Management of Chemical Substances in Products

In the most common chemical substance management measures, new substances are evaluated according to law requirements, and those confirmed as safe are allowed to be used. On the other hand, substances that were already in use before the law was enacted are regarded as "existing" substances, over which administrative agencies are in charge of safety evaluation. However, the evaluation process has not been proceeded quickly enough.

To break through this situation, European Union (EU) introduced the REACH Regulation, which has a registration system that requires enterprises to evaluate the risks of existing substances as well, if they are to be used continuously. At the same time, the REACH Regulation aims at the safe use of chemical substances through information-sharing on chemical substance content and hazardousness throughout a supply chain. Panasonic supports the objective of REACH and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) based on WSSD's Johannesburg Plan to further improve the chemical management not only in EU but throughout the world.

Article 33 of REACH requires all suppliers of articles in EU to provide information about Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) defined by the REACH Regulation to their customers and consumers when those substances are present in a concentration of more than 0.1% of article's weight.

DEHP, one of the phthalates which is listed in SVHC candidate list is commonly known to be contained in cables of electric and electronic equipment. Some of our products may contain it in their cables. Detailed safety information of DEHP is available on the URL shown below following to REACH requirement.

No other substances from the SVHC candidate list are present in our products as described by article 33 within our current knowledge.

• about REACH (ECHA)
• MSDS of DOP(DEHP)
• REACH Candidate List