Toray Industries

Headquartered in Japan, Toray Industries manufactures chemical products such as polyester films, engineering plastics, and resin materials using organic synthetic chemistry, polymer chemistry and biotechnology as its core technologies. The company also makes yarns, synthetic fibres, and man-made leather used in apparel and industrial materials. It also develops IT equipment, such as electronic circuits and liquid crystal colour filters.

Total score

18 / 48

Grade summary

Second only to Lyondell Basell, Toray Industries has made the highest climb in the ChemScore ranking this year. This dramatic upward turn is due to the company’s newly adopted circular efforts, active marketing of safer alternatives, and work…

Product Portfolio

2 / 18

Toray produces/uses 3 highly hazardous substances – 3 SIN List chemicals (no PICs and no HHPs). 2 of these chemicals are included on the EU’s REACH Candidate List. None of these highly hazardous substances is banned or severely restricted (no Authorisation List substances, and no POPs). The company produces no persistent chemicals.

Please note that there is no available data for the 83 percent of the company’s production that takes place outside of the EU and US. Lower EU/US production means higher uncertainty with regard to the total production of hazardous chemicals, which will have a negative impact on the company’s score in this category.

Development of Safer Chemicals

7 / 12

Toray Industries has a method in place to screen and assess the sustainability of its products, but does not include the intrinsic hazards of ingredients in the screening process. Nor does it exclude substances with toxic properties from its new products. Toray Industries actively markets safer alternatives both on its own website as well as on ChemSec Marketplace. The company has at least one true circular product, process or innovation. Toray Industries uses biobased resources without occupying extra land or competing with food production. It also sources and treats recycled materials in a sustainable way, which is one of the key elements of a circular economy. However, Toray Industries is not actively reducing the hazardous waste it generates.

Management & Transparency

3 / 12

The Japanese company does not produce only sustainable products, and has no phase-out strategy for hazardous substances that go beyond regulatory compliance. It does share chemical safety information on its website and is following a credible code of conduct standard. Toray Industries did not respond to ChemSec’s attempts to communicate around its ChemScore ranking and it does not share any information about what kind of chemicals it produces in regions with low regulatory demands for transparency (e.g. Asia). Toray Industries does have a circular economy program in place, but it is lacking objective and measurable circular economy targets.