Eco-Product Initiatives

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Environmental Activities

Environmental Initiatives | Environmental Protection Goals | Climate Change Initiatives | Conserving Water | Waste Reduction Efforts | Chemical Substance Use | Eco-Product Initiatives | Eco-Communication Initiatives | Biodiversity Conservation Activities | Environmental Data and Third-Party Verification

Eco-Product Initiatives

Our eco-product initiatives take the form of creating environmentally-conscious products and solutions

Creating Environmentally-Conscious Products

In order to create environmentally-conscious products, it is important to reduce the environmental impact at all stages of the product lifecycle, from procurement, manufacturing, use and disposal. Our eco-products are the result of product environmental assessments* which evaluate the total environmental impact reduction measures. During these product environment assessments, our products are tested and evaluated at two stages: at the development stage and before mass production.

^{*: This product environmental assessment applies to former Renesas products.}

Eco-Product initiatives at each stage

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Environmental Assessments of Products

We create environmentally-conscious products by incorporating product environmental assessments into the product development and design flow, to evaluate the degree of improvement in environmental load. In this assessment, we make comparisons between our target products with indexed previous generations of the products (Note 1) based on eight criteria, including weight reduction, product safety, and whether they are energy saving. The outcome of the assessment is determined by the design department developing the product that is being assessed as well as the Environmental Promotion Department at Renesas as a third-party assessor. If the outcome determines that any of the three categories below applies, the sale of the product is prohibited in principle. 

• If a prohibited material is used in the product or in the manufacturing process
• If a new material used in the product or in the manufacturing process is not SDS (Note 2) registered 
• If the preliminary examination of any new materials used in the manufacturing process has not been conducted

In addition, if the environmental performance of a product has not improved in comparison to the indexed product, the design department must consider making improvements to the product or decide whether the development should continue. 
The steady promotion of the environmental assessment increases the safety and trust of Renesas’ semiconductor products, as well as to further improve the environmental performance of the products themselves. This will ultimately lead to reducing the environmental impact for the final customers using our finished products.

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Note 1: Previous generation refers to indexed products that are one generation prior but have almost the same purpose, function and performance as the new product. However, if there are no previous generations of a product, the new product itself is considered as the index product. 
Note 2: Safety Data Sheet (SDS) refers to the information document provided by supplies on the properties of chemical substances and the handling of materials that contain hazardous substances that may be dangerous or harmful.

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Renesas Green Devices

In order to promote research and development (R&D) and design of products which corresponds to the creation of environmentally-conscious products based on the Environmental Action Guidelines (creating environmentally-friendly semiconductor products in all stages of the product life cycle), products that greatly contribute to the reduction of environmental impact are certified as "Renesas Green Devices.” 
Green Devices certifications are conducted on products that have completed the development stage but have not yet been mass produced. The certification process is basically as follows: Firstly, based on the results of the product environmental assessments, we confirm whether the environmental performance of the target product is more superior to the indexed product in the three categories of resources (mass), energy (energy consumption) and chemical substances (quantity of substances used by Renesas that are subject to reduced usage). Secondly, if the target product is determined to be superior to the indexed product and the improvement rate is over 10%, the product is certified as “Renesas Green Devices.” Products with over 40% improvement in environmental performance is certified as “Renesas Super Green Devices.”  

Products certified as “Renesas Green Devices” and “Renesas Super Green Devices” for having superior environmental performance among the many hundreds of products developed annually at Renesas are registered in a database. Some of the products that can be publicly disclosed are uploaded onto the Renesas website. 
Going forward, Renesas will continue to promote the creation of environmentally-conscious products by considering plans to introduce award systems for recognizing green device certified products.

Introduction of Renesas Green Devices and Super Green Devices (Products developed in 2019 and 1H of 2021) 
Excerpt from products that can be publicly disclosed

Product Environmental Quality

We believe that it is necessary for the entire supply chain to manage chemical substances contained in products throughout the entire process, from the selection of materials during development and design, to the prevention of pollution in the manufacturing process. For this reason, we ask suppliers to submit certificates and analysis data to confirm that prohibited substances are not used, and they adhere to such practices in supplier audits.
Distributors are requested to manage the chemical substances contained in the packaging materials they use. On the other hand, we also provide our customers with information on chemical substances contained in products and analysis data on prohibited substances according to the RoHS Directive to ensure that our products can be used safely. In addition, we show our customers our systems for managing chemical substances and actual environmental activities.

For more information on our group's environmentally-conscious supply chain initiatives, please refer to this link.

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Energy-Saving Devices

We deliver energy-saving products and solutions that support our customers' electronic equipment and systems. Some of the products and solutions we deliver consume very little power themselves, and some help further reduce energy consumption in our customers' systems when used. By actively developing such devices, our devices contribute to energy efficiency in society.

For details of our products and solutions that contribute to ultra-low power consumption and energy efficiency in our customers' systems, please refer to this link.

Contributing to SDGs

Renesas’ efforts in Eco-Product Initiatives contributes to these Sustainable Development Goals targets:

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12.4 By 2020, achieve the environmentally-sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment