Conservation of biodiversity, along with action on climate change, is becoming increasingly important for establishing a sustainable society, and is widely recognized as a global environmental issue that should be tackled in tandem with action on climate change. Over the past 50 years human activities have caused the extinction of species and the degradation of ecosystem services. Kureha Group is committed to understanding the dependence and impact of its business activities on natural capital, and to formulating and promoting initiatives for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity.

To understand the relationship between the Kureha Group and natural capital, we targeted our direct operations to get a grasp of the underlying dependence and impact on nature of the Group's main business area, the chemical products business.
To determine dependence and impact, the Global Industry Classification Standard was used and the sub-industries (specialty chemicals and commodity chemicals) to which Kureha Group's chemical products business corresponds were selected, and ENCORE (Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure)*, an analytical tool, was used. The analysis showed that, with regard to dependence on nature, the company's chemical operations are likely to be highly dependent on groundwater and surface water, and with regard to impacts, the company's chemical operations are likely to have an impact on nature through water use, terrestrial ecosystem use, GHG emissions, non-GHG air pollutants, water pollutants, soil pollutants and solid waste.

An analysis of water risk regarding the water-related dependencies (groundwater and surface water) and impacts (water use) identified in ENCORE was carried out for Kureha Group's main chemical direct operation sites. We used the water risk analysis tool Aqueduct* to identify water risks by site and found that some of our direct operation sites might have high water risks, such as for seasonal variability and drought.

In the future, the Kureha Group will further assess the impact and risks to natural capital and biodiversity and develop targets and measures for 2030.