to customers.

LIXIL’s Chemical Substances Management Rank Guidelines (A new page will open) PDF: 762KB >

LIXIL’s GROHE brand discloses its proof of compliance with legal standards for substances that are not allowed to be included in its products, or for those that require special management in the GROHE Sustainability Position Paper which is published on its website and available for customers and other stakeholders.

Reducing Substances of Concern

We prioritize the reduction of substances of concern in our products to meet strong societal demands for new product development. We also collaborate with our suppliers to find alternatives to any substances of concern in our existing products.

Environmental Communication

To support and contribute to the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature to 1.5ºC, LIXIL engages in public policy advocacy including industry association memberships and collaboration with our business partners. Whenever we join a new industry association, we assess whether the organization supports the Paris Agreement through its advocacy initiatives and policy engagements. Should we identify any significant differences between LIXIL and the organization’s positions on climate initiatives, we would engage them in dialogue, or reassess our membership and ongoing activities with them.

We endeavor to maintain a proactive and cooperative dialogue with Japanese government authorities. When requested, we provide information leveraging our unique strengths and expertise. As an example of climate change-related public policy engagement, we have participated and engaged in discussions regarding policy ideas aimed at increasing awareness of products and services that support green transformation (GX). These efforts aim to address climate change and to enhance understanding of relevant policies in Japan. We also seek to strengthen collaboration among companies within industry associations to develop policy recommendations for the Japanese government.

The executive officer in government relations, along with the senior managers, receives and reviews regular updates on the alignment of our advocacy and public policy engagement activities with our environmental strategy ensuring consistency with the Paris Agreement. Any issues that could significantly affect our progress towards environmental strategy and targets are deliberated within the Environmental Strategy Council, chaired by the Chief Environmental Impact Officer (CEIO), and the Impact Strategy Committee, overseen by the executive officer in charge of Impact Strategy. Subsequently, the agenda is reported and deliberated in both the Board of Executive Officers and the Board of Directors.

Participating in Japan domestic and international Initiatives

LIXIL is committed to environmental conservation and assertively representing the industry sector and its challenges through advocacy in Japan domestic and international initiatives.

*1 A network of stakeholders that contribute to TNFD guidance development
*2 Companies and organizations that intend to start making disclosures aligned with the TNFD Recommendations in FYE2024 or 2025, and have registered on the TNFD website

Environmental Disclosure

To gain long-term trust from our stakeholders, we are committed to timely and transparent information disclosure.

External Evaluations & Awards

External Evaluations & Awards ＞