LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere.
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Circular Economy
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Progress in FYE2025 (as of March 31, 2025)
- Waste recycling rate
- 95.3%
- Use of recycled aluminum
- 80%
Our Approach
Global consumption of resources is expected to double by 2050, compared to 2015 levels.*1 LIXIL has designated the realization of a circular economy as one of our focus areas to achieve LIXIL Environmental Vision “Zero Carbon and Circular Living”. To ensure the sustainable use of limited resources and reduce waste, we are promoting circular production throughout the entire product lifecycle - from the procurement of raw materials, including metals, timber, resin, and ceramics, manufacturing, consumer use, disposal, and recycling. We do this through the sustainable use of materials and informed product designs that facilitate recovery through recycling and reuse.While the amount of plastic waste has more than doubled worldwide in the two decades since 2000, the recycling rate remains at a stubbornly low 9%.*2 Fueled by the LIXIL Plastics Action Statement, we are reducing the amount of and closing the loop for the plastics we use and developing alternative materials.
LIXIL Plastics Action Statement (Opens new window) PDF: 1.3MB >
To achieve our goals, we are taking a comprehensive strategic approach and pursuing mid-term targets in each of three phases: Our Operations, Our Value Chain, and Expanding Our Impact. Beyond simply fulfilling our corporate responsibility to minimize the environmental burden of our business and products, we are also working to create new value in the environmental field together with all of our stakeholders to deliver greater global impact for the environment and society.
*1 “Assessing Global Resource Use” by UNEP (Opens new window) >
*2 “Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options” by OECD (Opens new window) >
Defining Our Strategic Approach and Mid-Term Targets
Our Operations
To ensure the sustainable use of resources and to reduce waste, LIXIL is improving its recycling rates by fine-tuning its designs and production processes. To reduce waste and to propel the recycling of resources, we have set a global target of increasing the recycling rate of waste generated from our business sites to 90% by FYE2026.
Waste Recycling Rates from Business Sites
Waste Reduction and Recycling at Production Sites
We are improving manufacturing processes for raw material use and waste reduction, and promoting the recycling of all waste generated at production sites. In particular, initiatives at our plants in Mexico have significantly increased the recycling rate in North America. At our Aguascalientes Plant, recycling gypsum molds used for sanitaryware manufacturing boosted the recycling rate from 49.6% in FYE2022 to 97.4% in FYE2025. Similarly, the Santa Clara Plant drove a significant increase in its recycling rate, from 16.6% to 93.9% over the same period by recycling sludge and other materials.
At LIXIL Housing Technology (LHT), we are working to reduce the sludge generated in our Vietnam Plant. To utilize all the sludge generated as a raw material through internal recycling, we have obtained detoxification certification. Since FYE2024, we have successfully maintained a recycling rate of over 99% for waste generated at the plant, including sludge, marking a significant improvement from 63.3% when we started implementing initiatives in FYE2022.
Our Nabari Plant in Mie Prefecture, Japan, succeeded in selling all of its previously discarded wood shavings as biomass fuel to achieve zero wood waste by having obtained certification as a biomass business operator and advocating for our timber suppliers to join forest certification organizations.
We are also holding in-person meetings for employees responsible for waste management at each plant, enabling us to share best practices, discuss challenges, and formulate solutions across our plants. Through this collaborative approach, we addressed a common issue, converting metal-attached cardboard tubes into sellable resources, thereby eliminating industrial waste generation from these materials at our plants.
LIXIL Water Technology Japan (LWTJ) successfully implemented a program to valorize ceramic kitchen scrap, previously destined for landfill, as shot blasting material for boiler cleaning. Furthermore, we have established a permanent process to ensure that any changes to the 4Ms of manufacturing (Man, Machine, Material, and Method) are reviewed for potential effects on waste disposal contracts and related agreements.
Our Value Chain
LIXIL is propelling efforts for the sustainable use of resources and reducing waste across its entire value chain. We are minimizing the use of new resources by increasing the ratio of recycled and renewable materials used in our products, such as recycled aluminum, recycled resin, and recycled wood. As part of such efforts, we have set a target to increase the ratio of recycled aluminum used in our housing business to 100% by FYE2031. We are also reducing single-use plastic packaging, expanding our supply of resource-efficient products designed for durability and reuse, and working to build a circular system that encourages product-to-product recycling.
Ratio of Used Recycled Aluminum
Minimizing New Resource Use
LIXIL factories in Japan are recycling aluminum scraps from outside their manufacturing process to reduce the energy required to produce new ingots and other aluminum products. LIXIL International’s water faucet factories also carry out alloy smelting in in-house furnaces. Up to 80% of the brass used in GROHE brand products is recycled material collected both inside and outside the plants. For resins used in windows, LIXIL created a recycling system and set up sorting facilities for excess materials produced in our plants in Japan to promote the effective use and circularity of resin materials. Our goal is to recycle materials for the circular production of windows. Kurisawa Plant has achieved a 100% recycling rate for in-plant resin window scrap for two consecutive years from FYE2024. This remarkable achievement was made possible by various initiatives, including sorting and grinding scrap and off-spec products by color for reuse as raw materials, technologies for using resin shavings as raw materials, and repurposing unusable materials for pallet boards.
Feeding raw materials into the aluminum smelter
• PremiAL Low-Carbon Recycled Aluminum Profile Series
LIXIL has been developing aluminum recycling technologies for many years, achieving an industry-leading recycled aluminum usage rate of 80%. In FYE2024, we launched PremiAL R100, which uses 100% recycled aluminum, starting with profiles for buildings. Compared to products utilizing new ingots, this product helps reduce CO₂ emissions by around 80% and has received third-party SuMPO EPD (formerly EcoLeaf) certification. In FYE2025, PremiAL R100 was adopted for use in buildings, retail spaces, and public and residential lighting facilities, and received the Encouragement Award at the 7th EcoPro Awards.
• Valorization of By-products Generated in the Aluminum Manufacturing Process
Among the oxides generated during the melting of aluminum that was not reprocessed and disposed of as industrial waste is aluminum dross. LIXIL is increasing its use of recycled aluminum, which generates more aluminum dross. When in contact with moisture, aluminum dross releases heat and gas. Due to this volatile nature, waste disposal companies are limited, making safe and sustained disposal treatment a challenge for LIXIL. To utilize previously disposed of industrial waste, LIXIL has developed a technology to precipitate high-purity aluminum hydroxide from aluminum dross and confirmed that it could be used as a raw material for LIXIL’s Ecocarat tiles. Additionally, LIXIL has collaborated with other companies and developed a system to valorize aluminum sludge generated in the aluminum surface treatment process. This valuable material is effectively used in incineration facilities and other locations as an environmental material to neutralize harmful substances.
• Artificial Wood Deck
LIXIL’s artificial wood deck has an environmentally friendly design using 100% recycled materials. The boards are made from wood dust and chips generated in manufacturing processes, along with recycled plastics recovered by local governments.
Products made with recycled resources (Japanese only, opens new window) >
Deck DC
• Reducing Single-Use Plastic Packaging
At LIXIL, we are working to reduce the amount of plastic packaging discarded by end users and are transitioning to environmentally friendly alternatives. Our GROHE brand has been transitioning from plastic to sustainable alternative materials for product packaging since 2018, as a part of its Less Plastic Initiative. As a result, all unnecessary plastic has been eliminated from packaging materials as of FYE2023. In Japan, we are switching the packaging of instruction manuals for end users from virgin petroleum-based plastics to biomass plastics and recycled plastics.
Expanding Our Supply of Resource-Efficient Products
• Cradle to Cradle Certified® Products (GROHE Brand)
Four of LIXIL’s products have now received the Cradle to Cradle Certified® Gold certificate for meeting the product standards across five categories: material health, material circularity, renewable energy & carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness. Our GROHE brand has been working toward creating a circular economy for many years through innovations, using up to 80% recycled brass, among other achievements. The brand’s recycling rate for waste has exceeded 99%.
Cradle to Cradle Certified® products
• Replaceable Mechanical Unit for Integrated Shower Toilets
Some of LIXIL’s integrated shower toilets allow for easy replacement of only the toilet mechanical unit with the latest features, while continuing usage of the existing ceramic bowl. Given the long lifespan of ceramic ware, extending the use of the bowl reduces waste disposal, as well as minimizing the resources and CO2 emissions required to manufacture new products.
Replaceable Mechanical Unit for Integrated Shower Toilets
• Replaceable Spout with Built-in Water Purifier
Some LIXIL kitchen faucets are designed with replaceable spout sections that can be exchanged for ones with built-in water purifiers. This helps reduce waste for end-of-life faucets.
Upgradable faucet with water purifier
• EW Resin Windows (TOSTEM Brand)
Along with helping reduce CO₂ emissions through world-leading insulation performance, we use recycled materials and raw materials that are easy to reuse and design products with resin frames and glass that can be easily detached and recovered for recycling. In FYE2024, we launched the GREEN WINDOW sales strategy, which recommends EW and other window products that effectively reduce CO₂ emissions by matching them with regional climate characteristics in Japan, with a focus on conserving energy and promoting material circularity.
Products made through circular production (Japanese only, opens new window) >
GREEN WINDOW (Japanese only, opens new window) >
Cross section of EW with easily detachable and recoverable resin frame and glass
• withCUBE Mobile Bathroom Booth
This mobile bathroom booth can be installed in as little as one day* and removed as easily without the need for large-scale work, providing improved toilet solutions that meet the demands of distribution centers and other locations. By providing toilet spaces that can be easily installed and removed from various locations through both purchase and lease agreements, we help reduce the amount of resources and energy used, as well as the waste generated over the product’s life cycle.
* Plumbing, electricity, and other preparatory works are required separately.
withCUBE
Creating a Circular Product-to-Product Recycling System
Procurement to production, sales, construction, and recovery. In partnership with stakeholders such as governments, municipalities, industry associations, and business partners, we are working to create a circular production system to recover used products and recycle them into the same products again.
Expanding Our Impact
LIXIL is working to develop circular materials that make effective use of waste plastics to reduce the amount of waste plastics that are difficult to recycle.
• revia, a New Circular Material
LIXIL’s new circular material revia is made from a combination of waste wood from the dismantling and repair of buildings and nearly all kinds of waste plastics, including composite plastics that have been difficult to recycle up until now. Recycling plastics that would otherwise be incinerated, disposed of in landfills, or burned for thermal recovery also helps reduce CO₂ emissions.
In FYE2025, we began mass production of revia and entered into a partnership with Tsu City in Mie Prefecture, Japan, to promote the circular economy of plastic resources, marking a step toward the circular use of resources in local communities. Also, LIXIL products, including revia pave, a paving material made with revia were provided to the Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan.
revia
revia pave
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