TOSHIBA CORPORATION - Environmental Record

E-waste is something that negatively affects the environment due to improper discard of items such as computers, DVD players, and cell phones. Most e-waste is hazardous to the environment because of its tendency to release toxic materials, such as lead and mercury, into soil and water, which later affect human, animal, and vegetation health. Toshiba has been making efforts to lessen their impact on the environment. 

In March 2008, they tied for first place in Greenpeace’s seventh edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics companies according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Toshiba received 7.7 points out of ten points possible, showing its improvement in recycling and chemical use since the last edition when it was only ranked number six. Toshiba focused on improving their score in Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR), which measures how efficiently a company deals with e-waste that is created from their own products that are thrown away.

In Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics from October 2010 Toshiba only ranked 16th out of 18 leading electronic manufacturers. Greenpeace criticises Toshiba for backtracking on its commitment to bring to market new models of all its consumer electronics products free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) by 1 April 2010, and for not providing a new timeline for the elimination of these substances. Toshiba has some laptops, phones and TVs that are partly but currently no models that are completely free of PVC and BFRs. Toshiba aims to replace phthalates, beryllium and antimony in all its products by 2012.

Toshiba reports that all of its new LCD TVs comply with the Energy Star standards and 34 models exceed the requirements by 30% or more. Toshiba also partnered with China’s Tsinghua University in 2008 in order to form a research facility to focus on energy conservation and the environment. The new Toshiba Energy and Environment Research Center is located in Beijing where forty students from the university will work to research electric power equipment and new technologies that will help stop the global warming process. 

Through this partnership, Toshiba hopes to develop products that will better protect the environment and save energy in China. This contract between Tsinghua University and Toshiba originally began in October 2007 when they signed an agreement on joint energy and environment research. The projects that they conduct work to reduce car pollution and to create power systems that don’t negatively affect the environment.

On December 28, 1970 Toshiba began the contruction of unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which was damaged in the Fukushima I nuclear accidents on March 14, 2011. In April 2011 CEO Norio Sasaki declared nuclear energy would "remain as a strong option" even after the Fukishima I nuclear accidents. (Wikipedia)