Environmental Performance
Preventing Global Warming
Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Mitsubishi Electric set a voluntary goal in 1997 of reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of net sales by 25% by fiscal 2011, compared to fiscal 1991 levels. In order to achieve this goal, our 5th Environmental Plan contains the target of reducing carbon dioxide by 33,000 tons during the five-year period from fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2011.
Carbon dioxide emissions from production activities in fiscal 2007 totaled 459,000 tons, an increase of 120,000 tons over the previous year. However, per sales emissions have dropped 23% from fiscal 1991, so we are poised to achieve our goal in fiscal 2008.
We have used emissions per unit of sales as our emissions intensity index, but starting with this year's report we are switching to emissions per unit of real sales, which incorporates the corporate goods price index, to achieve consistency with management indicators established for the electronics industry. Our voluntary target is being changed to a reduction of at least 60% per unit of real sales by fiscal 2011. To achieve this target, we will continue to reduce emissions by 10,000 tons annually through capital investment.
Carbon dioxide emissions per unit of real sales in fiscal 2007 were 63% lower than fiscal 1991 levels.
CO2 Reduction Targets at Production and Non-Production Sites
Under the 5th Environmental Plan, the scope of CO2 emissions management and data collection has been expanded to the entire Mitsubishi Electric Group in an effort to further reduce emissions.
For fiscal 2007, we had a goal of reducing CO2 emissions per unit of net production value by 2% at domestic sites (including research centers), and we successfully achieved a reduction of 6%. This was the result of efforts to increase energy efficiency at production sites under a policy of investing in high-efficiency equipment and other energy saving facilities every year at a targeted rate of 0.1% of production value.
The target for the head office, branch offices, and non-manufacturing companies in Japan and overseas is to reduce CO2 emissions by 1% per year per unit of floor space. The target for manufacturing affiliates in Japan is 1% reduction per year per nominal net sales. Manufacturing affiliates overseas have the same target. We will use fiscal 2007 levels as the baseline, and plan to reduce emissions by 1% every year from fiscal 2008.
Reducing CO2 Emissions at the Production Stage
Mitsubishi Electric has been striving since fiscal 2005 to reduce CO2 emissions from energy usage during production activities by 46,000 tons by fiscal 2011. We have implemented three basic strategies to meet this goal: installation of highly energy efficient equipment; minimization of energy loss by making production plant energy usage transparent at the production process level and individual facility level; and conversion to alternative fuels.
In fiscal 2007, we invested a total of ¥2.66 billion in these three strategies and reduced CO2 emissions by a total of 10,052 tons. (See the table below for a breakdown.)
| Action Plan | FY2011 Reduction Target (tons-CO2) |
FY2005 | FY2006 | FY2007 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Result | Result | |||||
| Reduction | Investment | Reduction | Investment | Reduction | Investment | ||
| (tons-CO2) | (Millions of yen) | (tons-CO2) | (Millions of yen) | (tons- CO2) | (Millions of yen) | ||
| Install high efficiency equipment | 34,800 | 4,098 | 1,443 | 5,910 | 1,468 | 8,842 | 2,481 |
| Energy-loss minimization (EM) activities | 8,000 | 214 | 41 | 266 | 76 | 890 | 156 |
| Shift to alternative flues | 3,200 | 1,872 | 48 | 334 | 49 | 320 | 25 |
| Total | 46,000 | 6,184 | 1,532 | 6,510 | 1,593 | 10,052 | 2,662 |
| Cumulative | - | 6,184 | 1,532 | 12,694 | 3,125 | 22,746 | 5,787 |
Reducing CO2 Emissions without Kyoto Mechanisms
Kyoto Mechanisms* enable the use of international collaboration to receive CO2 emissions credits. The mechanisms have been recognized by the international community since the Kyoto Protocol went into effect in February 2005. Mitsubishi Electric, however, is committed to achieving voluntary targets through its own efforts by investing in energy efficiency at production sites and promoting energy saving initiatives. Accordingly, our plans through 2010 do not call for the use of Kyoto Mechanisms.
- 1)
- The Clean Development Mechanism enables developed countries and developing countries to jointly implement a project and the country supplying the investment (developed country) to apply the amount of emissions reduced to its own reduction targets.
- 2)
- Joint Implementation enables developed countries to jointly implement a project and the country supplying the investment to apply the amount of emissions reduced to its own reduction targets.
- 3)
- Emissions Trading enables developed countries to buy and sell emissions in order to meet reduction targets.
