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Eco-friendly products
To reduce environmental impact across the product lifecycle, Kao has created its own Design for Environment (DfE) guidelines listing factors that should be taken account of from the design stage in order to create safe, eco-friendly products, and conducts qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Starting from fiscal 2008, we introduced stricter quantifying of the environmental burden rate over the product lifecycle. To make the improvement rate clear, we have adopted a new environmental burden improvement rate index*. This allows us to compare and evaluate lifecycle CO2 emissions for existing “standard” products and new “development” products, to reduce the environmental burden by improving product functions and performance.
- *Environmental burden improvement rate:
A: Standard Product and B: Development Product are compared and evaluated for lifecycle CO2 emissions according to the formula A÷B. When the resulting number is larger than 1, a new product is deemed to have a lower environmental burden than a standard product.
Main Points of product Design for Environment
| Objectives and Significance |
|---|
| To determine items and procedures regarding environmental impacts and safety that must be considered during the design process for the purpose of reducing environmental impacts and ensuring the safety of productsCompatible with the concept of a recycling society and with business sustainabilityReducing impacts on the global environmentEnsuring the safety of users and the protection of the environmentImproving functions and performance of products and reducing their environmental impacts |