On October 5, 2007, the Matsushita Group, which produces the Panasonic brand, announced that it has pledged to reduce CO2 emissions from its 294 manufacturing sites across the world. The group aims to eliminate 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions over three years measured in terms of total global levels rather than on a per sales or production unit basis. Specifically, the target is to lower the total CO2 emission level to 3.68 million tons in fiscal 2009 from the 3.98 million tons emitted in fiscal 2006. In fiscal 2010, the group intends to bring emissions down further to around 3.60 million tons, the level recorded for fiscal 2000.

From fiscal 2008 on, the Matsushita Group will include CO2 emissions as one of its critical management indicators, which include sales, operating profit, inventory and Chemical Climate Model (CCM), and will make efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as it carries out serial control and evaluation procedures. The group will accelerate the development and adoption of energy-saving technologies to increase the number of Panasonic products that lead the industry in energy-efficiency, while eliminating from its line products with poor energy-efficiency. Panasonic hopes to reduce CO2 emissions from all its activities worldwide, including product planning, procurement, sales, logistics and recycling, while also improving productivity and taking initiatives to promote environmental protection movements both in its local communities and the global community.

In April 2007, the group established an environmental performance system which collects and analyzes monthly performance data on 23 items from its manufacturing plants worldwide and feeds the results back to the plants to help them implement improvements. The 23 items include CO2 emissions as well as consumption of water and energy resources such as electricity, gas and fuel oil, among others. The system was launched in October 2007 in Japan and will be implemented for all manufacturing locations, including overseas facilities, in January 2008.

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/en071005-3/en071005-3.html

Posted: 2008/03/23 11:24:20 PM

TAG Eco-product/Business , Global warming , Manufacturing industry