Create shared value with society (CSV)

Providing value to customers to create a sustainable society

The Kurita Group provides the value demanded by customers and aims to create shared value with the society that lies ahead. We will fulfill our responsibility for the future by providing unique solutions to issues associated with water and the environment.

1. Solve issues related to water resources

Water circulates on earth continuously and supports people’s lives and industries. However, the supply-demand balance of the water resources is being lost. Water shortages have become a serious problem all over the world and the quickest possible solution is required. Working together with customers, Kurita has created technologies for utilizing water with maximum efficiency, such as a technology for the complete (100%) recycling of wastewater in the manufacturing process. We will realize effective utilization of water resources by widely applying our technologies for saving, purifying, and recycling water to secure the water needed for the development of people’s lives and industries. Each one of these initiatives supports the circulation of water resources on our planet.
Kurita has developed a new wastewater reclamation system incorporating cutting-edge technologies, such as IT sensing technology, by combining its technologies and expertise in both chemicals and facilities. We developed this system to realize a good balance between water resource supply and demand, by reclaiming and recycling water for regions and customers facing shortages. A system that can reclaim any wastewater and that is simple and usable for all customers will make it possible to create value in water reclamation and recycling in any industry and region. Kurita will continue to pursue initiatives to secure and make effective use of the water needed for the development of people’s lives and industries, believing that its mission is to solve water resource problems on the global level.

2. Realize sustainable energy use

Energy demand has been expanding with the ongoing increase in the global population. This has been accompanied by an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, causing major climate change including global warming. The question of how to use energy efficiently to optimize energy use in everyday life and in industries has gained prominent attention as a social theme for realizing a sustainable society.
Since its foundation, Kurita has been providing products and technologies that contribute to improving the energy efficiency of boilers and various other facilities. We pursue the effective use of energy together with customers and also commit ourselves to initiatives for using heat energy efficiently based on our technologies for water.
In a factory, a vast amount of energy is consumed for making steam, hot water, and cold water, which are used for heating and cooling. What is necessary for ensuring the efficient use of energy is to recover heat from the atmosphere and water and to make effective use of the heat as energy, in addition to using water chemicals to improve the heat efficiency of factory equipment, such as boilers, cooling tower, and manufacturing equipment. Kurita is focusing its efforts on an initiative to make good use of not only water but also heat contained in water by using a heat pump to transfer heat efficiently from hot water to cold water. Kurita will realize sustainable use of energy by promoting optimal use of water and heat in an overall factory.

3. Reduce waste

Waste generated daily from the system of mass-production and massconsumption in society has an impact on the global environment, including pollution and the destruction of ecosystems. Solving these issues will require initiatives for reducing waste and facilitating the recycling of resources.
Kurita has been taking steps to reduce the waste generated in the factory wastewater treatment process and recycling it into resources, using its distinctive water treatment technologies such as biological treatment. We will continue to provide solutions for realizing zero waste together with our customers and local communities.
Instead of simply reducing waste from factories, Kurita aims to create a system for reducing waste and recycling it into resources in a community-wide manner. The core technology for the system is biogas power generation. Waste collected in the community, such as industrial waste from factories and household food waste, is reduced by applying a methane fermentation process. In addition, biogas generated in this process is used for generating power, which is supplied to the community as energy. Further, residue generated in the process can be recycled into construction materials and other resources. Based on our initiatives ranging from the receipt of waste to its recycling, we aim to build a new resource-recycling society together with local communities.

4. Advance industrial production technologies

The evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) is set to bring great change to industry. In a smart factory, where IoT has been introduced, all events in the factory are converted into digital data, which are used for improving productivity and quality, making effective use of resources and energy, and other purposes.
At present, Kurita positions IT sensing technology as the foundation for solutions and provides a service of visualizing the status of water treatment with a unique system that it developed independently. Having been engaged in water treatment in customers’ manufacturing processes and utilities, Kurita has a vast store of water-related data. We aim to use the data not only for water treatment facilities but also for efficiency improvement and stable operation of the entire factory.
Kurita has been contributing to customer productivity improvements by preventing issues with water treatment facilities through analyses of quality and operation data and by analyzing their correlations with customers’ manufacturing data. Moving forward, we will seek to optimize water treatment in the entire factory by making full use of IoT/AI. We will convert our many years of experience and expertise in water treatment, as well as water quality, facility maintenance history, and status of energy use, into digital data. We aim to provide high value-added solutions, which reflect the impact on automatic operation of water treatment facilities and customers’ production on a real-time basis, by analyzing all of the above data and controlling facilities accordingly.
Kurita will realize smart factories together with customers, thereby contributing to innovation in production technologies in factories all over the world.