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The Environment

2014-10 (Vol.50, No.4)

This special issue describes how the Fujitsu Group approaches environmental management and introduces its environmental strategies. It presents products and solutions for achieving a sustainable society, research and development activities in support of green innovation, efforts at preventing global warming as in the development of environmentally conscious data centers, and strategies to preserve biodiversity through the use of ICT.

Feature Papers

1. Preface (449 KB): As an important foundation of all business activities, the Fujitsu Group ranks "consideration for the environment." It aims to work with its customers and society in regions throughout the world to solve diverse environmental problems by, for example, helping to achieve a low-carbon society and promoting resource reuse. This will be accomplished by expanding the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in various fields including smart cities, energy supply, water provision, transport, medical care, and the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industry. In this way, Fujitsu seeks to incorporate social innovation—in which the environment is one element—into future business strategies and to promote environmental activities as an integral part of its business operations. ---[Minoru Takeno, Head of Corporate Environmental Strategy Unit]

Overview

2. Environmental Strategy of Fujitsu Group (996 KB): The Fujitsu Group considers environmental awareness to be one of the most important commitments in corporate management and reflects it in the FUJITSU Way, a corporate philosophy with guiding principles for the company and its employees. In addition to striving to help realize a prosperous, human-centric, and self-sustaining society, we are also striving to help bring about a Human-Centric Intelligent Society, i.e., a society that leverages the power of information and communications technology (ICT). This effort is included in our new vision, which foresees the application of ICT in a wide range of fields—energy, water, transport, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and medicine—as well as smart cities. This has led to Stage VII of the Fujitsu Group Environmental Action Plan, which began in fiscal 2013. In this stage, we will go beyond expanding our commitments to customers and society and begin promoting environmental initiatives consistent with our corporate activities by developing environmentally based customer approaches. In this issue, we describe the framework of our environmental management as well as various initiatives taken to reduce our environmental impact. We also present cases in which Fujitsu's solutions are supporting customer efforts in environmental management and reducing our customers' environmental load. ---[Yasuhiro Yamaguchi, Takuya Nagamiya, Nobuhide Aoyama, Minoru Takeno]

Research and Development in Support of Social and Environmental Innovation

3. Technologies for Reducing Environmental Load of Next-generation Smart Cities (661 KB): Environmental problems are increasing at a fast pace: water and food shortages due to rapid population growth; climate change; the exhaustion of resources and energy sources; pollution of water, soil, and the atmosphere; and the decrease in biodiversity, to name a few. To provide solutions to these problems and achieve a sustainable, prosperous society, the potential of information and communications technology (ICT) must be leveraged both for the protection of the global environment and to secure economic growth—in other words, to attain "green" growth. Furthermore, more research and development is required not only on environment-related issues but also on social issues related to agriculture, energy, smart cities, transport, medicine, education, and other domains. Fujitsu is striving to expand the limits of social sustainability by pursuing a Human-Centric Intelligent Society while creating various innovations for society with new value through advantageous use of diverse types of information. From among research and development efforts designed to support innovations related to society and the environment, we will present in this paper an energy harvesting technology that supports machine-to-machine applications, environmental management technologies, and environmental measurement technologies, as technologies that reduce the environmental load of next-generation smart cities. ---[Takuya Uzumaki]

Advanced Green ICT toward a Sustainable Society

4. Solutions to Help Create Sustainable Society (614 KB): The global environment is presenting serious challenges in the form of climate change and biodiversity reduction while population growth is resulting in shortages of energy, food, and water and urbanization is increasing social problems. The Fujitsu Group has focused on addressing these challenges and problems through such means as using information and communications technology (ICT) solutions for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and for creating a sustainable society. This paper outlines these challenges and describes the efforts being made by the Fujitsu Group. It describes two specific cases related to reducing GHG emissions, "Global Communications Platform" and "sales tablets for life insurance company," in which the deployment of Fujitsu's ICT services led to a reduction in CO2 emissions. It also discusses the contributions of the Fujitsu Group toward global standardization of environmental impact assessment methods. A case is also described in the area of agriculture, which has recently been attracting greater interest, in which ICT solutions are used to help create a sustainable society. ---[Seiya Yamazaki, Kenichi Iida, Yu Seimiya, Hiroko Ioka]

5. ICT-based Optimal Plant Management Solution (734 KB): Reducing energy costs is one of the challenges facing the manufacturing industry today. Several internal factors such as a growing production volume contribute to this challenge, but rising energy tariffs and other external factors also play a significant role. Various measures have been taken by manufacturers to lower costs, including "visualization" of energy consumption, but ideas to achieve further reductions have apparently been exhausted. This article discusses a hitherto-neglected aspect of energy consumption, i.e., consumption relative to production volume, that may lead to further energy savings, and discusses a method to cut energy consumption by monitoring its correlation with production volume as well as with variable energy consumption, drawing on a real-case solution. It also discusses the implementation of the smart factory, which is aimed at comprehensively addressing plant-wide issues such as product quality, delivery, raw material cost, and workplace safety besides energy issues. ---[Hiromitsu Oikawa]

6. Optimal Operation Planning Based on Large-scale Simulation for Renewable Energy Management (861 KB): Utilizing renewable energy including photovoltaic (PV) power generation is raising expectations as a key to realizing a sustainable and affluent low-carbon society. However, there is an issue with effectively using such energy in accordance with demand because the amount of energy generated may vary greatly with unpredictable changes in the weather. While PV power generation has a characteristic suited for peak power reduction—more energy is output in the daytime and during the summer when energy demand increases—it is necessary to appropriately deal with the hard-to-predict output variations in order to enhance the peak power reduction effect. This paper presents a technology for optimal operation planning for storage batteries that has been developed for resolving this issue and verification results based on the results of operating a demonstration system built in Fujitsu's Kawasaki Research & Manufacturing Facilities. ---[Yoshio Nakao, Tsuyoshi Taniguchi]

7. Improved Technologies for Analyzing and Visualizing Effects of PM2.5 (618 KB): Although the effects of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) on human health are still not fully understood, there is a growing demand for countermeasures. Fujitsu provides several services for "visualizing" various types of quality, including environmental quality, and is working to improve the accuracy of technologies for measuring and analyzing related data, particularly data related to PM2.5. In this paper, we clarify the challenges presented by PM2.5 and describe Fujitsu's approach to improving the technologies used for analyzing and visualizing its effects. ---[Teruhisa Kitani, Shinobu Hosoda, Masashi Yasuda]

8. Conservation of Biodiversity by Making Use of ICT (710 KB): Our lives, including our economic activities, depend on the blessings of ecosystems based on biodiversity. However, expansion of human activities has reduced the habitats of creatures, and the number of species constituting ecosystems is decreasing at an accelerating pace. These activities are destroying the foundation of our lives. Global Biodiversity Outlook 3 published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 says that, while efforts are being made in some fields, loss of global biodiversity is still continuing and it is essential to act in the coming 10 to 20 years. In order to stop this biodiversity loss on a global scale, the national and local governments, NPOs, research institutions and enterprises are required to cooperate in conserving biodiversity. The Fujitsu Group, which formulated the Fujitsu Group Biodiversity Action Principles in 2009, is carrying out activities based on the priority measures of making use of information and communications technology (ICT) to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity together with various stakeholders, in addition to striving to reduce the impact of its own business activities. This paper presents examples of utilizing ICT as Fujitsu's activities for biodiversity conservation: the Mobile Phone Photo System cloud service that has allowed biological research with the participation of citizens, and the birdcall recognition system for research on a habitat of Blakiston's fish owls, which is an endangered species. ---[Yuka Maezawa, Yoshihiko Hatakeyama, Mutsumi Saito, Fukutaro Hirota]

Development and Provision of Eco-friendly Products

9. Environmental Consideration throughout Entire Life Cycle of Products (924 KB): The Fujitsu Group is currently engaged in promoting Design for Environment (DfE) in its products and reducing environmental burden throughout the entire life cycle of products. The Group has been implementing product environment assessment since FY1993 with the purpose of reducing energy consumption, saving resources and improving the recycling rate based on power saving and energy conservation technologies, while eliminating harmful substances through chemical substance management. Setting the target of providing customers with high-performance products in addition to reducing environmental burden, the Fujitsu Group has developed Green Products which are DfE products in the Fujitsu Group, developed Super Green Products integrating supreme elements in terms of environmental consideration, and taken approaches to enhance the environmental efficiency of products through introducing the eco-efficiency factor. Further, since FY2013, emphases have been placed particularly on improving the energy efficiency and resource efficiency of products to further promote the development of DfE products. In this paper, the Fujitsu Group's past approaches in the DfE area are outlined and its efforts to improve energy efficiency and resource efficiency of products are introduced in the Fujitsu Group Environmental Action Plan, Stage VII (FY2013–FY2015). ---[Masashi Yanagawa, Yuta Musha, Hiroyuki Kawata, Yoshiko Shinomura]

10. Cutting-edge Environmental Technology for Manufacturing Processes (870 KB): Manufacturing (monozukuri) today cannot be considered without environmental awareness. Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. engages in developing innovative environmental technologies used for manufacturing processes. To conserve the global environment, the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), usually contained in paints, is expected to be reduced. Application of water-based paint with no VOC content on information and communications technology (ICT) equipment has been technically challenging so far. This is because it requires a high drying temperature which plastics cannot stand, while the paint must achieve a high coating performance. Addressing this challenge, we have developed a coating emulsion in a core-shell structure to satisfy both low drying temperature and coating performance. As a result, we succeeded in reducing the VOC content by approximately 80%. We have also developed a vapor collection method, a simple pretreatment method for Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), to improve the detection limit of phthalate esters to less than one percent, a tenfold improvement in sensitivity. Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), a phthalate ester, is a potentially hazardous substance, the same as VOC, and is regulated in some industries in Japan, the U.S. and Europe. Furthermore, it is now being considered as a candidate for next-round regulation under the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive that regulates electrical and electronic equipment. Identification of DEHP in our products has been a big issue when conducting a acceptance inspection in manufacturing. For this reason, we have studied a new way to separate and condense phthalate esters because the sensitivity of FT-IR currently available does not comply with the requirements of the regulation and it is difficult to detect it coexisting with a matrix of products. The new method makes it possible to carry out more sensitive and simpler acceptance inspections. ---[Fumiyo Takeuchi, Michiko Noguchi, Mitsuo Ozaki, Koichi Kimura]

11. Eco-friendly Products of Fujitsu Group (966 KB): The Fujitsu Group takes environmental awareness seriously, and as part of tackling environmental issues in society such as climate change, energy conservation and sustainable use of natural resources, it provides eco-friendly products and services globally, catering for needs at various levels from infrastructure to business and personal uses. This paper features five award-winning products that represent the Fujitsu Group's excellent eco-friendly products, namely UNIX Server SPARC M10 (UNIX server), FUJITSU Datacenter Product Modular Data Center (container datacenter), FACT-V X200 (ATM), FPSS Commercial Type I (universal power storage system), and Nocria X-series (air-conditioning). The UNIX server was awarded the Environment Minister's commendation in the Technology Development and Commercialization Category of the Minister of the Environment's 2013 Commendation for Global Warming Prevention Activity. Modular Data Center won a Board Members' Recommendation at Green IT Award 2013 Japan. Other products received various awards for environmental contribution through the Fujitsu Group's awards program. This article presents these products focusing on the new technologies that have been developed and deployed in them. It also outlines their energy efficiency and other environmentally conscious design aspects. ---[Shinko Onda, Takehisa Matsuda, Masaru Kamonji, Hiroshi Fukuda, Shinji Sugiyama, Masahiro Miyo]

Environmentally Conscious Activities throughout the Value Chain

12. Activities for Global Warming Countermeasures in Plants and Offices (778 KB): The first commitment period (2008 to 2012) of the Kyoto Protocol that sets a reduction goal for greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries has expired, and so negotiations are being carried out to establish a new international framework after fiscal 2013. In Japan since the Great East Japan Earthquake, although energy and environmental policies including the nuclear problem are under review, Japanese industries have voluntarily set a reduction goal to be achieved by 2020 and are continuing with activities to reach that goal. As the Fujitsu Group's activities in plants and offices for global warming countermeasures, this paper describes the plans for and results of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions and the ongoing measures, mainly including those in relation to facility equipment. In addition, it covers case examples of activities to develop energy-saving technologies in production processes and to promote the introduction of renewable energy. ---[Yuichi Kadono, Masayuki Kitajima, Tetsuji Ishikawa, Seiji Kawaguchi, Hideyuki Kanemitsu]

13. Promoting Environmentally Conscious Datacenters (683 KB): The term "environmentally conscious datacenter" first appeared around 2007, followed by various initiatives in the industry. The Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 highlighted the value of datacenters as important social infrastructure, particularly when there is an adverse impact of soaring energy prices. With this development as a backdrop, pursuing environmentally conscious datacenters has assumed significance as a long-term commitment. Fujitsu is pursuing this centering on three axes: achieving technological innovation to improve energy efficiency by focusing on the gap between the environmental aspects of information and communications technology (ICT) and features of datacenter facilities; improving environmental performance with a target shared among over 100 datacenters in the Fujitsu Group that are operated under diverse business and environmental conditions; and helping to standardize methods to assess environmental performance. This paper describes Fujitsu's initiatives in these three areas. ---[Kenzo Kobayashi, Hiroshi Nagazono, Hideyuki Kanemitsu, Junichi Inokubo]

14. Introduction and Operation of Advanced Environmental Systems: Geothermal Heat Collection System and New Wastewater Treatment System (786 KB): Dissemination of advanced, highly efficient technologies to reduce environmental impact at production and development sites, including natural energy and resource recycling, is a corporate social responsibility. However, there are many constraints in adopting these new technologies depending on the features, such as the site environment and corporate structure, and the effect of reducing environmental impact and cost-effectiveness greatly differ. In particular, it is an absolute requirement for site operation to construct a system for stable operation both at use points (production and development processes, etc.) and discharge points (wastewater treatment and waste, etc.) of printed circuit board manufacturing such as at Fujitsu Nagano Plant. Fujitsu Facilities Ltd., which operates plant facilities under such stringent conditions, has considered these challenges, and adopted the following technologies, the first in Japan to do so as a production site: a geothermal heat collection system, where underground heat can be directly used as an energy source for production lines; and a new wastewater treatment system, where the copper-based materials in the copper waste liquid discharged from production lines can be recovered and recycled with high efficiency by using a method that differs from the conventional one. This paper introduces the performance of these two new technologies, and also the points we have improved to obtain the maximum capability of the systems according to the features of the Fujitsu Nagano Plant, throughout the introduction process of technology selection, basic designs and trial operations. This paper also describes our know-how to overcome challenges. ---[Yasushi Yazawa, Yuichi Mori, Masato Takizawa, Masahiro Yazawa, Masaaki Hashizume]

15. Fujitsu Group's Green Logistics Activities (690 KB): In April 2006, the Revised Act on the Rational Use of Energy (Revised Energy Conservation Act) was enforced and both consigner businesses and transport operators were strongly demanded to take energy-saving measures in logistics. Fujitsu is a "specified consigner" that handles freight transport of more than a certain volume (30 million ton-km a year) and it is required to report on the actual reduction of CO2 emissions achieved with transport and energy-saving plans every year. Therefore, the entire Fujitsu Group is promoting activities to reduce the environmental impact related to logistics throughout its supply chain, or green logistics activities. In the Environmental Action Plan, Stage VII, Fujitsu has set a target relating to the Group's logistics (domestic, intra-region outside of Japan) of "reducing by 2015 the CO2 emissions per sales from logistics by over 4% compared to 2011" and is rolling out green logistics activities globally. This paper presents specific activities on which the Fujitsu Group is focusing to achieve this target, including "modal shift expansion" and "reduction of vehicles by improving loading efficiency" together with case examples. ---[Kazuhiko Niwa]

16. Fujitsu Group's Green Purchasing Activities (858 KB): The Fujitsu Group recognizes that environmental protection is one of its crucial management priorities, and systematically and consecutively conducts environmental activities throughout its entire business domain. Similarly in material procurement, the Fujitsu Group is aiming to reduce environmental loads in the upstream areas of its value chain through its business partners by promoting green purchasing activities. Since these activities were started in 2001, the Fujitsu Group has been considering both regulatory compliance of supplies and business partners' promotion of environmental activities, both of which are important. Therefore, the Fujitsu Group is working to promote the establishment of the Environmental Management System (EMS) at business partners, and after that, eliminating restricted chemical substances completely, responding to trends of legal restrictions and establishment of the Chemical substances Management System (CMS) related to them. Moreover, reducing CO2 emissions, preserving biodiversity, and conserving water resources have been added as themes of its activities one after another, considering the trends of international environmental issues. Furthermore, the Fujitsu Group not only requires these activities to be conducted, but also supports business partners in various ways and considers that promoting activities in cooperation with business partners is important. This paper introduces the main activities of the Fujitsu Group's green purchasing. ---[Satoshi Wakasugi, Takahisa Namiki, Kensuke Shinohara, Eiko Onuma]

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