The Mitsubishi Electric Group promotes green procurement on the basis of its Green Procurement Standards Guide, which was originally drafted in September 2000 and continues to be revised to accord with current laws and regulations.

Particularly regarding the chemical substances contained in procured products, surveys are conducted by each company on their own standards and methods to reduce the burden on suppliers. Our surveys are conducted for the 24 JIG¹ substances using the Japan Green Procurement Survey Standardization Initiative's survey method.

In addition, we introduced a Green Accreditation system to ensure compliance with the EU's RoHS Directive². This system enables secure procured product quality while also ensuring compliance by avoiding the risk of prohibited substances being included in products. Suppliers of the materials and secondary materials used in products are evaluated on environmental measures and how well they control the chemical substances contained in their products. Suppliers that meet the Company's standards are certified as green suppliers. As of March 31, 2008, 92% of all our suppliers were accredited as green suppliers.

We help suppliers that do not meet our standards to improve by having them attend the Green Accreditation explanatory meeting.

Moreover, we will work together with certified green suppliers to prepare for compliance with the EU's REACH policy³, which will require the management of many more chemical substances.

The Mitsubishi Electric Group has completely eliminated use of the six specific substances¹ regulated by the EU's RoHS Directive (enforced July 2006) as of December 2005.

The Regulations that Control the Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products² went into effect on March 1, 2007. The first stage made it mandatory that labeling include information on the six specified substances. Product labels must include the environmental period of validity (the period during which the product can be used without causing serious environmental pollution) and the manufacturing date. In fiscal 2007, we achieved compliance with these requirements.

The second stage of implementation has yet to begin, but inclusion of the six substances will be regulated for products listed in a priority products catalogue in accordance with the CCC certification method³.

To comply with these regulations, we are acquiring information on the inclusion of chemical substances in parts and materials, as well as non-usage certificates to ensure reliability. We are also strengthening contamination prevention and traceability controls for the specified substances from a compliance standpoint, for example, by analyzing parts and materials with contamination risk ourselves and confirming the presence or absence of the substances.

In response to a trend toward reviewing unregulated items, we will replace currently used substances with alternatives, thereby ensuring compliance with these regulations.

In June 2007, the EU's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) policy took effect, thereby making it mandatory to conduct safety evaluations on approximately 30,000 kinds of chemical substances sold within EU countries.

The number of chemical substances handled by a single corporate group is enormous. It is impossibleboth from a technical perspective and in terms of the time requiredto pinpoint and analyze all such substances in the same way as required by the RoHS Directive.

(For instance, the Mitsubishi Electric Group will need to pinpoint and evaluate approximately 1,500 specified substances¹ used in our products to fulfill the responsibility to provide such information and report it to the regulatory authorities.)

To address this situation, industry-wide activities are under way to clarify the chemical substances contained in materials by accumulating information with the cooperation of companies both upstream and downstream in the supply chain. Specifically, upstream chemical and metal manufacturers began preparing and conveying information on the chemical substances that they combined and prepared to parts manufacturers in the middle, and that information is conveyed to assembling manufacturers downstream.

In September 2006, the Japan Article Management Promotion (JAMP)² was launched by a group of companies including Mitsubishi Electric. As one of the founders of this organization, we are participating in establishing the system.

Fiscal 2008 saw the full implementation of the Material Safety Data Sheet plus (MSDSplus), which is a description template for information on chemical substances used in paints and metal materials and preparation methods. We designed an in-house operation based on the MSDSplus to comply with the REACH policy. In July 2008, each company will begin to communicate information using the Article Information Sheet (AIS), which is a description template prepared by the JAMP for information on articles such as electronics parts and mechanical components.

Moreover, by no later than the end of June 2009, candidates for specified chemical substances will be determined, according to which we will begin to manage information on such substances.

In the future, the Mitsubishi Electric Group will promote dissemination activities such as holding explanatory meetings on the MSDSplus and the AIS for suppliers.