Reduction of Environmental Burden through Environmentally Conscious Products
Environmentally Conscious Product and CSR/CSV Conscious Product
Maxell Group regist our products as "environmentally conscious product" when its environmental impacts fulfill the certain criteria. At design and development stages of our new products, we qualitatively evaluate its environmental impacts in each life cycle of it. The evaluation is implemented in accordance with the items of environmentally conscious design assessment criteria. If the assessed product did not meet the standards for "environmentally conscious products," we also conduct the CSR/CSV conscious product assessment. As a result of this, when the product fulffill the certain criteria, we regist it as "CSR/CSV conscious products" which contributes to the SDGs. Furthermore, we decided to formulate a new certification standard to pick out excellent products and efforts from our environmentally conscious products and to start to certify and register and award that certified products and efforts from fiscal 2024. The reasons we started this are the registor rate of environmentally conscious products and CSR/CSV conscious products have kept achieving 100％, and more reduction of environmental impacts and social challege solution are required. The purpose of this new certification is to lead implementing the effort which shows "an environmental contribution degree" regarded more important among the society and raising the product design developers's awareness and motivation.
We named the category of those excellent products and efforts as "Eco Excellence". We are also going to certify our environmentally conscious products and efforts as "Eco Excellence". The certifying condition is concerned with the five items below. 1)CO2 reduction 2)Weight reduction 3)Using recycled materials or low environmental impact materials (alternative materials) 4)Long life 5)Recyclability when disposed
The product or effort are certified as "Eco Excellence" when some improvement over certain criteria towards the items above is done compared to our existing product or other company's product, or when they have any innovativeness that does not apply for the items above.
Environmental Design Assessment
Products and services that consume natural resources and energy contribute to global warming and resource depletion throughout their lifecycle (LCA: Life Cycle Assessment), from procurement and manufacturing to distribution, use, and disposal. The purpose of environmental design (eco-design) is to minimize this environmental impact.
CSR/CSV Product Assessment
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to address major challenges in the economy, society, and environment.
Our products and services that contribute to the 17 goals and 169 targets of the international goals to be achieved by fiscal 2030 are evaluated and certified based on their value creation, applicability, and scope.
Eco Excellence
We certified ten products and efforts as eco excellence in fiscal 2024. As examples, a CR battery, an oxygen sensor, and a Recycled PET masking tape. The CR battery achieves long life and reduce carbon dioxide emission produced when changing batteries and discarding. The oxygen sensor overcame a technological problem that not to use any lead, a harmful substances, and achieves being lead-free. The recycled PET masking tape is made from recycled material, even their paper roll.
Sales Ratio of Environmentally Conscious CSR/CSV Products *1
In accordance with the "Act on the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources," Maxell has joined an association called the Japan Portable Rechargeable Battery Recycling Center (JBRC) and displays recycling symbols on the lithium-ion batteries manufactured and sold, and promotes the use of the association's collection and recycling system to customers.
In fiscal 2023, through such supporting activities, the amount of small lithium-ion batteries collected by JBRC was 589 tons (100% compared to the previous year), which was approximately the same amount as in fiscal 2022. We believe that recycling is becoming an ingrained habit among consumers. With regard to projectors, in April 2019 we received approval from the Ministry of the Environment under the "wide area certification system" to promote recycling, and we have continued to collect projectors for recycling since then. As for hair dryers and shavers, they fall under the "Act on Promotion of Recycling of Small Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment," and collection is carried out by each municipality.
*1 Environmentally Conscious CSR/CSV Products include both environmentally Conscious products and CSR/CSV products.