The employee's enlightenment

In order to encourage employees and their families to actively engage in environmental activities at home and in their local communities, in addition to their engagement in business operations, Panasonic has been promoting Love the Earth Citizen's Campaign (LE Campaign) in Japan since 1998, thinking that only truly green-minded employees can manufacture truly green products.

We independently set the Eight Action Programs for Eco Life^* as our action guidelines for the LE Campaign. Inline with these guidelines, employees and their families are encouraged to keep a Household eco-account book for their households, reduce the use of disposable plastic shopping bags by using their own eco bags, and participate in environmental volunteer activities. Those who have participated in these activities are certified as LE Families. In November 2007, we added ‘Eco Challenge: Select Energy Efficient Products’ to these activities to expand the definition of LE Families.

Ten years after the start of the LE Campaign, we are now gradually reaping the results, including greater employees participation in the activities. In order to identify the number of employee households participating in the Campaign more accurately, we revised the calculation method. According to the new method, approximately 49% of employee households in Japan participated in these activities. By fiscal 2011, we aim to increase this percentage to at least 80%. Also, in fiscal 2008 we launched the Campaign and promoted related activities in China. In the future, we will expand the LE Campaign on a global scale and encourage more employees to lead an eco life, mainly through the use of Household eco-account book, reduction in the use of disposable shopping bags, and participation in environmental volunteer activities.

• * (1) Energy conservation; (2) Use of eco bags; (3) Cooking for eco life; (4) Green purchasing; (5) Extended use of products; (6) Waste reduction/recycling; (7) Use of public transport/Eco driving; and (8) Environmental volunteer activities.

This initiative encourages employees to record and reduce the amount of energy they use in their households, such as electricity and gas, and to help identify and reduce their CO₂ emissions using Panasonic's unique Household eco-account book. By recording relevant data in the book, employees become more focused on the environment and are further motivated to reduce their CO₂ emissions and make their lifestyles more environmentally conscious.

• * Number of participating households: Number of households to which copies of the Household eco-account book were distributed

As part of our efforts to save resources and reduce waste, we are promoting this campaign to encourage employees to take their own bags (eco bags) when shopping, thereby reducing the use of disposable plastic shopping bags provided by stores.

In fiscal 2008, some 4,200 employee households participated in this campaign and 3,922 of them made a report on their use of disposable plastic shopping bags. The average number of these bags used per household has been decreasing since the launch of the campaign, due to increasing social interest in eco bags and to our inhouse awareness-raising activities.

We encourage employees to participate in tree planting activities, tree thinning activities, and local cleaning activities as part of our environmental impact reduction and environmental education activities. In fiscal 2008, approximately 14,000 employees participated in these volunteer activities, on a total of some 36,000 occasions.

Frequency of participation in environmental volunteer activities by employees (total number for the fiscal year)

In November 2007, we started a campaign to encourage employees to choose product models in consideration of their energy conservation performance. We have been internally disclosing a list of energy-saving models of products^* and have conducted relevant surveys twice a year to encourage employees to choose energy-saving models. In fiscal 2008, approximately 28,000 households purchased approximately 107,000 products, of which about 70% were energy-saving models.

• * Targeted products: Room air conditioners, TVs, DVD recorders, freezers/refrigerators, jar rice cookers, microwave ovens, fluorescent lighting equipment,sanitary equipment, heat pump washer/dryers, natural refrigerant heat pump hot water suppliers, and ball-type fluorescent lamps.

We have been implementing a system for the accreditation of employees who continuously implement an eco life and encourage people to participate in environmental activities (LE Expert Accreditation System). In fiscal 2008, we encouraged employees to lead an eco life by holding seminars in which those accredited as LE Experts served as lecturers. In fiscal 2008, we newly accredited six employees as LE Experts and will further promote our LE Campaign with the help of these eco life experts.

Outline of accreditation criteria for LE Experts

Employees who have obtained the required scores in the following items are accredited as LE Experts.

• * Employees who have voluntarily met the extended criteria shown in parentheses are given extra scores.

In fiscal 2008, as part of our China Eco-Project, we started to encourage employees in China to lead environmentconscious lives and contribute to the local environment. First, we added items unique to China^* to the Eight ActionPrograms for Eco Life to make the Ten Action Programs for Eco Life and implemented measures to make all employees aware of these new items. Subsequently, in July 2007, we asked employees to make a Declaration of Eco Activities to show their commitment to the environment, and a total of 67,336 employees from 74 companies signed it. As common activities to be conducted across the companies, employees are encouraged to keep a Household ecoaccount book, replace lamps with fluorescent bulbs, not to drive their cars on the 22nd of every month and, for those that smoke---refrain from smoking on the last day of every month. In the future, we will set monthly activity themes for employees so that they can increase their environmental awareness and make contributions to the local environment through education and actual activities.

• * Energy and resource conservation including water saving at workplace, and compliance with public rules on manners

In fiscal 2008, celebrating the 10th anniversary of our LE Campaign, we implemented the Japanese-Chinese Joint ‘CO₂ Reduction Eco Challenge by 100,000 Employees!rsquo; in July, and asked employees to conduct daily energysaving activities for a week. As a result, 130,000 employees, exceeding the target of 100,000, participated in the Eco Challenge. It is estimated that CO₂ emissions were reduced by approximately 180 tons through the Eco Challenge, which is equivalent to the annual amount of CO₂ absorbed by some 13,000 cedar trees.^* According to the results of a survey conducted in Japan targeting the participants of the Eco Challenge, about 70% answered, ‘I want to continue my energy conservation activities.’

• * Source: Measures of Green Sink for Global Warming Prevention, issued by the Forestry Agency and the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.

• * The CO₂ emission coefficient used for electricity in China is 1.9 times that used in Japan