Tosoh

Tosoh Corporation is a global chemical and specialty materials company. The company was founded in 1935 in Yamaguchi Prefecture, as Toyo Soda Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and in 1987 changed its name to Tosoh Corporation. It began as a manufacturer of chlor-alkali and petrochemical commodities and feedstocks. Today it produces other kinds of products including electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD), specialty polymers, fine chemicals, scientific instruments, and thin-film materials.

Total score

10 / 48

Grade Summary

Tosoh Corporation produces 4 hazardous chemicals. This may not seem too bad, compared to many of the other companies in the ranking. But the fact that there is no available data for as much as 93 percent of…

Product Portfolio

1 / 18

Tosoh produces/uses 4 highly hazardous substances – 4 SIN List chemicals (no PICs and no HHPs) – 1 of which is included on the EU’s REACH Candidate List. None of these highly hazardous substances are either 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 93 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

1 / 12

Tosoh Corporation 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. It does not exclude substances with toxic properties from its new products. Tosoh Corporation does not actively market safer alternatives on its own website, neither on ChemSec Marketplace. The company has no true circular product, process or innovation. Tosoh Corporation does not use bio-based resources. Nor does it source or treat recycled materials in a sustainable way, which is one of the key elements of a circular economy. Tosoh Corporation is not actively reducing the hazardous waste it generates.

Management & Transparency

2 / 12

The Japanese company does not produce only sustainable products, and it does not have a timed phase-out strategy for hazardous substances that go beyond regulatory compliance. It shares chemical safety information on its website and is following a credible code of conduct standard. Tosoh Corporation 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). Tosoh Corporation does not have a circular economy program in place, and it is lacking objective and measurable circular economy targets.