Towards a Sustainable Japan--Corporations at Work Article Series No. 46
50 Years of Compact, Lightweight, Slim and Energy-Efficient Devices (Casio Computer Co., Ltd.)
http://world.casio.com/
http://world.casio.com/env/activity/report.html

Long before environmental protection became a popular concern for society, Casio Computer, Co. Ltd. was manufacturing products based on the concept of using "compact, lightweight, slim and energy efficient" technologies in product development. Since its establishment in 1957, the company's philosophy of Creativity and Contribution has guided the development and manufacturing of a wide range of digital products in order to put to practice the creed of "contribution to society through the creation of innovative products."

Casio's business is divided into two areas: "Electronics," accounting for 80 percent of its sales, and "Electronic Components and Other." Examples in the Electronics area include calculators and watches such as the popular G-Shock series. Examples of Electronic Components and Other include liquid crystal modules. This area, accounting for 20 percent of sales, is a major contributor to the environmental load of the Casio Group, consuming three times the electricity and twice the fuel of Electronics. The reason for this difference is that the Electronic Components and Other area involves the processing of raw materials, while the Electronics area basically only involves assembling components provided by suppliers. The challenge for Casio has therefore been to reduce the environmental impacts caused by the Electronic Components and Other area.

To overcome the challenges, the company has identified environmental problems in all the manufacturing processes (including material supply, manufacturing, distribution, use, disposal, recovery and recycling) in both business areas and worked on improvements, based on the concept of making products "compact, lightweight, slim and energy efficient." Those problems were categorized into prevention of global warming and air pollution, chemical substances control, reduction of industrial water use, prevention of soil and water contamination, and recovery and recycling.

The environmental management of Casio is based on the Casio Environmental Charter and the Fundamental Environmental Policies, which were created in January 1993. Later, the Casio Voluntary Plan for the Environment was established to put into practice specific environmental conservation activities based on the charter and policies. This plan was formulated by the Casio Environmental Conservation Committee, chaired by Executive Vice President of the company, and is updated every year. The latest plan, the tenth version, consists of environmental initiatives in 19 categories, ranging from product development and design to packaging, logistics, marketing, sales, recovery and recycling.
Casio Environmental Charter
http://world.casio.com/env/pdf/report_2005/p30.pdf

One of the activities of the Casio Environmental Conservation Committee is to hold the Casio Environmental Conference twice a year. The conference is for making decisions on the direction of Casio Group's environmental management, establishing action plans and targets, reporting on actual activities, and exchanging information about future environmental trends among implementation bodies. Design divisions present case studies in the first half of the year, and production divisions present in the second half of the year. These occasions create opportunities for the engineers in the development and design divisions, who usually have few opportunities to be at center stage, to make presentations on initiatives to reduce environmental impacts, related to products under development, specific creative approaches to be environmentally friendly, and so on. The biannual conferences help to increase employee awareness and motivation to deal with environmental issues.

Casio also creates specific quantitative targets and deadlines for its environmental action plan, the "Clean and Green 21" initiative, in which detailed schedules are set up for each of its products and business operations. Casio commits itself to the targets and works to achieve them.

In the plan, particularly noteworthy is the development of environment-friendly products, which is given the top priority of its action objectives for production. The targets are shown by the sales of green products that meet Casio's original criteria as a percentage of total sales. Casio started promoting its green products in fiscal 2001 and worked to boost them to 50 percent of the company's total sales by fiscal 2005. The goal was attained one year ahead of schedule, in fiscal 2004, when the figure stood at 59 percent. Casio's new goal is to raise this ratio to 70 percent by fiscal 2007. To that end, Casio will continue tackling technical challenges to further improve its green products.
Casio Green Products
http://world.casio.com/env/pdf/report_2005/p40.pdf

How did Casio successfully achieve the target ahead of schedule? Hidenori Otsuka, General Manager of Casio's Environmental Center, says, "I believe designing environmental products is based on our cumulative efforts. Higher environmental awareness in the design department has been effective, but there has also been another positive cycle in the sense that once we develop a green product, its next model also has to be environmentally friendly." He believes that success to date has come from step-by-step efforts, such as revising voluntary plans and conducting an assessment for each product using product environmental audit sheets, practices that have spread throughout the company.

Otsuka says the Environmental Conference has been contributing to this higher awareness. "In this conference, we ask designers and staff of each department to report on their approaches, challenges, past examples and future prospects. This is a good opportunity for them to demonstrate their own jobs to the staff in other divisions and reflect on their own work. In addition, by the sharing of information, good practices in one division can be applied to other divisions. Furthermore, employees have the chance to get their ideas directly to top management."

To comply with new legislation and regulations overseas, Casio has also established a recycling system for small consumer devices such as watches and calculators, which in the past were not collected for recycling. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive and the Restriction of Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive are both new regulations of the European Union; the former requires that electrical and electronic equipment manufacturers establish recycling systems for their products, and the latter prohibits the use of six designated hazardous substances, including lead, mercury and cadmium, for electrical and electronic products. Because 40 percent of Casio's sales are overseas (13.4 percent of the total in Europe), Casio has worked quickly to meet these new regulations.

Responding to the WEEE directive, Casio Europe, Casio's sales subsidiary in Europe, has taken a leading role in selecting local recycling companies by researching their capabilities and capacities to collect and recycle used electrical and electronic products, based on the laws and regulations in each country. Casio hopes to expand its European activities worldwide.

As for the RoHS directive, Casio has designated 26 hazardous substances to be abolished, including six substances designated by RoHS and 20 chemical substances designated by Casio itself. It has investigated the content rate of these substances in parts to be purchased. All the data were entered into a database, which designers now use to select non-hazardous materials. Environmental audits are also conducted before finished products are shipped, in order to check if prohibited chemicals are contained in products.

Meanwhile, Casio has started to work on what it calls "CSR-oriented design," which requires not only that products are "green products," but also that they incorporate "universal design" concepts. Casio aims to make products that are not only environmentally friendly and recyclable, but also ergonomic (usable by anybody, and easy to operate, e.g., with easy-to-use buttons and handles).

The Kids' ISO 14000 Program, jointly promoted by United Nations institutions and International Organization for Standardization (ISO), is a learning program to raise responsible and mature citizens through environmental activities and to give children hope for the future. Agreeing to its concepts, Casio has been promoting this program to elementary schools as one of its social contribution activities, through various opportunities such as visits to factories.

Casio's own Charter of Creativity supports its creed of "creativity and contribution." Otsuka pulls out a card from his breast pocket, and shows it to us. On the front is the Creative Charter, and on the back, Casio's action guidelines. Employees always carry the card with their signatures on it, he says.

The Casio philosophy of Creativity and Contribution, established 50 years ago, has developed into a wide range of environmental activities. Casio says that it intends to further strengthen its efforts to reduce environmental impacts through the creation of innovative products.

(Staff writer Nobuko Saigusa)

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