Material Topic#4
Pollution Prevention
Prevention and control of Pollution is is an extremely important and urgent issue for the manufacturing industry. Waste management and air pollution management are of particular concern due to their increasingly severe impacts on the environment, health, and sustainable development. We must take proactive measures to prevent pollution in order to protect our planet and the environmemt for future generations. This chapter highlights air pollution and waste management as a Material topic and proposes feasible solutions to promote continued progress in pollution prevention and control efforts.
Implementation Results in 2023
Positive
Company complies with air pollution management and control laws to reduce harm and negative impacts on the environment, community and workers.
Negative
Company fails to manage air pollution appropriately, violating regulations, causes hazards to the environment, or affects the safety of the community and people.
Positive
Company implements effective waste management practices, recycling and reusing process waste, ensuring compliance in waste disposal, gradually reducing waste output, positively impacting the environment without causing harm to people.
Negative
Improper management of waste leads to burdens on the natural environment and the community.
Our company is committed to maintaining the air quality around our production facilities, continuously employing the best available control technologies to reduce air pollutant emissions.
Our company is committed to maintaining the air quality around our production facilities, continuously employing the best available control technologies to reduce air pollutant emissions.
Headquarter | Environmental Management Committee.
Plant Facilities | Environmental Management Teams and dedicated Environmental Protection Units.
- Everlight has established the Circular Economy Promotion Committee
focused on waste reduction and waste resource utilization, aiming towards
the ultimate goals of zero emissions and zero waste. - In alignment with government regulations on air pollution prevention management, Everlight rigorously implements air pollution control measures
to comply with legal requirements. - Everlight endeavors to utilize low-pollution clean energy sources and improve processes to reduce the output and emission of sulfur oxides (SOx)
and nitrogen oxides (NOx). - Everlight continuously enhances its air pollution management by adhering to
the “Emission Standards for Harmful Air Pollutants from Stationary Sources,” aiming to improve air quality.
- Adoption of Clean Fuels
- Installation of Control Equipment
- Enhancement of the adequacy rate of Prevention and Control Equipment Efficiency
- Development of Circular Economy and Green Chemistry
The three key management indicators are Air Pollution Emission Reduction Rate Per Unit Output (%), Waste Recycling and Utilization Rate (%), and Recycling Rate of Hazardous Industrial Waste (%).
- Air Pollution Emission Reduction Rate Per Unit Output (%) = 1-(Total air
pollutant emission (kg) / output (tons)) / baseline) x 100%
- Waste Recycling and Utilization Rate (%) =[ Amount of recycled industrial
waste / Total amount of industrial waste produced ]× 100% - Recycling Rate of Hazardous Industrial Waste (%) = [Amount of hazardous
industrial waste recycled volume / Total hazardous industrial waste produced volume] × 100%
Targets
- Air Pollution Emission Reduction Rate Per Unit Output (%) ≥ 3 by 2025.
- Waste Recycling and Utilization Rate (%) ≥ 72 by 2025.
- Recycling Rate of Hazardous Industrial Waste (%) ≥ 7.3 by 2025.
- Environmental Management Review (once a year).
- Sustainability Development Committee (twice a year).
- Factory Policy and Planning Review (once a quarter).
- Internal Environmental Management System Audit (once a year).
- External Audit by DNV on Environmental Management System (once a year).
- Tracking process: “Environmental Safety and Health Management Review
Meetings” are regularly convened through the “PDCA Management Cycle” to continuously review and improve the status of achieving various environmental targets. - Effectiveness of previous actions: Annually assess whether the set targets have been achieved.
- Lessons learned: Everlight has successfully implemented green chemistry
and circular economy practices, and continues to promote environmental
sustainability, such as increasing atomic utilization and process improvements to reduce the carbon footprint of its products. Additionally, Everlight actively participates in community and educational programs to promote environmental awareness.
Through regular/irregular communication in various forms.
▍Air Pollution
Everlight complies with government-imposed air pollution emission regulations and adopts management practices
that exceed legal requirements to control air pollution. We endeavor to use “low pollution clean energy” and implement process improvement programs to reduce SOx and NOx emissions, and we closely monitor domestic emission regulations, such as the “Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants from Stationary Sources,” as additional reference standards for improving air emissions.
According to the company’s detailed statistics on air pollution emissions from 2019 to 2023, the unit output of air pollution emission reduction rate for the Group’s factories in 2023 was -6%, compared with -3% in 2022, an overall decrease of 9%. This was due to the higher demand in 2023 for products with higher VOC emission coefficients, such as solvent-based products (strippers). The factories will continue to strengthen related management measures, such as increasing the frequency of activated carbon replacement in control equipment, conducting internal and external inspections, and actively maintaining equipment to reduce leakage rates, aiming to demonstrate efforts in emission reduction and control.
(in tons)
Note 1:
The units of above information are all metric tons. The emission statistics are derived from annual reporting data and rounded to 2 decimal places.
Note 2:
Since 2016, Everlight’s plants I to IV have gradually replaced fuel oil boilers with “low-pollution clean energy boilers,” achieving significant reductions in SOx and NOx emissions (SOx reduction of 90-98%; NOx reduction of 52-59%. For detailed statistics on plant air pollution emissions from 2018-2020, please refer to the ESG reports).
(Unit: Metric Tons)
Note 1:
Subsidiaries were included in the scope starting in 2021. Therefore, the mid-to-long-term targets for the Group are derived based on the actual performance from 2018 to 2020 and future plans.
Note 2:
The calculation of air pollutant emissions per unit of output is the total air pollutant emissions (kg) of particulate pollutants, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds divided by the production volume (tons).
▍Waste Management
Our company recycles the reusable materials generated in raw material procurement, product supply, production processes, environmental pollution prevention, and daily operational activities (including reverse recycling and refilling by suppliers and customers).
Additionally, we enhance process recycling and technological innovations (e.g., dilute acid solutions and iron sludge in different processes into ferrous sulfate for wastewater treatment; phosphoric acid solutions are converted into monosodium phosphate/disodium phophate for process use; introducing thin film membrane concentration to improve solvent recovery rate, etc.). We also strengthen external recycling with the shortest path of external circulation (e.g., delivering by-products like zinc sulfate directly to customers to produce zinc oxide), reducing waste from the source, and actively promoting waste classification and recycling to achieve resource circularity and promote the development of the circular economy.
In accordance with government waste management regulations and our company’s “Waste Management Procedures,” we handle industrial waste through outsourced recycling, incineration, or landfill disposal. Some hazardous industrial waste (mainly waste solvents) is incinerated on-site to recover the steam for internal use and through reverse recycling with suppliers. All waste disposal processes have all been entrusted to nationally certified professional disposal agencies (with no import, export or transit disposal actions) and properly managed, including:
- On-site classification, storage, and labeling of waste.
- Online reporting and verification of waste disposal declaration and confirmation.
- Evaluation and contracting of disposal vendors.
- Regular audits and random inspections of disposal vendors to ensure proper waste handling (Irregular tracking to ensure that outsourced manufacturers properly handle all types of waste).
- Weighing waste and managing vehicle tracking for waste transportation.
- Emergency response actions to prevent additional environmental burdens and pollution risks caused by waste.
The scope of waste management indicators and results includes subsidiaries (Everlight Suzhou and Trend Tone Imaging). In 2023, the total industrial waste output was 8,616.0 tons (hazardous industrial waste: 1,761.3 tons; general industrial waste: 6,854.7 tons), which is an 18% reduction compared to the total industrial waste output in 2022 (10,497.4 tons). The amount of waste that was recycled and reused was 6,125.2 tons, achieving a waste recycling rate of 71%. Among the total amount of waste of hazardous waste recovered and procesed was 181.3 tons (the rate of hazardous waste recovered and processed was 10.3%).
The performance of waste recycling rates and the recycling rate of hazardous industrial waste has improved year by year due to the implementation of various packaging material recycling measures (such as space bags, oneway drums, plastic bags, etc.) and the reuse of hazardous waste solvents (PGMEA) by a pass-through case.
(Unit: Metric Tons)
Note 1:
The above data includes both reported and exempted waste (such as scrap iron, scrap plastic, and waste paper, recorded based on weighing data). The unit of measurement is tons.
Note 2:
The current location stores the information on the final temporary storage volume of waste for the year. The remaining disposal information is the sum of the quantity statistics for each month and is presented by rounding to 1 decimal place.
Note 3:
Total amount of waste generation = total amount of waste disposed of in the current the year + the amount of the changes in temporary storage.
Note 4:
To more accurately reflect the annual total waste output, this year’s report includes a special statistic on the changes in annual on-site waste storage volume.
Note 5:
For the 2023 waste information mentioned above, on-site processing quantities include hazardous waste incinerated by self incinerator at Plant III (987.75 tons) and the recycling of permeate from the ink process at Everlight Suzhou (57.7 tons of hazardous waste). All other quantities refer to off-site disposal.
Note 1:
In 2021, subsidiaries were included in the scope. Therefore, the mid-to-long-term targets for the Group are derived based on the actual performance from 2018 to 2020 and future plans.
Note 2:
The recycling rate of hazardous industrial waste (%) has been adjusted due to significant differences in product combination/process characteristics in the past two years compared to 2021, leading to a revision of the medium and long-term targets.
