Global ECO Programs

A key element of Panasonic's business vision for the 21st century is to make a positive contribution to “Coexistence with the Global Environment.” Panasonic is promoting environmental management across global operations based on the action plan “Green Plan 2010.” The new “eco ideas” banner highlights efforts to enact fundamental changes in environmental management as we aspire to be a pioneer in the industry, ultimately seeking to achieve global excellence in our environmental management activities.

More on Panasonic’s Environmental Initiatives

For information on Panasonic’s latest environmental initiatives, visit the following links:
http://panasonic.net/eco/ for news updates and access to our Environmental Report on initiatives and achievements in areas including Green Products, Clean Factories and Product Recycling

http://panasonic.co.jp/eco/metec/en/index.html for a virtual tour of Panasonic’s Matsushita Eco Technology Centre, to see how household appliances such as TVs, Washing Machines, Air Conditioners and Refrigerators are recycled

Manufacturing and end-of-life

Manufacturing facilities of the Matsushita Group, including Panasonic, are certified to ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems).

Products manufactured globally also comply with the European Union Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. This directive removes the following specified hazardous chemicals from our products: Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, Polybromobiphenyl and Polybromodiphenyl Ether.

Panasonic ensures compliance with product end-of-life requirements in all relevant countries. These include the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive in the European Union, the Electrical Appliance Recycling Laws in Japan and the various requirements in the states of the US and the provinces in Canada.

Reduction of CO2 emissions from manufacturing operations

As a manufacturing company, Panasonic aims to reduce CO2 emissions from its manufacturing operations in terms of total global levels rather than on a per basic unit basis. Further, the company will count CO2 elimination as one of its main management indicators.

1. Reducing total global amount of CO2 emissions

Panasonic will use the performance level of fiscal year 2007 as a yardstick for measuring progress in eliminating CO2 emissions from its 294 manufacturing sites across the world, even if the total production capacity increases in the future. To be specific, Panasonic aims to eliminate 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions during the three years covered by the GP3 plan, lowering the total CO2 level to 3.68 million tons in fiscal year 2010 from 3.98 million tons in fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2011, the company intends to bring it down further to around 3.60 million tons, the level of fiscal year 2001.

2. CO2 emissions, a new management indicator

Starting fiscal year 2009, Panasonic will include CO2 emissions in its critical management indicators including sales, operating profit, inventory and CCM3 as a method of reinforcing its efforts to address climate protection. In April 2007, the company established an environmental performance system to collect monthly performance data on 23 items from the manufacturing locations worldwide and analyse and feed the results back to them for further improvements. The 23 environmental performance data items include CO2 emissions as well as water and energy consumption such as electricity, gas and fuel oil, among others. The system commenced in October 2007 in Japan and will be implemented at all manufacturing locations including overseas facilities in January 2008.