Panasonic, the brand by which Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. is known, today announced its renewed commitment to climate change by adding ecological goals to its "GP3" three-year business plan that completes March 2010. The company also presented its "Panasonic Eco Ideas Declaration" identifying the three initiatives on which its environmental management activities focus.

Panasonic launched the GP3 plan in April 2007, setting goals and milestones such as achieving steady growth with profitability. The company has now added a new challenge in the ecological field to the GP3 plan - reduction of environmental burden in all areas of its business activities. Panasonic will strive to fulfill this ecological responsibility while realizing profitable growth.

As a manufacturing company, Panasonic aims to reduce CO2 emissions from its manufacturing operations in terms of total global levels rather than on a per basic unit basis[1]. Further, the company will count CO2 elimination as one of its main management indicators. The Panasonic Eco Ideas Declaration, as described below, reflects the company's reinforced commitment to the mitigation of climate change as a global corporate citizen.

Global climate protection has been on the agendas of international conferences such as the G8 Summit in Heiligendamm, APEC and United Nations high-level conferences. Next year, the Kyoto Protocol's five-year first commitment period (2008-2012) will commence, obliging participating nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. With the increasing concern among the international community in the background, Panasonic has responded by accelerating its efforts in environmental management. This is also in line with its management philosophy that calls for contribution to the society through business activities.

Reduction of CO2 emissions from manufacturing operations

1) Reducing total global amount of CO2 emissions
Even if the total production capacity increases in the future, Panasonic will use the performance level of fiscal year 2007[2] as a yardstick for measuring progress in eliminating CO2 emissions from its 294 manufacturing sites across the world. To be specific, Panasonic aims to eliminate 300,000 tons of CO2 emissions during the three years covered by the GP3 plan, lowering the total CO2 level to 3.68 million tons in fiscal year 2010 from 3.98 million tons in fiscal year 2007. In fiscal year 2011, the company intends to bring it down further to around 3.60 million tons, the level of fiscal year 2001.

2) CO2 emissions, a new management indicator
Starting fiscal year 2009, Panasonic will include CO2 emissions to its critical management indicators including sales, operating profit, inventory and CCM[3] as a method of reinforcing its efforts to address climate protection. In April this year, the company established an environmental performance system to collect monthly performance data on 23 items from the manufacturing locations worldwide and analyze and feed the results back to them for further improvements. The 23 environmental performance data items include CO2 emissions as well as water and energy consumption such as electricity, gas and fuel oil, among others. The system started this month in Japan and will be implemented at all manufacturing locations including overseas facilities in January 2008.

Panasonic Eco Ideas Declaration

1) Eco Ideas for Products: Panasonic will deliver energy-efficient products. Panasonic will accelerate development and adoption of energy-saving technologies to increase products that lead the industry in the energy-efficiency while eliminating products with poor energy-efficiency.

2) Eco Ideas for Manufacturing: Panasonic will reduce CO2 emissions. Not limited to manufacturing, Panasonic will reduce CO2 emissions from all its activities worldwide including product planning, procurement, sales, logistics and recycling by improving productivity.

3) Eco Ideas for Everybody, Everywhere: Panasonic will encourage spreading environmental activities throughout the world. Panasonic will take initiative in promoting ecological movements from local communities to the global community by collecting wisdom of not only its employees but also people around the world.

[1] Basic unit = Volume of CO2 emissions divided by consolidated sales or production volume.

[2] Fiscal year 2007 ends March 31, 2007. Panasonic fiscal years begin April 1 and end March 31.

[3] CCM is an indicator created by Panasonic to evaluate return on capital. A positive CCM indicates that the return on invested capital meets the minimum return expected by capital markets.