Value for a New Lifestyle

Panasonic has been pursuing Value for a New Lifestyle to help customers improve the quality of their lives while minimizing their impact on the global environment. This concept is based on ‘Eco-efficiency’ proposed at the 1992 Earth Summit. The eco-efficiency improvement rate for each fiscal year (against the baseline year) is called ‘Factor X’ and we have been evaluating this rate based on our unique calculation method.

While we have made improvements in the Factor fi gures for each product, the number and size of products used at a household have both been increasing, and their impact on the environment are of concern. We are mainly engaged in the home appliance industry and have been calculating the Factor for One Household, targeting some 90 appliances or items of equipment commonly used in households. In fi scal 2008, we included buildings (residential houses) in the calculation target-in addition to home electrical appliances and products for housing equipment-in order to identify the synergy effects generated among products (e.g. effects brought about by the use of a home energy management system) and synergy effects between products and residential buildings (e.g. heat insulation effect). Accordingly, we have decided to use only the GHG Factor instead of using both the GHG and Resource Factors, because we can take the synergy effects brought about for one entire household into consideration only within the GHG Factor. We gave fi rst priority to reducing GHG emissions and achieved the GHG emission reduction target for fi scal 2011 (reduction by 60%) three years earlier than planned. For quality of life, an evaluation method has yet to be established and we are now assessing this from various viewpoints. For example, in thinking about improvements of product functions that would help our customers improve the quality of their lives, we included the inside volume of our refrigerators and the screen size of our TVs in the criteria to calculate the improvement rate. As a result, the improvement rate came to 1.63 times in fi scal 2008. When we also included the quality of TV images and other quality-related items in the calculation criteria, the improvement rate amounted to 2.38 times. Based on these results, it can be said that the quality of life (production functions) improved by at least twice. As a result, we were able to achieve the target for fi scal 2011 (GHG Factor: 5) three years earlier than planned.

We will continue our efforts to help reduce environmental impacts from one entire household by promoting these synergy effects, using the Factor and GHG emissions and so on.

Family and house

A four-member, three-generation household comprising a daughter aged six, her father aged 40 and mother aged 37, and her grandmother aged 70, living in a two-story house with four rooms plus a Japanesestyle room with total fl oor area of 136.9 m² (national average in Japan)

Products comprising the house

Fiscal 1991: Latest models that we produced and marketed at that time in consideration of market share

Fiscal 2008: Latest products recommended by Panasonic in consideration of market share and changes in lifestyles (increase in the number and size of products used at a household)