To promote green, sustainable operation and reduce environmental risks, Hodaka constructed an environmental management system in 2012, and passed the ISO 14001 environmental management system verification in 2013. Each year, we have undergone external acceptance inspections and passed all ISO standards and specified improvement requirements.
At Hodaka, all employees participate in and promote the environmental management system and execute environmental assessments on the impact of company operation on the external environment, in order to reduce the environmental impact. Through periodic internal checks, we identify non-conformities and potential problems and immediately notify relevant departments to make corrections and improvements, and lay out preventive measures. We have adopted the PDCA model to continue to improve, ensure the consistency between the environmental protection laws and other rules and regulations, and promote the environmental management system.
We use low pollution fuels or electric power in all production processes to reduce the emission of air pollutants, and adopt regenerative furnaces to recycle high temperature exhaust fumes to preheat the intake air, thereby lowering fuel consumption and energy and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. We also increase the volume of recycled aluminum to reduce raw material consumption, thus relieving the environmental impact from the source.
In addition to using large volumes of water our production processes, we also have strict requirements regarding water quality. Therefore, we are constantly working on meeting environmental expectations, quality standards, and careful water planning and recycling during the manufacturing and production process.
All waste water produced is properly treated according to control standards before being discharged into the park sewer system.
We strictly control the flow of waste materials, classify the waste into general and hazardous industrial waste according to the Waste Disposal Act, and have set up a recycling storage area. At Hodaka, our employees voluntarily classify and recycle waste materials and carry out the recycling system.
We are also committed to controlling waste production volumes from the source by using aluminum recycled from the production process and maintaining a high yield to reduce waste output.
We commission qualified contractors to clean up unrecyclable industrial waste materials and declare business waste flow according to the Environmental Protection Administration's (EPA) regulations.
We adhere to the Regulations Governing the Assessment, Investigation, and Inspection of Soil Pollution in the environmental protection regulations and inspect industrial sites prior to construction. We have also established control mechanisms for advanced soil pollution identification, to demonstrate our attention for the quality of the industrial site.
In addition to following the legal guidelines, we also voluntarily inspect groundwater each year to effectively monitor the environmental impact.
The metal industry is the foundation of all industries. Taiwan Hodaka is dedicated to develop and study new aluminum (-scandium) alloy formulas and subsequent melting, refining, and casting technologies to supply quality and stable scandium-containing and high strength aluminum alloy billets. We also apply an integrated production model to create the world's top-grade aluminum alloy materials. These industrial processes rely on numerous large-scale power machines capable of large horsepower outputs. The heavy machinery not only generates noise during operation but also produces high and low frequency noise and vibrations when pressing, grinding, and cutting metals. Therefore, noise has become an inevitable hazard of the metal industry. We periodically monitor noise levels surrounding the plant area and voluntarily implement surrounding noise management, in order to fulfill corporate social responsibilities.
Since the Kyoto Protocol entered into force, the regulated developed nations have been actively implementing greenhouse gas control. We conduct greenhouse gas estimates within the scope of autonomous disclosure and cooperate with Southern Taiwan Science Park in annual greenhouse gas emission inspection processes.
To promote green, sustainable operation and reduce environmental risks, Hodaka constructed an environmental management system in 2012, and passed the ISO 14001 environmental management system verification in 2013. Each year, we have undergone external acceptance inspections and passed all ISO standards and specified improvement requirements.
Through biodiversity, sustainable base and greening, everyday energy conservation, CO2 reduction, waste reduction, water resource management, waste water and materials management, and indoor health and environment management assessment indices, green buildings can effectively reduce environmental impact. Therefore, we are committed to implement the green building concept in all future construction projects.
Through green building design regulations, we expect to effectively reduce carbon emissions and increase biodiversity, thereby maintaining the natural ecology at Southern Taiwan Science Park and dedicating ourselves to local environmental protection.
In response to global environmental protection development, Taiwan Hodaka introduced the concept of energy conservation and carbon reduction in 2015 to strength the company's environmental awareness, acquiring the Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction Certification in the same year. We also developed clean production technologies, namely green production technologies, and integrated the green building concept to materialize our vision of green factories and clean production.
Tainan—recognized as a low-carbon city across Taiwan; Southern Taiwan Science Park is known as a low-carbon sustainable science park worldwide. We adhere to the concept of sustainable management and actively process all carbon reduction and environmental sustainability measures.
We use solar power generation to reduce carbon emissions, and invest in conserving afforestation land and voluntarily promoting afforestation projects. The project currently covers an area equivalent to approximately 5 soccer fields and reduced an estimated 704 metric tons of carbon. A beautiful and natural landscape is something we'd like to preserve, to be passed on to future generations.
To comply with environmental directives and fulfill customer demands, the Company formulated the Regulations Governing Environmental Hazardous Substances for managing hazardous substances in the products. The regulations covered RoHS, Halogen Free, and Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) specifications to re-examine product life cycles and adopt effective control measures from design, manufacturing, inspection, to supply chain management. All processes adhere to relevant laws and regulations and customers' green product requirements.
Energy overuse is worsening the effects of global warming. Hodaka is improving production efficiency while also taking responsibility to protect the environment by actively carrying out environmental protection and energy and resource conservation measures, in order to promote environmental sustainability.
