Seeking to reduce the total volume of greenhouse gases emitted from our business activities, Murata has established guidelines for global warming prevention, and the Group as a whole, led by the Special Committee on Global Warming Prevention, is making continuous efforts to achieve our targets, including taking measures to reduce emissions from the design/development stages to the production stage of products and production facilities.
In fiscal 2010, greenhouse gas emissions of the Group's business sites in Japan decreased by approximately 31,000 tons from the previous year. This can be attributed to strengthened energy conservation efforts across the entire Group, as well as to the increased production efficiency we achieved owing to robust production growth in the electronics market, and the significant improvement in the emissions coefficients of the power companies that supply us with electricity. As a result, greenhouse gas emissions per basic unit of production improved significantly in fiscal 2010, from a 47% reduction rate in fiscal 2009 to a 62% reduction, relative to the fiscal 1990 level.
About Emissions per Unit of Net Production
The emissions ratio is the value of CO2 emissions against real production, which is calculated by adjusting production (monetary value) for deflation using the domestic corporate goods price index (for electronic components and devices) announced by the Bank of Japan. This figure indicates the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted in the process of producing a given product quantity (monetary value).
What are the emissions coefficients of the power companies?
Emissions coefficients per unit of electric power for each of the nation's electric power companies, published by the Ministry of the Environment in accordance with the national Calculation, Reporting and Publication System for Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
The Special Committee on Global Warming Prevention is made up of representatives of production plants, Business Departments, Development Departments, and Headquarters staff, and works to conserve energy and prevent global warming via a company-wide system. For example, the committee is making CO2 emissions in production processes “visible,” and is pushing ahead with a variety of activities including the identification of important factors in energy conservation and efforts involving taking up improvements to high-emission processes as development themes. A severe price competition is also pushing down the costs of manufacturing.
Photo from a regular briefing session
In fiscal 2010, Murata achieved a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. To ensure that these reductions are ongoing, we will continue to push ahead with efforts centering on our Special Committee on Global Warming Prevention, and will fundamentally reexamine the conditions for our production facilities that have clean rooms and heat source facilities and our production processes, working to increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions.
CO2 Emissions
CO2 emissions of the Murata Group as a whole
At Murata, we are developing production equipment able to function using as little energy as possible and in as small an area as possible. Using former equipment as a benchmark and comparing energy consumption per unit of production, all equipment introduced by Murata since FY2004 has realized energy and space savings.In FY2010, we developed six new types of equipment, three of which achieved an increase of 50% or more in energy conservation performance against benchmark equipment. In addition, from FY2010, we commenced an energy conservation design training workshop aimed at designers of production equipment. From FY2011 onwards as well, we are moving ahead with the development of energy-saving equipment, focusing on five targets: (1) increased baking furnace efficiency; (2) major restructuring of key product production equipment (laminators; 75% energy savings over current equipment) ; (3) use of waste heat for drying equipment (50% energy savings over current equipment) ; (4) an enhanced system of energy savings checks during equipment design audits; and (5) energy-saving design training at domestic plants.
Energy Conservation Performance of Developed Equipment
Kanazawa Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.
Production Dept. 1
Akihito Tamura
Department-wide challenge for our CO2 emissions reduction project
Kanazawa Murata has greatly reduced power consumption by making improvements over the cryo compressor（ helium compressor） used for ultra-high vacuum pump as a part of our CO2 emissions reduction project. We achieved this feat three months earlier than our initial schedule thanks to collaborative effort with associated departments. We were able to reduce the amount of CO2 by 363 tons per year （1% of the total CO2 emissions at our plant）. Our success has motivated us to continue our efforts to make even greater reductions in the future.