Green procurement, or the procurement of materials with minimal environmental impact, is essential to supplying the market with products and services that have less environmental load on the earth. Based on this understanding, the Mitsubishi Electric Group has targeted green procurement as one of the priority goals of its corporate Environmental Plan, and has formulated the Green Procurement Standards Guide in September 2000 to further promote the procurement of materials with less environmental impact. Since then, there has been a worldwide trend to establish strict regulations governing the chemical content of products, such as the EU's End of Life Vehicle (ELV) directive, the European Parliament and Council Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste, and the Restriction of Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive*1, Japan's J-Moss system (marking of specific chemical substances for electrical and electronic equipment), China's edition of RoHS, and California's SB50 "Electronics Waste Recycling Act." To reflect this global movement, the Group has revised its Green Procurement Standards Guide once in August 2003, and again in November 2006. The 2006 revised Standards Guide aims to achieve global standardization of materials procurement based on the Joint Industry Guideline*2.

The Mitsubishi Electric Group conducts surveys on the status of suppliers' environmental management systems as well as their compliance with laws and regulations. Suppliers that are outstanding in these areas are granted Green Accreditation. By 2008, the Group plans to procure materials from those suppliers who have obtained such accreditation.

The Group also investigates the chemical content of materials it procures from its suppliers. The information is registered in an internal database to ensure continued compliance with the RoHS directive and other laws and regulations.

*1

RoHS directive: A directive issued by the European Union, restricting the use of six chemical substances in electrical and electronic products. As of July 2006, it has become illegal to sell products containing these six substances in the EU.

*2

Joint Industry Guideline: Guideline for the management of chemical substances contained in products, issued based on an agreement of the Japan Green Procurement Survey Standardization Initiative and the US Electronic Industries Alliance.