Environment

Environmentally Friendly Products

Environmentally Friendly Products > Environmental Friendliness in the Product Lifecycle, Efforts Made when Designing and Developing Products and Services

Environmental Friendliness in the Product Lifecycle

To ensure that “All products contribute to the improvement of the global environment and contribute to making a sustainable society come true” as part of our vision for 2040, we develop and provide products designed in consideration of environmental friendliness. With this background, we certify products demonstrating especially high environmental performance throughout their product lifecycles as “Nittoku Green Products” and strive to expand our lineup of such products.

Product Lifecycle and Major Efforts

Efforts Made when Designing and Developing Products and Services

Creating new products and services and improving them include the processes of research, development, process design, and packaging specification design.
When following these processes, we check the entire lifecycle to see if CO2 emissions can be reduced, if reduced use of resources or more effective use of resources is possible, and if any substance with environmental impact is contained or used. If it is deemed that there is a significant impact on the environment, we implement the necessary measures.
In addition, we confirm that our products and services comply with environmental laws and regulations and other legal requirements and there are no ethical problems.

Certification System for Environmentally Friendly Products - Nittoku Green Products

We develop and provide products designed in consideration of environmental friendliness. In that respect, all our products are environmentally friendly. Among them, products with especially highly environmental performance from the perspective of their product lifecycles has been certified as Nittoku Green Products since FY2021.
Under this certification system, the Environmentally Friendly Products Certification Committee, headed by the Chair of the Central Environmental Committee (and convened twice a year), assesses products in terms of the three environmental categories of reduced use of energy, reduced use of resources, and substances with environmental impact, and certifies the products that satisfy the certification standards as such.
We certified eight products. While leveraging this system for promoting environmental friendliness throughout product lifecycles, we would like to communicate to you the excellent environmental performance of our products.

・Assessment Categories

Categories Assessment Points (from the Perspective of Product Lifecycles)
Reduced use of energy Reduce the use of energy
Reduced use of resources Reduce the weight, use recycled materials, and extend the product lifecycle
Substances with environmental impact Use no substances with environmental impact, reduce the use of such substances

・Certification Standards

Must satisfy either of the following conditions:

➢Newly developed products whose environmental performance throughout their product lifecycles is above the standards; and

➢Improved products whose increase in environmental performance throughout their product lifecycles compared to that of existing products is above the standards.

Examples of Nittoku Green Products

Products Certification Reason Relevant SDGs Description
Spark plug using a precious metal (iridium alloy) for the center electrode
  • Reduced use of resources
ZFAS®-U3 wide-range oxygen sensor
  • Reduced use of energy
  • Reduced use of resources
  • Substances with environmental impact
OZAS®-S4 oxygen sensor
  • Reduced use of energy
  • Reduced use of resources
LED alumina high heat radiation package (thick Cu-plated specifications)
  • Reduced use of resources
O2 Fresh-5G, an oxygen concentrator
  • Reduced use of energy
  • Reduced use of resources
Lead-free piezoelectric ceramics
  • Substances with environmental impact
Ozone Air Purifier “Sumikaze”
  • Reduced use of energy
  • Reduced use of resources
  • Substances with environmental impact
Water quality management system
  • Reduced use of resources
  • Substances with environmental impact

One of our Group’s priority issues is “providing environmentally friendly products.” To tackle this issue, we have set numerical targets to be achieved by 2030 in the fields of spark plugs and automotive oxygen sensors, which represent our environmentally friendly products that can contribute to improving automobile fuel efficiency and purifying exhaust gas.
For “development of technology, products and businesses for contributing to the resolution of social issues,” we have set the following targets: realizing widespread use of fuel cells in anticipation of the use of CO2-free hydrogen; facilitating adoption of our proprietary lead-free piezoelectric ceramics to replace conventional lead-based equivalents; and increasing operating efficiency using sensing IoT technology.
Since these products are expected to contribute to solving social problems and boast high environmental performance, we have reaffirmed them as Nittoku Green Products.

NGK SPARK PLUG CO., LTD.