Environmental Activities - Green Products

Chemical Substances

For Panasonic, meeting legislation requirements on design, composition and recycling is only the starting-point of our environmental product requirements. For instance, with regards to chemicals policy, our requirements are way ahead of legislation.  Our products don’t just comply with ALL international legislation; we are also working to eliminate substances of concern to Panasonic, even where they are not legally restricted.

The starting point of our chemicals requirements is our stringent Guidelines for both factories, and product themselves. More information on our approach to chemicals managements can be found in our Green Procurement section .

Now, let's look at some examples of our pro-active approach to Chemicals management in practise. The basis for our action on substances, is our own Chemical Substance Management Rank Guidelines (for products), and this set of requirements itself demands a standard that is more advanced than legislation. For example, our restrictions on PVC and our requirement for global elimination of the substances eliminated under the European RoHS Directive, demonstrates our commitment to going beyond legislative limits.

Our stance on PVC, our stance on brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and our stance on Lead (Pb) within plasma display panels (PDPs) all highlight Panasonic’s outstanding commitment to the Environment. Indeed, our action on Pb in PDPs and our work towards elimination of BFR in notebooks and mobile phones demonstrates that our commitment to Environmental Protection will often go beyond the stringent requirements of even our own Substance Guidelines.

Lead free Plasma Display Panels used in Panasonic PDP Televisions

Panasonic is the first company in the world to achieve the elimination of lead (Pb) in Plasma Display Panels (PDPs) used as the central picture component in its Plasma TVs and Plasma Modules. In this specific case, the use of lead in PDPs was exempt from legislation because no alternative technology existed. But Panasonic persevered and found an alternative.

In conventional manufacturing processes for PDPs, lead oxide glass is used as a key component for the dielectric layer, electrodes, seal frit and other structural elements to form the panel. Until now, lead oxide glass was the only viable technology for this, and as such was exempted under the European RoHS Directive.

Nonetheless, Panasonic dedicated staff and resources to identifying an alternative. In 2006 we finalised our transfer to our new Pb-free alternative, and in November that year, we announced that all Panasonic PDP TVs would use only lead-free plasma display panels.

[Related info]

• News release - Panasonic Becomes World's First to Eliminate Lead in Display Panel for All Plasma TVs (Nov, 2006)

PVC-free

PVC is another good example of our chemicals policy in action: Although PVC is not currently prohibited under any law that applies to chemical substances used in electronics products, some researchers have suggested that there may be risks associated with incorrect disposal and associated with phthalate esters used in certain PVC resins.  The risks are by no means certain, but we are nonetheless committed to the removal of PVC from our products as soon as we can establish the best available PVC-free technologies, not entailing excessive cost to customers.

Because of state of current PVC-free technologies, this will have to be achieved on a phased basis.  Recognising that PVC can restrict the ability to recycle products, we’re committing to eliminating PVC within the internal wiring of all new Japanese-market products by the end of March 2009, with substitution will be completed in new products globally by the end of March in 2011. Of course, we recognise that external PVC wiring remains a challenge, but we are restricted by technologically viable alternatives, and furthermore, we believe that we must make product-recyclability a priority. This is why internal wiring, where PVC can restrict recycling is our initial focus.

Brominated Flame Retardant-free

Also, although halogenated flame retardants are currently essential to protect consumers and to minimise the risk of flammability in some electronic products, we are investigating ways to replace them wherever possible.

Our Components & Devices business group is already manufacturing halogen-free printed wiring boards for certain applications and markets.

Additionally, we have already begun to produce BFR-free products, where it is viable to do so. The table below provides examples of some of our 100% BFR-free products.

BFR-free Product Description	Model Numbers
Fluorescent Ceiling Lamps	HFA6364,  HFA0710C, HFA6324K
Fluorescent Kitchen Lamps	HW4871C

A short note on Notebooks and Mobile Phones

Panasonic do not make desk-top computers, only notebooks. With regards to mobile phones, Panasonic currently only sells mobile phones on the domestic Japanese market, nowhere else.

PVC-free
Panasonic changed to selling entirely PVC-free notebook computers (excluding the separate AC cord), in April 2007 in Japan. For mobile phones, all of our mobile phones have been PVC-free (excluding internal wiring in the charger) from FY2005 models onwards.

Furthermore, it is Panasonic's intention to sell only 100% PVC-free notebook computers (including all AC cords etc) as soon as technically possible. We plan to achieve this for new computer models entering the Japanese market in 2009 and by 2011 in the rest of the world (assuming there is no detrimental effect on product quality).

BFR-free
With regard to the specific brominated flame retardants PBB and PBDE (including Deca-BDE), we have eliminated these in our computers and mobile phones since October 2005.

Panasonic will never compromise on consumers' safety, and one aspect of safety relates to the non-flammability of our products.  This is why we still have to use brominated flame retardants within our computer and mobiles; because they assure our products are safe.

But, we intend to eliminate all remaining BFRs, just as soon as we have successfully identified alternatives. For mobile phones, we have already eliminated it from the exterior cases of our mobile phones, and we are diligently investigating alternatives for use elsewhere in the product. It is our intention to achieve this in new models by 2011 (assuming there is no detrimental effect on product quality).

Likewise we continue to investigate BFR alternatives for computers. As such, it is Panasonic's intention to eliminate BFR from all new computers by 2011(assuming there is no detrimental effect on product quality).

[Related info]

• TOUGHBOOK Global Site
• Panasonic Mobile Communication Co., Ltd - Environmental Activities

Phthalates-free and Antimony-free

Some researchers have suggested that phthalate compounds may have toxicity on reproductivity yet a risk assessment report by a Japanese research institute does not recognize such hazard actively. And phthalates are not currently prohibited under any law that applies to chemical substances used in electronics products. However, some phthalate compounds are prohibited under the toy directives in EU according to the precautionary principles. Since phthalate is mainly used as softeners in flexible PVC plastic, we are trying to reduce or eliminate it for all products by promoting PVC reduction activities.

Antimony is currently essential to protect consumers and to minimise the risk of flammability in some electronic products by using as the anti-flammability assisting agent, primarily as antimony trioxide because it can enhance BFR’s flame-retardant effect. As explained above, we are trying to create more BFR-free products, and we will continue to reduce an amount of Antimony use with the BFR elimination activities.