Matsushita Group Declares Commitment to Being Eco-friendly in China

Panasonic Corporation of China and its parent company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., hosted the "Matsushita Group China Environmental Forum 2007" jointly with the China-Japan Friendship Association on September 26, 2007, in Beijing, China, where the two companies announced the Group's "Declaration of Becoming an Environmentally Contributing Company in China." It describes their commitment to make all their products more eco-friendly and improve the environmental performance of all their factories in China by March 2010.

While the Chinese government has also been working harder on environmental conservation activities recently, the Matsushita Group started its China Eco Project, a three-year project to run from April 2007 to March 2010, to further promote environmental efforts in the course of conducting its business activities.

The declaration, which includes targets and action plans, consists of three pillars. First is the Group's product strategy to obtain China's environmental certification label for all its new products in 14 categories, such as televisions and air conditioners. Second, it plans to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 20 percent and water consumption by 30 percent in its manufacturing processes at all its factories in China.

The third pillar of the declaration is the plan to enhance the environmental awareness and commitment of company employees. In July 2007, for example, a joint Japan-China campaign called "CO2 Reduction Eco Challenge by 100,000 Employees" was held with 130,000 participants, which included 67,336 employees working in 74 companies of the Matsushita Group in China. In one week, they achieved an estimated reduction of 180 tons of CO2 emissions, because of activities such as turning off the main power of appliances when not in use and setting air conditioners at 26 degrees Celsius or higher in summer.

http://panasonic.co.jp/corp/news/official.data/data.dir/en070926-4/en070926-4.html

Posted: 2008/03/06 04:57:04 PM