Greening Consumer Goods Manufacture

In this blog series, we’ve been looking at the importance of helping people see the benefits of living more sustainably. We’ve explored, for example, the uniqueness of each existing home and the importance of pre-assessing it to ensure a heat pump system is tweaked for its specific needs to ensure it provides the occupier with the comfort they expect.

 But there’s another aspect to scaling greener living and that’s making sure that the products we buy are manufactured in a low-carbon way. In effect, we reduce carbon emissions as much as possible from the first steps of production of TVs, cars, clothes, food etc before they get to the end consumer. We’ll still need people to choose more energy-efficient options; prolong the product’s life; and repair/reuse/recycle them when they are finished with them, but in taking this action they can be reassured that much of the heavy lifting has been done on their behalf, behind the scenes.

 We know that energy-intensive industries contributed up to 22 per cent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2019. We have also seen some progress in reducing these emissions with Eurostat reporting that the EU’s GHG emissions for the period April to June 2023 totalled 821 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents - a 5.3 per cent reduction compared to the same period the previous year - with manufacturing accounting for 23.5 per cent of the total drop. However, if the EU wants to meet its target of a 55% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, it will need to cut GHG pollution 3x more quickly than it has in the past decade.

Panasonic operates almost 250 factories and production sites globally, of which nine are located in Europe. In 2020, these sites consumed approximately 5 billion kWh of electricity, leading to an estimated 2.2 million tons of CO2 emissions each year. It has plans to reduce its own emissions and those throughout its value chain while simultaneously offering technology to aid others in decreasing and avoiding emissions.

In 2019, Panasonic became a member of RE100, a global initiative that brings together influential businesses to accelerate change towards zero-carbon grids at scale. As a member of RE100, Panasonic has committed to sourcing 100% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.

The big breakthrough for Panasonic was at its RE100 demonstration site in Kusatsu, Japan. This site produces fuel cells and aims to generate 100% of its energy needs through renewable sources using hydrogen fuel cell generators, photovoltaic panels, and storage batteries, as well as a smart energy management system. It uses 99 of the latest-generation compact hydrogen fuel cells, able to generate a total of 495 KW. These fuel cells each have a lifetime of 90,000 hours and can achieve more than 4,500 starts. It is therefore possible to run the system for ten years before exchanging the stack. Whilst Lithium-ion storage batteries can store and provide around 1.1 MWh of surplus power on demand. On a typical day, around half of the required power might be generated by the solar panels, with the bulk of the remainder coming from the hydrogen fuel cells, and a small amount from the storage batteries. Energy production and demand are thus intelligently balanced.

Now in a step to prove that their concept works outside Japan, Panasonic is investing up to £20m at its existing Cardiff factory (PMUK) to create its first proof of concept for greener factories in Europe. The factory manufactures around 250,000 microwave ovens and small appliances a year. This demonstration RE100 factory will be inaugurated later in 2024, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the factory’s opening, crucially showing that an existing site can be retro-fitted with state of the art Net Zero technology. The project involves an integrated energy solution that combines 21 of Panasonic's own pure hydrogen fuel cell generators, photovoltaic panels, and battery storage to achieve a high degree of energy resilience.

In addition to its RE100 goals, PMUK has taken steps to become more sustainable in other areas already. Over the last few years, a lot of its supply chain has been localised, for example, microwave doors previously manufactured and assembled in Asia and are now manufactured on site at PMUK. And its plastics manufacturer is situated only 8 miles away in Cardiff.

From a waste management perspective, all the waste generated is either recycled or is reutilised to create energy. The recently installed photovoltaic system on the roof generates 35% of the factories electricity needs.

These greener factory initiatives all align with Panasonic's long-term environmental vision, Panasonic GREEN IMPACT, which aims to address climate change and contribute to a more sustainable future.

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