Environmental auditing

OMRON's internal environmental audits consist of onsite internal audits based on each site's environmental management system and corporate audits carried out by the Head Office environmental department. Regular external audits provided by ISO assessors also ensure that ISO 14001 requirements are met appropriately.

In fiscal 2006, corporate audits were conducted for nine sites in Japan and two sites in China. Audits for Chinese sites revealed points requiring improvement, including failure to meet legal requirements for conducting environmental measurement and incomplete records of regular inspections of environmental facilities. Environmental activities conducted at five sites in Europe and the U.S. were also inspected.

Results of Group Environmental Audits

Group environmental audits were carried out covering our nine plants in Japan and two manufacturing facilities in China (SHANGHAI OMRON CONTROL COMPONENTS CO., LTD., OMRON (SHANGHAI) CO., LTD.). As a result, 2 major and 17 minor violations were found at our 9 facilities in Japan. No violations were found at the 2 plants in China.

Overview of items that require improvement according to OMRON Group environmental auditing standards

• Inadequate detail in consignment contracts for disposal of industrial waste
• Delayed compliance with legal requirements to report certain types of changes, etc. (Appropriate steps were taken immediately once a request was received.)
• Failure in some cases to check relevant legal restrictions during the assessment process when introducing new chemical substances
• In some cases the content of documents was inadequate due to omissions or errors in documents at the base (i.e., plant or facility) level, although there were no actual compliance issues.

Results of site-based internal environmental audits

We conducted ongoing environmental audits at all sites which had obtained ISO 14001 certification. As a result, no violations of environmental standards or reporting failures were discovered that could have led to violations of environmental statutes or pollution of the local environment. With regard to operation of on-site environmental systems and performance improvement, 6 major problems and 224 minor problems were identified at our Japanese bases, while 3 major problems and 137 minor problems were found at our overseas bases.

Overview of items requiring improvement

• Inadequate document management and record-keeping
• Improper identification of significant environmental aspects in environmental impact assessments
• Failure in some cases to conduct training for contractors consigned to carry out inspections of environmentally related facilities at the site
• Failure in some cases to keep records of the management of hazardous materials (records of persons using chemicals, controlling keys to storage facilities)
• Inadequate sorting of industrial waste

Internal environmental auditor training

The OMRON Group had 768 trained internal environmental auditors as of April 2007.

• Number of Internal Environmental Auditors

Auditing Scheme and Standards