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| Tighter control of chemical substances and of substances contained in products |
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| Approaches to control of chemical substances |
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NEC Fielding has positioned environmental measures as key management agenda in its execution of business. In this connection, we have determined basic guidelines for control of chemical substances and are actively practicing them. We also respond promptly to existing international regulations governing chemical substances, and will continue to do so into the future.
■ Development of products and maintenance equipment
In our development of products and maintenance equipment, we make assessments of the contents of hazardous chemical substances, and preclude or limit them.
■ Product sales
For products we are to sell, we obtain advance information on the contents of hazardous chemical substances and material safety data sheets (MSDS) from the suppliers so that we can rapidly respond to customer requests for such information.
■ Maintenance service work
For solvents and other materials used in maintenance equipment, we obtain MSDS from the suppliers in advance and provide data in a common format to facilitate on-site use. |
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| Green procurement (compliance with domestic and foreign regulations on hazardous chemical substances) |
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The Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive issued by the European Commission evidences the growing movement to tighten regulations on such substances around the world. In the Japanese market as well, customers sometimes request green procurement, in which a content free of hazardous chemical substances is a requirement.
NEC Fielding has established its own green procurement standards with consideration of the other domestic and foreign regulations on hazardous chemical substances. We require compliance with these standards in our procurement of all tangible materials and components needed for the execution of our business. |
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| Construction of the Green Procurement System |
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Recent years have seen a rise in the number of inquiries we receive from customers about substances on the RoHS list and other hazardous chemical substances possibly contained in the products we sell. Formerly, when they received requests from customers for information about contents of such substances, our sales and service offices would make inquiries to our Technical Divisions, which, in turn, would obtain the desired information from suppliers. It consequently took considerable time to get back to the customers.
To address this issue, NEC Fielding constructed a Green Procurement System based on the Product Sales System already in operation, and placed it into service in April 2008. The sales and service offices can directly access this system, and therefore can furnish immediate replies in response to customer requests for information about hazardous chemical substances. |
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| The Green Procurement System |
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| Building a Green Procurement System for integrated management of information on hazardous chemical substances contained in products |
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Masataka Ueno, Assistant Manager of Common Engineering Dep., Engineering Div. |
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 In our former system, requests for information from customers about hazardous chemical substances possibly contained in products we sold were sent in succession from our sales offices to the Environmental Management Promotion Office, product development department of the Engineering Division, and finally the suppliers or manufacturers. They went through five or six stages in all. For this reason, customers sometimes had to wait more than one month for a reply.
We built our Green Procurement System with the objective of prompt provision of information to customers. At present, our sales offices can give answers directly to customers in real time.
I was in charge mainly of putting together the data base for the Green Procurement System. At first, we were somewhat unsure about the choice of registration procedure for data on contents of hazardous chemical substances in products we sell that were procured from others. However, we managed to construct the system, thanks especially to the Environmental Management Promotion Office as well as the Management Information Systems Division, product development department, and other concerned units. From now on, we intend to add more functions and make the system even more effective. |
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| Reinforcing industrial waste and recycling governance |
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| Integrated management by waste control system |
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In fiscal 2008, NEC Fielding instated a waste control system and began integrated management of manifesto slips and consigned treatment agreements for all industrial waste derived at our sales offices nationwide.
In the past, each sales office managed compliance with laws and regulations by its own procedure, in respects including delivery and receipt of manifesto slips for industrial waste and effective terms of consignment contracts for their treatment and disposal. The instatement of this system represents the nationwide unification of such management. The system is equipped with an alarm function warning of the approach of expiration dates, and is in extensive use for centralized management of contracts related to industrial waste and manifesto reports to the authorities in the following year. It has been linked to a major reinforcement of our industrial waste and recycling governance. |
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