ySpecial Issues: The Basic Plan for Establishing a Recycling-Based Societyz
Matsushita Electric Industrial Group's Environment-oriented Management: Gearing up for a Recycling-Based Society
Keiichi Yoshida
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., Corporate Environmental Affairs Division
i1-1-2 Shibakoen, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 105-8581 Japanj
Abstract
The Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. manufactures diverse home office and industrial electronic and electric equipment and products, as well as parts and semiconductors for them. The company consumes many resources to produce components and parts for its products and also uses energy, water, and other global resources at the manufacturing stage. At every phase of the life cycle down to disposal, it seeks to save and effectively utilize resources, reduce the environmental load and the amount of waste, etc. according to the plan. Both the Environmental Management Policy and the Environmental Vision were established to help the entire group push forward and carry out the plan in concert. In addition, a certain target to be reached by 2010 has been set as a goal for the action plan; thus a definite program was presented and has been undertaken. The concept of environmental efficiency was introduced for products. For the purpose of better resource utilization, life-cycle resource quantity is envisaged with life-cycle material flow taken into account in the light of resource efficiency. Attention is also being given to the reduction and prohibition of environmentally harmful substances as environmental-loads, and special importance has been given to the recycling aspect of our manufacturing activities. Instances of our recycling-oriented environmental business activities are presented in this paper.
Key words: environmental vision & management promotion system, clean factories,
green products, collection and recycling, recycling oriented business