Toshiba's Mark Whittard
Toshiba’s Mark Whittard sees no reason why eco-efficiency, technical performance and style cannot coexist in his company’s products.
1. Why is Toshiba so committed to making its products energy efficient?
Companies and consumers will continue to invest in green technology and energy-saving devices over the coming months. With consumer sentiment on the rise around the environment, people are increasingly more interested in finding out practical things they can do to reduce their environmental impact.
Since the 1990s, Toshiba has been a global leader in meeting environmental challenges through innovation. Toshiba believes the key challenge today is achieving environmental sustainability while supporting the projected population and economic growth worldwide during the next several decades.
Toshiba offers one of the most comprehensive environmental solutions of any global company because of its ability to enhance eco-efficiency in both its energy services and electronic products worldwide. Eco-efficiency is defined by Toshiba as a measure of the environmental impact of a business process or product relative to its value. The company plans to continue growing its business while mitigating its environmental impact as well as the impact of society at large.
The goal of Environmental Vision 2050 is to improve the eco-efficiency of all Toshiba’s business processes and products by a factor of 5 by 2025 and by a factor of 10 by 2050, when compared with 2000, which will allow people to “lead rich lifestyles in harmony with the Earth.”
Toshiba aims to make Environmental Vision 2050 a reality by pursuing two complementary approaches: the Energy Approach, which seeks the best energy mix for a stable supply of reliable energy and climate change mitigation, and the Eco Products Approach, which focuses on creating Earth-conscious products based on an overall assessment of customer value and environmental impacts.
These approaches are paired with two actions: Eco Process, which seeks to minimize environmental impacts throughout business and production processes, and Eco Program, a concerted effort to tackle environmental solutions in collaboration with Toshiba stakeholders.
Energy efficient products are just one piece of the overall Toshiba environment strategy and proof of our commitment to our customers to responsibly deliver savings in energy consumption.
Today all of Toshiba’s notebook computers meet or exceed global energy star compliance
2. How is Toshiba contributing in addressing the problem of environmental sustainability?
Toshiba Corporation recently announced an ambitious upward revision of its goal to reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. The initial target has doubled and is now 117.7 million tons of CO2 emissions in FY2025. The new target is equivalent to almost twice Tokyo’s annual emissions.
The company intends to achieve these reductions by eliminating 82 million tons through elements of its Energy Approach and 35.7 million tons of CO2 emissions through more energy-efficient products as part of its Eco Products Approach.
Plans for Toshiba’s Energy Approach include deploying high-efficiency thermal power plants combined with carbon capture and storage, focusing on safe and efficient nuclear power generation, working to advance the efficiencies of power transmission networks, and promoting commercialization of new energy sources.
As one of the world’s largest and most innovative manufacturers, we are convinced that environmental considerations need to be built into every Toshiba product and process, from design and development though to manufacturing, usage and recycling.
3. What impact does Toshiba’s environmental focus have on its products?
Toshiba is leading innovation in mobile computing technology and is leading the charge to preserve the global environment. When it comes to building our award-winning products, we believe less is more. We minimise waste and use recycled materials wherever we can, while constantly looking for ways to reduce energy consumption. Our own recycling programs keep discarded technology from entering landfill, as does our devotion to worldwide environmental initiatives.
Eco-conscious products start with their design, and Toshiba is committed to designing products with minimal environmental impact. Underlying Toshiba’s efforts to create eco-products is its “Factor T” indicator, which enables Toshiba to quantitatively clarify the degree of eco-efficiency improvement compared with previous models. In addition to increased energy efficiency, Toshiba is moving toward the wider use of recycled resources and plant-derived resources in raw materials as well as shifting to the use of fewer materials for containers and packaging. The company also promotes the green procurement of products, parts and components, processed materials and raw materials with a 22-point check list for suppliers. To make it easier for its customers to identify environmentally-conscious products (ECP) that meet the company’s most stringent standards, Toshiba is featuring a new “Excellent ECP” mark.
Striving for optimum customer benefit with minimal environmental impact, the Eco Products Approach includes assessing and reducing the environmental impacts of Toshiba products throughout the product life cycle, from design and manufacturing to logistics and end of life. Key elements of this initiative include recycling, reducing or eliminating potentially harmful substances and creating more energy-efficient products.
In an industry first, Toshiba’s Portégé R600 ultra-portable notebook was ranked the worlds ‘greenest’ notebook according to a recent Greenpeace survey: “The Green Electronics Survey 2008”.
The annual survey, which evaluates the greenest electronic products on the market, scores Toshiba as the highest for the elimination of hazardous chemicals in its Portégé R600 notebook – beating all other manufacturers and winning the notebook category.
The Portégé R600, the world’s lightest fully-featured notebook, has restricted the use of hazardous chemicals such as cadmium, mercury and lead from batteries and other components. The ultra- portable notebook also features the option for a Solid State Drive (SSD) as a storage medium, which results in low energy consumption and long battery life, further reducing its environmental impact.
With the ongoing growth of the PC market, Toshiba also remains committed to notebook recycling. Toshiba’s E-cycle initiative is a program offering businesses and consumers the ability to do the right thing and divert their pre-loved Toshiba Notebooks from landfill.
Locally (ANZ), Toshiba ensures that Notebooks are disposed of in accordance with best environmental practice and government guidelines. By partnering with professional waste management companies such as MRI Australia, we offer an innovative refurbishment, remarketing and recycling program for customers.
4. Will Toshiba’s reputation for innovation suffer under its environmental goals in the midst of a global financial crisis?
During periods of global economic instability and uncertainty, such as the one we are now witnessing, history shows us that conservatism increases in both business and everyday life. This conservatism usually pushes companies to opt for a blatant decrease in R&D and innovation activities for fear of risking valuable profit. However, and using history once again as a guide, companies that have remained committed to innovation during challenging times have also witnessed continued success thanks to a flow of fresh ideas delivering cost effectiveness, productivity gains, valuable tools and differentiated products and services that further enhance their reputation in the market.
When budgets are tight and reservations to adopt new practices and products are strong, innovation in business typically suffers. However, organisational change to help bring about business improvement does not need to be rapid nor radical. Well-managed change in practices leads to sustained growth and development in the longer term.
Positive and measured change now will affect success in the future and Toshiba actively promotes this approach during the good and the bad times. More than 130 years in the business of innovation tells us this is a winning strategy.
Website: www.isd.toshiba.com.au
