Our drive to maximize resource efficiency means that we will raise environmental efficiency (value divided by environmental impact) throughout the entire product lifecycle while increasing the quality of our products and services. In other words, we will strive to derive maximum value from minimum resources.
In 2003, we set forth the overriding indicator Factor 2 in our Vision for 2010 to put resource efficiency maximization into more concrete practice. The Group’s emission volumes are compiled for Canon lifecycle CO2, the major greenhouse gas, and environmental efficiency is taken to be the ratio of consolidated net sales to these emissions (consolidated net sales divided by lifecycle CO2 emissions). By 2010, we aim to double this basic unit, compared with the 2000 level, resulting in a factor of two.
As our mid-term environmental goal (2006-2008), we have set Factor 1.7 as our target. To achieve this goal, we have set targets for every operating segment of the Company and each operational site of the Group’s companies, and Canon is pursuing environmental assurance activities to this end.
In 2006, we posted a factor of 1.38, the same as in the preceding year, through efforts to make products more energy-efficient, smaller and lightweight, and to reduce the environmental burdens from customer usage and the manufacture of raw materials and parts by suppliers. As a result of higher product shipments, CO2 emission volumes rose from the benchmark figure of 6,112 thousand tons in 2000, to 6,851 thousand tons in 2006, an increase of 739 thousand tons, against stagnant growth in consolidated net sales as the result of increased competition and lower market unit prices. Had selling prices remained the same, we would have achieved a factor of 1.96*.
To achieve Factor 2, Canon will conduct scenario reviews across all areas of its activities. Furthermore, we are conducting factor re-search to establish and institute a more appropriate calculation methodology.
* The Factor is determined as follows.
Environmental Burden, Factor 2 Targets and Achievements
The product lifecycle in Canon’s business activities comprises four principal stages: 1) the manufacture of raw materials and parts by suppliers, 2)Canon’s operational site activities (development, production, and sales), 3) transportation to sales outlets and other locations (logistics), and 4) customer usage. For 2006, the material balance of our environmental burdens was as follows.
2006 Material Balance CO2 Emissions
Of the greenhouse gases designated by the Kyoto Protocol, we compile data for CO2, an energy-derived greenhouse gas. The baseline year is 2000, but past data may be revised, including in the baseline year, due to improvements in the precision of data calculations. Also, the figures for 2000 are estimated based on shipping weights because there is no data on the environmental burden associated with overseas logistics for that year.
We use different CO2 conversion coefficients for each region and year. In Japan, coefficients are supplied by the Ministry of the Environment and the Federation of Electric Power Companies. Overseas coefficients are provided on a region-by-region basis by the International Energy Agency. (The activities of all the operational sites listed here are included in the calculations, except for marketing companies.) With regard to customer usage, the amount of power consumed by products shipped in a given year over their average lifespan is converted to CO2 using coefficients released by the Ministry of the Environment in Japan in 2000. Other CO2 coefficients are provided by the JEMAI-LCA lifecycle assessment software from the Japan Environmental Management Association for Industry.
