Environmentally Conscious Products and Solution
Environmentally Conscious Products
At Hitachi Construction Machinery Group, we are focusing on the development of clean technologies from the perspective of energy-saving, low-carbon and decarbonization, and are also further promoting the development of “environmentally conscious products” that help to reduce environmental impact from the product development and design stages.
Based on this approach, in FY1999, Hitachi Construction Machinery Group introduced evaluation using Design for Environment (DfE) Assessment specifying standards for all new products development and design with consideration for the environment. At present, products developed and designed based on a new Environmentally Conscious Design Assessments compliant with the IEC62430*1 global standard are treated as “environmentally conscious products” and we are working with the aim of increasing the “environmentally conscious product sales ratio” which is the percentage of sales revenue accounted for by environmentally conscious products.
This assessment conducts life cycle assessment (LCA) of the environmental impact of products identifying 30 environmental impact items that may cause climate change, resource depletion, and ecosystem degradation. We quantitatively calculates not only amount of energy use and CO2 emissions related to materials, production, shipping, product use and disposal, also the amount of water use, fuel use, and materials use.
∗1: IEC 62430: International Electrotechnical Commission “Environmentally Conscious Design for Electrical and Electronic Products” (JIS C 9910)
Environmental Criteria Considered in the Development of New Products
| Lifecycle stage | Environmental criteria |
| Procurement of materials and parts | Increase utilization of recycled materials and parts Reducing use of highly exhaustible resources Procurement of materials with a small carbon footprint |
|---|---|
| Production | Improving material use efficiency Reduction in electricity, fuel and water usage Reduction in GHG emission and emissions of harmful chemicals |
| Distribution and Pakaging | Simplifying packaging/wrapping materials, Expanding use of returnable and recycled packaging materials, Reducing transportation distances, Expanding use of energy with low GHG emissions |
| Use | Improving product durability Reducing the amount of consumables/maintenance parts Reduction in energy consumption, improving product uptime |
| Disposal and Recycle | Improving recyclability Reducing dismantling/sorting time that requires energy Prevention of emissions of environmentally harmful substances during dismantling |
Number of Environmentally Conscious Products (Cumulative)
The total number of products registered as environmentally conscious products reached 287 in FY2023 with the addition of 4 products developed and designed based on Environmentally Conscious Design Assessments.
Environmentally Conscious Product Sales Ratio
Hitachi Construction Machinery Group has proceeded to develop and design products conscious of the environment. At present, most major models are environmentally conscious products. In FY2018, Hitachi Construction Machinery Group achieved an environmentally conscious product sales ratio of over 98% sales ratio in relation to all sales (excluding some services, used equipment and software), and we are maintaining this level in FY2023 onwards.
