LANXESS Tokyo office was filled with green on June 5th 2008, World Environment day. Everybody wore something green; shirts ties, skirts, scarves, or ID card straps. Green snacks and cakes were served while employees enjoyed each others’ company with conversations. Giving a presentation on World Environment Day, Hiroaki Ito, CEO of LANXESS K.K told employees how important it was for each of them to make an effort to save the earth. Ito said “What each person can do for the environment is very small. However the important thing is each one of us to be conscious about the environmental issues.”

“At LANXESS K.K. and Rhein Chemie Japan Ltd., we take environment protection seriously.” explained Ito, “We try to reduce life waste in our office locations in Tokyo, Toyohashi and Himeji as much as possible. For example, we use recycled paper in the office and also use backside of once printed paper for the internal use. This way we can see how much paper consumption we are reducing. We actively try to reduce energy use.  We also try not cooling down the office too much by taking part in “Cool Biz” campaign in summer. These are just a few of our activities.”

Employees wrote what each of them could do for the environmental protection on “Pledge board.” Thinking for a while in front of the board, one wrote “Don’t set the room temperature below 28 degrees,” and another wrote “Don’t use disposable wooden chopsticks.”

Staff at Toyohashi and Himeji also celebrated the World Environment Day. At Rhenogran production facility at Toyohashi Works, all waste is checked if it’s recyclable before wasted. At Rhein Chemie, their production process is always monitored for optimization opportunities to avoid waste.

Japan is a major plastic bag consuming country in the world. Every year, 30 billion plastic bags are consumed – almost one bag per person a day. LANXESS K.K. has decided to place reusable bags at the entrance in the office to encourage everybody to use the bags instead of taking plastic bags at stores during lunch time and after work. After hearing how many plastic bags are wasted every year, the employees were excited to get eco bags and use them.