Water Conservation through Production Activities

By collecting, treating, and reusing waste water from our manufacturing processes and air conditioning systems, we reduce the amount of water use and wastewater effluent. This reduces the impact of the intake and effluent of water in production activities on water resources. With many regions around the world threatened by water shortages, we carefully select which regions to focus on to address our use of water in our manufacturing activities. In fiscal 2012, despite the decrease in production, the ratio of water used at factories per basic unit of production improved by 0.2% compared with fiscal 2011.

At the Suminoe factory of Panasonic Energy Company, pure water equipment, industrial water treatment equipment, and recovery equipment were conventionally placed in respective buildings. However, by introducing the latest drainage structure and switching to a centralized on-site system, we have achieved cost reductions as well as improved the recycling rate of process water. In addition, we delegated the management of our facilities including water purification equipment to water experts within our Group, which enabled us to achieve a 100% recycling rate of process water.

We will continue to reduce our water use despite increasing production volumes, foster increased water recycling, and reduce water usage at more of our factories in priority regions such as China and other Asian countries and across the world. We will also designate some of our facilities as model factories for water saving across the Group.