Environmental Report 2009

About the Environmental Report 2009

Issuing the 2009 Environmental Report

Dealing with environmental preservation issues, ranging from the fight against global warming to regulations on chemical substances, including RoHS and REACH, and efforts to ensure biodiversity, are under study on a global scale. Above all the fight against global warming has been raised as a pressing issue that must be dealt with immediately at such venues as last year's Hokkaido Toyako Summit and this year's L'Aquila Summit. A vigorous debate continues in the post-Kyoto world toward setting intermediate targets for 2020 and long-term targets for 2050. 

With this in mind, FY 2008 has seen the company focus on the fight against global warming and promote the setting of targets for green procurement among other things. The second half of FY 2008 was marred by a sales slump fueled by the global recession, and this resulted in some targets being missed (for example, cutting average CO2 emissions per unit of real sales), but overall the company was able to achieve just about what it had planned. Of particular note were the CO2 reductions the company accomplished in the fight against global warming. It made not only facility-related reductions, which had been an earlier focus, but also major production-related cuts. Despite this, a look at the company's environmental activities overall reveals that there is still further need for greater efforts in this area; every single employee needs to be involved.
To that end, FY 2009 will see the company focus its efforts on the fight against global warming, encouraging the environmental awareness of our employees, and promoting activities aimed at getting everyone at the company involved in environmental activities.
This environmental report summarizes our FY 2008 environmental activities. I would be delighted to hear your opinions on how we could make further improvements to our environmental activities.

*1 　RoHS
An EU directive put into effect in July 2006 that restricts the amounts of lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBB, and PBDE that can be contained in electrical and electronic equipment sold in EU nations.

*2 　REACH
An EU regulation requiring the registration, evaluation, authorization, and restriction of all chemical substances distributed in EU nations. Registration commenced in June 2008, and in October that year, 15 substances of very high concern (SVHC) were announced. Plans call for more to be added at a later date.