Panasonic Corporate Citizenship News

On October 1, a total of 500 representatives of nine Panasonic Group companies in Taiwan -- including management executives, employees, and their families -- took part in a beach clean-up activity organized by the New Taipei City government in Dapeng Village, Wanli District. As of this year, the Panasonic Group in Taiwan has been designated as the adopted body(*) for this sandy beach, which has been renamed as Panasonic Beach as a result. In doing so, the company aims to fulfill its role in society and restore beauty to the beach.

Speaking at the event on behalf of the Panasonic Group companies, President Akihiro Nakatani of Panasonic Taiwan said, "As a corporate member of Taiwanese society, we would like to express our thanks to all the local people and fans of Panasonic, and to make an effort to conserve the environment in Taiwan where we ourselves live. In the spirit of Panasonic's eco ideas, we employees want to help protect Taiwan and our planet as a whole."

The beach chosen for this clean-up activity not only has a long history of its own, but is also situated right next to a real mecca of surfing in Taiwan. A famous national highway known as Coffee Road runs parallel to the beach, which is filled with people enjoying their time off at weekends. The participants in this event joined forces to clean up the litter scattered across this area to help restore both the beach and the clear seas off Taiwan's northern coast to their great original beauty.

* Adopted body: A system whereby local residents volunteer to conduct clean-up activities on roads, rivers, beaches, and other public property under local government administration. By encouraging residents to work to create a comfortable living environment, the scheme aims to promote greater attachment to the area in question, to promote new forms of communication, and to create livelier communities.

Beijing:
Based on the theme for the 2011 World Environment Day, "Forests: Nature at Your Service," a series of environmental activities were held at Panasonic Center Beijing throughout June in conjunction with the Shin Kong Place shopping mall, where the Center is located. These were designed as an opportunity for children living in the city to come into closer contact with forests and take part in eco-related activities. The actual activities to be conducted included drawing pictures of eco activities and watching videos of environmental conservation work. This enabled the children to see, hear, and discover things about the environment from a different perspective to what they had been used to, and experience for themselves how forests play a crucial role in maintaining balance within the natural biotope. The events aimed to make the participating children more aware of how forests play a close, indispensible role within our own lives.

Suzhou:
The awards ceremony for the Panasonic Eco Picture Contest was held at the Weitingshi Elementary School at China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park on June 21. This Eco Picture Contest forms part of Panasonic's Eco Learning Programs for elementary school students, and serves as a means to encourage children to participate more actively in eco-related activities. The judges at the contest nominated 120 pictures as candidates for prizes, and ultimately selected four first prize winners, four second prize winners, eight third prize winners, and 40 other commended masterpieces. A representative of the school spoke with great enthusiasm about the event, saying "This has been a good opportunity for the children to not only learn about eco awareness, but also to think for themselves about environmental issues, develop greater wisdom, and think of their own ideas to make improvements."

Hangzhou:
An environmental activity entitled "Let's give waste a home" was held in the hall of Qingtaijie Elementary School in Hangzhou City on June 8. Panasonic Home Appliances (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. (PHAH) General Manager Tadatoshi Kijima and Associate Managing Director Masatsugu Kanamori were present for an event attended by a total of 200 people, including the principal, deputy principal, and student representatives of Qingtaijie Elementary School, as well as Panasonic Eco Learning Program instructors. At the end of the day, the school was presented with two sets of waste separation boxes by the six Panasonic Group companies in Hangzhou.

SANYO Electric held an Eco Learning Program for 34 children at the Elementary School affiliated with Tsinghua University, the elite of China's science universities, on the theme of "eneloop" rechargeable batteries. SANYO Electric and the Faculty of Environment at Tsinghua University have been conducting joint research on indoor air purification since 2008, and this Eco Learning Program was also conducted as part of this year's commemorative events to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of Tsinghua University.

The Eco Learning Program was taught by the team from the Environmental Safety and Health Division of SANYO Energy (Suzhou) who have been involved in the promotion of Eco Learning Programs. The lesson encouraged the children to think about a "3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)" eco-friendly lifestyle as they learned the importance of the environment while experiencing battery charging and watching demonstrations of a battery system through human bodies. After the lesson the participating students and teachers were presented with their own "eneloop" batteries, and urged to put an eco-friendly lifestyle into practice.

As the manufacturing site for rechargeable batteries, SANYO Energy (Suzhou) has been conducting Eco Learning Programs for elementary children throughout Suzhou City since 2009, with SANYO Energy employees having taught a total of 1,055 children at 19 schools (as of April 2011). SANYO Energy also took the initiative in setting up the Green Education Fund in order to support environmental education for children. This fund was established by 13 local companies, including SANYO Electric Group companies in Suzhou, in order to provide donations for promoting environmental education. We will continue to promote environmental education in China toward making environmental protection an integral part of the customs and culture.

On the occasion of March 12 Tree Planting day, Panasonic and Wenhai Group in Hangzhou held the activity "Environment Protection" with the theme of “limited earth, unlimited green ideas" in Wenhai Group. "Wenhai Education Group" is the environment education base of primary students in Hangzhou Economic & Technical development zone. Witnessed by the leadership of Development zone Society Develop Bureau and Development zone Invest Company Committee, Panasonic signed with Wenhai Group in Dec 28, 2009, both sides established "Panasonic and Wenhai ECO Academy". The academy has educated more than 700 ECO little guards and was assigned Hangzhou Pioneers Low Carbon Experiment Academy by Youth League committee, Municipal Party committee and Environment protection Bureau. The representative of Hangzhou Economic & Technical development and Panasonic Home Appliances (Hangzhou) Co.,Ltd general manager kijima.tadatoshi and Wenhai primary school teachers and Student nearly 500 persons took place in the activity. In order to enrich the environmental protection for pupiles’s knowledge, use knowledge to defend our common living environment better, Panasonic Home Appliances (Hangzhou) Co.,Ltd/Panasonic Home Appliances Research & Develop (Hangzhou) Co.,Ltd party committee, labor union and youth league gave various of environment protection 198 books as presents to classes of Wenhai primary school affiliated to Wenhai Group.