Energy Saving in Factories and Offices

In our efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions from our production activities, we have also focused on measures aimed at curtailing emissions at non-manufacturing sites, including offices and research centers, since fiscal 2009. We have set a company-wide target of reducing CO₂ emissions by an average of 2% or more each year, over a baseline year of fiscal 2008, at 81 self-owned office buildings in Japan.
To meet this goal, each site has implemented a three-year energy conservation plan while also taking steps to conduct energy conservation diagnoses to visualize the nature and amount of waste. As a result, we have reached our goal in fiscal 2012, reducing our CO₂ emissions by approx. 0.18 million tons, marking an annual average reduction of about 3.4 %compared with the fiscal 2008 baseline level.
From fiscal 2011, we started to check the progress of 124 sites including 45 sites owned by other companies on a monthly basis. We also introduced our Green Office Assessment to improve our environmental management practices at non-manufacturing sites. This assessment is composed of a 50-point scale section with 40 items and another 50-point scale section focusing strictly on CO₂ emissions reduction, and is used as an annual evaluation process. In fiscal 2012, we achieved a “Level 3.8” average (total score: 76/100) across the entire Panasonic Group. We continue to aim toward achieving a performance average of “Level 4” or higher (total score: 80 or more/100) at our nonmanufacturing sites in fiscal 2013.

Panasonic has been promoting Green IT initiatives to reduce CO₂ emissions through the use of IT technologies. To be specific, the initiatives are classified into Green of IT, Green by IT, and Green Data Center.

Panasonic has formulated Rules for Promoting Green Purchasing to ensure the basic policy of green purchasing in all business sites in Japan, and sets “Green Purchasing Criteria” for “office supplies,” “company cars,” “office fixtures and fittings,” and “office appliances.” A corporate purchasing system has been set to preferentially select eco-conscious items that meet the criteria when an employee places an order for office equipment. In this way, we promote green purchasing by selecting items not only according to its quality or price but also items that have less impact on the environment.

• *1 Bulk purchases within the company; however, cost for printers is higher, due to bulk lease contract from fiscal 2012 included in the scope of calculation.

We decided to use FSC-certified paper mainly for corporate publications such as company brochures, and aimed to gradually increase the use to around 100 tons by 2010. The result of use in 2010 was 138 tons. We will continue to promote green purchasing of paper and accelerate activities for paperless work.