Reducing the impact throughout the life cycle based on industry-leading eco-conscious designs
The Brother Group is committed to being an environmentally advanced company and has been continually reducing its environmental impact throughout the product life cycle. Activities ranging from the procurement of parts and materials, development, design, and product use, through to collection, reuse, and recycling. "Action guidelines" developed from the Environmental Policy are based on compliance with laws and regulations in respective countries and regions, as well as prevention of pollution.
Planning Sheet to Improve Environmental Aspect of Products and Assessment Check Sheets have been introduced as tools in the development and design phases for assessing the environmental impact of products and ensuring in advance a reduction in the environmental impact. Improvement targets include energy-saving performance, the level of recycling at the end of life and design for disassembly. Since FY2008 (April 1, 2008-March 31, 2009) the Brother Group requires new products to be certified with Type I eco-labels (including the Blue Angel and Eco Mark) awarded by third-party organizations. The Brother Group also requires products outside of the scope of Type I eco-labels to be certified with the Brother Green Label, a Type II (self-declared) label designated by the Brother Group.
LCAs (Life Cycle Assessment, a tool for quantitatively assessing the environmental impact throughout the life of a product) have been used to ensure that the environmental impact is steadily being reduced. In this way, Brother has been working on top-class eco-conscious design in respective product categories. In particular, Brother remains committed to producing industry-leading energy-saving designs and expanding the use of recycled resin materials.
The Brother Group Green Procurement Standards have been applied to the procurement phase to ensure that only parts meeting the standards are purchased. These standards apply to all Brother Group worldwide facilities. To support the administration of such business processes, an environmental information system has been introduced and is constantly upgraded. This system enables Brother to control and eliminate specified chemical substances that may be contained in more than 100,000 parts and materials procured from more than one thousand tier-1 suppliers.
Used products are collected, reused, and recycled according to the laws of respective countries and regions. The Brother Group has established systems for consumables, such as toner and ink cartridges, in many countries and regions. These systems are administered to promote recycling of resources.
