Toshiba Group manufactures and sells a wide range of products,
from electronic parts (e.g., semiconductors and hard
disks) to home appliances (e.g., refrigerators, washing machines
and air conditioners) to audio-visual products (e.g.,
PCs and TVs) and social infrastructure products (e.g., medical
equipment, transformers and weather radars). Various
chemicals are used to manufacture these products. In recent
years, regulations on the management of chemicals have
become increasingly strict in countries around the world.
For example, the EU revised the RoHS Directive*1 in January
2013 and expanded the restriction of certain hazardous substances
to all electric and electronic products. In addition to
the EU, countries such as Vietnam, China, Jordan and India
are preparing to implement similar directives. (For details,
see the figure below.) The similar movements are taking
place in countries around the world.
Against this background, we are collaborating with the Local
Environment Division to collect, aggregate and analyze
the latest information on relevant regulations in order to
implement appropriate measures for ensuring legal compliance.
Furthermore, Toshiba Group has its own standards
for the management of chemicals; these standards are applied
worldwide to all its products so that customers can use
Toshiba products with a sense of security.
With a view to achieving the goal of minimizing risks involved
in the use of chemicals, which was proposed and adopted at
the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD*2)
and other conferences, Toshiba Group has been promoting
initiatives to eliminate the use of specified chemicals, to reduce
the amount of chemicals contained in products and to
use substitute materials. As part of these initiatives, we have
selected chemicals whose use is restricted by typical laws in
Japan and elsewhere and chemicals that Toshiba Group is
managing on voluntary basis and created the Toshiba Group
Environment-related Substance List in order to manage the
chemicals contained in products by grouping substances
into two categories: rank A (prohibited substances) and rank
B (managed substances). (For details, see the table below.)