SDGs Goal 6: Best Practices by Japanese Companies
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Water crisis in terms of quantity and quality
You may not feel much when you are in Japan, but the world is on the verge of water shortages. The Davos Conference, a meeting in which world leaders gather in the summer resort of Switzerland in January each year, publishes annual Global Risk Report. The report lists the top 5 global risks in terms of likelihood and top 5 global risks in terms of impact. The water crisis has been in the top 5 global risks in terms of impact for nine consecutive years since 2012.
There are two types of such water shortage crises: 1) lack of quantity, 2) lack of quality. 1) WWF-UK has already warned that not only are 1.7 billion people worldwide suffering from chronic water shortages, but 80% of the world is at risk from stable water use. 2) As of 2011, this NGO estimates that 2.5 billion people have not had access to safe toilets.
Moreover, although water shortages are a global problem, regional differences are a serious problem. The Aqueduct map below shows that the darker the red color, the more severe the water shortage is likely to be by 2040.
Diversity of activities in the TOTO and LIXIL Group
Various Japanese companies are active in providing products and services that contribute to the resolution of this problem. For example, Kurita Water Industries manufactures water treatment equipment and related chemicals. Water is not only drinking water, but also ultrapure water used for cleaning semiconductors, since the quality required for each application is different, so water treatment equipment is required according to the application. Moreover, because it becomes important to purify and reuse the wastewater, we are also engaged in the recovery and treatment equipment of the wastewater.
Japan's two largest toilet manufacturers have their own characteristics in their efforts to achieve this goal. The LIXIL Group contributes to the prevention of odors and infectious diseases in emerging countries by developing a simple toilet SATO for emerging countries. As of November 2019, the company estimates that about 3 million toilets have been installed in 27 countries and improved the hygiene environment of approximately 15 million people. At the same time, it estimates that about 2 billion people live without toilets around the world, and about 670 million people routinely excrete outdoors. Therefore, it is hoped that the company's activities will be scaled up further.
On the other hand, TOTO has taken up the improvement of the water saving function of the in-house toilet. In the early 1970s, the amount of water used for large washing of the company's toilets was 20 liters. It has made a lot of improvements from there, and now it has saved up to 3.8 litres, less than a fifth of that. It is expanding such high-performance toilets around the world, contributing to reducing water use at a global level.
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