Environmental Management

Putting Sustainable Management into Practice

Basic Approach to Sustainable Management

In accordance with internal environmental conservation guidelines established in line with Sharp’s Basic Environmental Philosophy, the Sharp Group Charter of Corporate Behavior, and the Sharp Code of Conduct, Sharp is pursuing environmental consciousness across all of its business activities.

Toward realizing a sustainable global environment, Sharp has formulated SHARP Eco Vision 2050, a long-term environmental vision with 2050 as the target year. Under this vision, Sharp is striving to solve social problems and continuously raise corporate value through the development of technologies and the provision of products and services.

System for Promoting Sustainable Management

Sharp has set up the ESG Promotion Group to formulate and carry out the company’s environmental vision, policies, and targets, and to strengthen environmental governance. The ESG Promotion Group formulates important environmental policies, strategies, and measures at the corporate level regarding sustainable management based on Sharp’s management policies and environmental vision.

The Sustainability Committee* includes the president & CEO, senior executives, and the heads of Sharp business units and subsidiaries. Through this committee, the ESG Promotion Group confirms progress toward environmental goals and supports environmental activities, and forms subcommittees to accelerate efforts on key tasks.

We carry out company-wide initiatives to deal with issues in the areas of product environmental laws and regulations and chemical substance controls. Periodic meetings are held to exchange and accelerate the dissemination of information relevant to these areas. We have also established a working group on product environmental laws and regulations in order to come up with concrete measures and policies for their implementation.

System for Promoting Sustainable Management in the Environmental Area

Environmental Education

In accordance with the basic strategy of its management policy—foster and strengthen human resources—Sharp strives to step up the cultivation of human resources as the foundation of its sustainable management. To this end, the company has been providing training programs, including basic training open to all employees.

Since fiscal 2019, Sharp has held environmental awareness training to help all employees acquire a wide range of environmental knowledge, and an introductory training course on environmental laws and regulations, which is mandatory for third-year employees.

Fiscal 2024 saw 13,370 participants join ESG-related e-learning for Sharp employees in Japan.

With the aim of fostering human resources who will contribute to the company in stepping up compliance and achieving its environmental vision, Sharp will continue to improve and expand its environmental education curricula by adjusting them to different duties and roles.

Environmental Performance Data Collection and Management

To support sustainable management, Sharp has introduced a cloud-based system for efficiently collecting and managing data on Sharp’s environmental performance, including energy consumption, waste generation, water usage, and chemical substances handled in Sharp’s business activities. This system is in operation at Sharp bases in Japan and overseas. Collecting and analyzing such data helps Sharp grasp the current state of its sustainable management, identify problems, and formulate measures. Sharp is also engaging with suppliers to gather primary data.

Promoting an Environmental Management System

Since 1995, Sharp has been operating an ISO 14001-based environmental management system and has acquired ISO 14001 certification for all 26 worldwide production bases. The purpose of this system is to strengthen environmental sustainability management and improve the environmental awareness of employees.

ISO 14001 was revised in fiscal 2015. It now requires companies to further their efforts with a more strategic perspective—for example, by integrating their environmental activities with business activities. In response to the revision, Sharp is operating a more effective environmental management system that matches the particular needs of each base.

Product and Plant Audits

Sharp regularly carries out a Green Product/Green Device Audit aimed mainly at ensuring compliance in product development. The company checks compliance with the environmental laws and regulations of each country and the reflection of environmentally friendly design in products, such as energy efficiency, resource savings, and recyclability.

Sharp also reviews and evaluates environmental activities at its production bases as part of the CSR self-assessment survey.

Legal Violations, Accidents

In fiscal 2024, Sharp was not subject to any lawsuits or fines related to environmentally related legal violations. There were also no major environmentally related accidents.

Developing Environmentally Conscious Products and Devices

Developing Green Products and Devices

Sharp calls its environmentally conscious products “Green Products (GP).” The GP Guidelines, which define development and design criteria in line with seven concepts, have been in use at all product design departments since fiscal 1998. In developing products, Sharp sets specific objectives according to the GP Standard Sheet, which is formulated based on the GP Guidelines. In the trial manufacture and mass production stages, it determines how well the actual product has met these objectives. The content of the GP Standard Sheet—the benchmark for development objectives—is revised each year in order to constantly improve the environmental performance of Sharp products.

Sharp calls its environmentally conscious devices “Green Devices (GD).” To define guidelines for development and design based on seven concepts, Sharp established the GD Guidelines, which it began applying at all device design departments in fiscal 2004. Sharp sets objectives according to the GD Standard Sheet and assesses how objectives have been met in a similar way to GP standards. The assessment criteria are revised every year so that Sharp can continuously raise the environmental performance of its devices.

Green Product Concepts

Green Device Concepts

Development Process for Green Products and Devices

When developing and bringing to market Green Products and Green Devices, the product environmental assessment system, which contains the GP/GD Standard Sheet in digital form, is used to confirm environmental performance. The GP/GD Standard Sheet stipulates concrete targets covering seven environmental concepts, as well as rules on how to abide by various countries’ environmental laws, which are growing year by year. The departments in charge of development and commercialization use the product environmental assessment system to input data on the products and devices, and to confirm how these are progressing in meeting the environmentally friendly criteria. Since fiscal 2004, Sharp has been using this system to certify products with particularly high levels of environmental performance as Super Green Products.

Product Environmental Assessment System Flow

Certifying Super Green Products

The criteria for certifying Super Green Products are periodically revised in response to changing environmental laws and market demands for greater environmental friendliness. In fiscal 2016, Sharp revised the certification criteria in the following way. Products are certified if (1) they offer class-leading energy-saving or energy-creating performance, or (2) they offer significantly high environmental performance through the use of unique Sharp technology. Sharp also aggressively develops products that make the maximal use of minimal resources. In fiscal 2024, the company added another SGP certification criterion, stating that products would be certified if they (and their packaging) include a percentage of recycled or recyclable materials above a certain Sharp in-house target number.

In fiscal 2024, sales of those products reached 98.4 billion yen, with SGP sales accounting for 22% of all GP sales in Japan.

Examples of Super Green Products

Example

“ePoster” Color Electronic Paper Display Wins the Director-General’s Award of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy in the 2024 Energy Conservation Grand Prize with 2 Models

In the product and business model category of 2024 Energy Conservation Grand Prize, organized by the Energy Conservation Center, Japan, Sharp’s color electronic paper display “ePoster” 2 models ＜EP-C251/EP-C131＞ received the “Director-General’s Award of the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.” Energy Conservation Grand Prize is a program that recognizes outstanding energy conservation efforts and advanced, high-efficiency energy-saving products in the industrial, commercial, and transportation sectors in Japan.

“ePoster” achieves display retention with zero power consumption. Power is only required when rewriting the display, demonstrating excellent energy-saving performance. It incorporates the electronic paper technology of E Ink Holdings Inc. (Headquarters: Hsinchu City, Taiwan, CEO: Johnson Lee), the world’s largest electronic paper company, combining high visibility like paper and rich color expression. Additionally, it features a thin and lightweight design, making it usable in locations where digital signage installation was previously difficult due to power supply and load-bearing issues. Furthermore, it supports simultaneous rewriting of multiple displays remotely. This product was highly evaluated not only for its energy-saving performance but also for its contribution to resource and labor savings in operation. These factors led to this award.