Hitachi and Matsushita Jointly Develop Environmental Performance Indicators

The two major Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers, Hitachi, Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. formed a partnership in May 2002 to create environmental management tools, and since then have jointly developed performance indicators for environmental impact assessments, and educational materials for their employees. They expect their partnership to be effective to promote environmental management for the purpose of building a sustainable society.

One aspect of their environmental performance indicators is "environmental efficiency" for products and transport, in which improvements in value (lifecycle and function in the case of products, and volume in the case of transport) are made while keeping environmental impacts under control. The other indicator is what they call a "factor," which indicates the improvement in environmental efficiency in comparison with a base product or a base year.

They expect the newly developed environmental performance indicators to be useful for environmental impact assessment and goal-setting. Hitachi and Matsushita are determined to promote environmental management using these tools. The two manufacturers also intend to promote the use of these indicators among other businesses in the same industry and other industries.

Based on the belief that environmental education and public awareness are required to build a sustainable society, Hitachi and Matsushita also prepared environmental education materials for their employees and started to offer them through electronic learning methods.



Posted: 2003/05/26 08:31:25 AM
Japanese version