Green Products - Reducing Chemical Substances

• Specified chemical substance management system

In July 2006, the RoHS Directive came into force in the European Union (EU), banning the sale of all electrical and electronic equipment that contain six specified chemical substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and two specified brominated flame retardants). Moves toward similar bans are now spreading across the world. For example, the Act on the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources was revised in Japan in July 2006, and Management Methods for Controlling Pollution by Electronic Information Products were enforced in China in March 2007.
   Panasonic expanded the non-use of specified chemical substances on a global scale and we completely substituted these substances with safer ones in all targeted 31,400 models by the end of October 2005. Even after the completion of this switchover, we have been continuing our efforts to prevent any acceptance, use, or distribution of specified chemical substances throughout our production activities at all our global sites, including product design and shipment inspections. For example, we have introduced analyzing equipment at our manufacturing sites so that staff can analyze and check for the use of specified chemical substances in the parts they purchase for manufacturing. In fiscal 2007, we implemented internal audits and introduced more analyzing machines to enhance our specified chemical substance management system.

[Related Data File]

• Basic policy for managing chemical substances in products
• Developing the world’s first lead-free plasma display panel
• Partially discontinuing use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin
• Collecting and managing data on chemical substances from suppliers across the world