Epson Releases Sustainability Report 2007

- TOKYO, Japan, September 21, 2007 -


Seiko Epson Corporation (“Epson”) has released its Sustainability Report 2007, which details the performance of the environmental and community activities undertaken by the Epson Group in fiscal 2006.


To help earn and preserve the trust of all its stakeholders, Epson publicly discloses a wide range of information relating to its corporate activities. In 1999 Epson began publishing an annual Environmental Report about its environment-related actions. In 2003 it expanded this annual report to include community-related aspects of the company’s activities, by detailing Epson’s ideas about corporate ethics, and giving information about the company’s work environment and its social contributions. To reflect the expanded scope, the report was renamed Sustainability Report. The report is released in June of each year.


This 9th issue of the annual report is divided into four sections detailing community-related activities–Customers, Employees, Suppliers, and Society–in addition to the Environment section, which reports on the Group’s broad array of environmental conservation activities, such as the development of eco-friendly products, recovery and recycling of used products, and improving energy and resource utilization efficiency in manufacturing.


The features and the community and environment-related topics in Sustainability Report 2007 are as follows.


Sustainability Report 2007 features

1. The information published in the report details the activities of the Epson Group on as global a scale as possible. In addition to Seiko Epson, the report includes community-related data on 105 domestic and overseas affiliated companies, and environment activities on a total of 77 affiliates.


2. Epson’s concept of CSR is the implementation of trust-based management. The yardstick we use to evaluate our community activities is whether or not Epson wins the trust of all its stakeholders. In all of the sections in this issue, we have included records of dialogs with our stakeholders, which help us evaluate our success in trust-building.


3. In addition to publishing it in book form, the report is also available on the Epson web site, with enhanced detail and supplementary information. We gave careful consideration to communicating our corporate activities in an easy-to-understand way, for example by using tables to list the important challenges tackled in fiscal 2006, along with the achieved results and challenges for fiscal 2007, and also by providing subtitles to summarize items in the report. In addition, we worked to make the report easy to read and view, for example by taking into account text size and the use of color in graphs for color-blind people.


The web version of the report, which includes more detailed and supplementary information, is now available online from the URL below.
http://www.epson.co.jp/e/community/sr/index.htm


4. Our Annual Report (AR) and Sustainability Report (SR) are together intended to provide a complete picture of Epson’s corporate activities for the year. To clarify the positioning and role of each of the reports, the information presented in the two reports is outlined below.


AR: Corporate vision, review of operations, and financial statements
SR: Social and environmental performance
Corporate governance, compliance, and risk management are covered in both reports


Fiscal 2006 activity topics

Community activities:

1. In line with Article 9*1 of Principles of Corporate Behavior, instituted in 2005, each organization with the Group is striving to implement trust-based management. One of the management policies defined in Creativity and Challenge 1000 (Epson’s med-range business plan that took effect in 2006) is Reform the corporate culture. As part of this, the company is focused on pursuing quality improvements that deliver greater safety and security to customers (whom we regards as stakeholders), and promoting work practices that enable employees to enjoy greater work-life balance.


2. The Epson Group has always placed great importance on supply chain management. Our initiative to extend CSR through our supply chain, begun in fiscal 2005, has now entered its second phase, of research and evaluation. We have now met 100% of the goals of our original CSR plan for suppliers of production materials in Japan, and 80% of our goals for suppliers in China and the ASEAN countries.


3. The Epson Group actively engages its stakeholders in communication, through a variety of surveys, questionnaires, and dialogs. By striving to respond to the issues raised by stakeholders and to implement PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action) cycles, we have created pathways that lead to improved quality and satisfaction.


Environmental activities:

1. Global warming prevention
In fiscal 2006, we reduced our total emissions of greenhouse gases (total of CO2 and other substances*2) by 7.2% year-on-year. Emissions per unit of real sales were 50% below the fiscal 1990 level on a global consolidated basis, and 40% below the fiscal 1990 level in Japan.


2. Eco-friendly products
Epson has obtained COC certification to commence sales of paper certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council, and it has promoted the development of environment-friendly products, such as the adoption of biomass plastics to make ink cartridge parts for large-format inkjet printers.


3. Resource recycling and conservation
After developing recyclable ink cartridges, Epson worked to commence selling them in fiscal 2007. In addition, three of our affiliates (in Japan and overseas) earned Zero Emissions Level 2 credentials. (Zero Emissions is an initiative aimed at limiting the generation of wastes and implementing higher levels of recycling.) As of the end of March 2007, a total of seven Epson affiliates had earned Level 2 accreditation.


4. Substances management
Epson managed to cuts its release of PRTR pollutants by a massive 55% below the level of fiscal 2002–far exceeding its target of 30% reduction.


5. Education and citizenship
As of the end of March 2007, our initiative to recover used ink cartridges, implemented in association with the Bellmark program, had expanded to more than 10,000 schools that have set up collection boxes. Aside from recycling, this has contributed greatly to fostering environmental awareness in the community. In our reforestation project on the island of Kalimantan in Indonesia, begun in fiscal 2000, we completed the planting of 300 hectares of trees, thereby meeting our initial target. The focus has now shifted to maintenance and other continuous activities, to promote forest regeneration.


6. Environmental accounting
In addition to Seiko Epson, our environmental accounting system now applies to a total of 37 affiliates (18 in Japan and 19 in overseas). This enables us to monitor the environmental conservation spending, economic impact, and material balances (resulting from business activities) of all major affiliates implementing our General Environmental Policy. Environmental conservation investment in fiscal 2006 amounted to 1 billion yen, of which some 80% was targeted at prevention of pollution and global warming. Total environmental conservation spending was 20.1 billion yen, for an economic benefit estimated at 1.9 billion yen.


Sustainability Report 2007 was drafted with reference to the Environmental Reporting Guidelines (fiscal 2003 version) of the Ministry of the Environment, and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines 2002 of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative).


Epson is also planning to progressively issue site-specific environmental reports, in order to publicize the environmental activities at individual production facilities in greater detail. Our Hirooka Office (headquarters of the Imaging Products Operations Division) and Matsumoto Minami Office are each issuing their environmental reports for 2007.


Notes

*1 (1) Acting ethically, building trust; (2) Protecting people, assets and information; (3) Generating value for our customers; (4) Creating safe, healthy and fair workplaces; (5) Fostering diverse values and teamwork; (6) Co-creating with our business partners; (7) Initiating honest dialogue with our stakeholders; (8) Prospering with the community; and (9) Preserving the natural environment.


*2 PFCs, SF6, N2O, CH4, and HFCs


About Epson
Epson is a global leader in imaging products including printers, 3LCD projectors and small- and medium-sized LCDs. With an innovative and creative culture, Epson is dedicated to exceeding the vision and expectations of customers worldwide with products known for their superior quality, functionality, compactness and energy efficiency.
Epson is a network of 87,626 employees in 117 companies around the world, and is proud of its ongoing contributions to the global environment and to the communities in which it is located. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., the Group had consolidated sales of 1416 billion yen in fiscal 2006.