Eco-Product Initiatives

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Environmental Activities

Environmental Initiatives | Environmental Protection Goals | Climate Change Initiatives | Conserving Water | Waste Reduction Efforts | Chemical Substance Use | Eco-Product Initiatives | Eco-Communication Initiatives | Biodiversity Conservation Activities | Environmental Data and Third-Party Verification

Eco-Product Initiatives

Renesas is committed to eco-product initiatives and creating environmentally-conscious products and solutions that contribute to energy conservation and efficiency.

Creating Environmentally-Conscious Products

In order to create environmentally-conscious products, it is important to reduce the environmental impact at all stages of the product lifecycle, from development, procurement, manufacturing, use and disposal. Our eco-products are the results of product environmental assessments (Note 1) which evaluate the total environmental impact reduction measures (Product Stewardship). During these product environment assessments, our products are tested and evaluated at two stages: at the development stage and before mass production.

In addition, we have made product environmental assessments as part of the requirements in new product development, and we are working to raise internal awareness of the importance of product stewardship through training for project leaders and future leaders involved in new product development.

*1: Currently, the product environmental assessment is conducted only for former Renesas products, but we are considering expanding the scope in the future.

Eco-Product initiatives at each stage

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Environmental Assessments of Products

We create environmentally-conscious products by incorporating product environmental assessments into the product development and design flow, to evaluate the degree of improvement in environmental load. In this assessment, we make comparisons between our target products with indexed previous generations of the products (Note 2) based on eight criteria, including weight reduction, product safety, and whether they are energy saving.

Eight Criteria for Product Environmental Assessment

Safety evaluation	Resource and energy-saving evaluation
Long life evaluation (reliability evaluation) Safety assessment (evaluation of controlled chemical substances, compliance with laws and regulations) Information disclosure evaluation Production process evaluation	Weight reduction evaluation Energy saving evaluation Packaging material evaluation Distribution evaluation

The outcome of the assessment is determined by the design department developing the product as well as the Environmental Promotion Department at head office of Renesas as a third-party assessor. If the outcome determines that any of the three categories below applies, the sale of the product is prohibited in principle.

• If a prohibited material is used in the product or in the manufacturing process
• If a new material used in the product or in the manufacturing process is not SDS (Note 2) registered
• If the preliminary examination of any new materials used in the manufacturing process has not been conducted

In addition, if the environmental performance of a product has not improved in comparison to the indexed product, the design department must consider making improvements to the product or decide whether the development should continue.

The steady promotion of the environmental assessment increases the safety and trust of Renesas’ semiconductor products, as well as to further improve the environmental performance of the products themselves. This will ultimately lead to reducing the environmental impact for the final customers using our finished products.

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Note 2: Previous generation refers to indexed products that are one generation prior but have almost the same purpose, function and performance as the new product. However, if there are no previous generations of a product, the new product itself is considered as the index product.
Note 3: Safety Data Sheet (SDS) refers to the information document provided by supplies on the properties of chemical substances and the handling of materials that contain hazardous substances that may be dangerous or harmful.

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Renesas Green Devices

In order to promote research and development (R&D) and design of products that support the creation of environmentally-conscious products based on the Environmental Action Guidelines in all stages of the product life cycle, products that greatly contribute to the reduction of environmental impact are certified as "Renesas Green Devices.”

Green Devices are certified products that have completed the development stage but have not yet been mass produced. The certification process is basically as follows: Firstly, based on the results of the product environmental assessments, we confirm whether the environmental performance of the target product is more superior to the indexed product in the three categories of resources (mass), energy (energy consumption) and chemical substances (quantity of substances used by Renesas that are subject to reduced usage). Secondly, if the target product is determined to be superior to the indexed product and the improvement rate is over 10%, the product is certified as “Renesas Green Devices.” In fiscal year 2023, Renesas Green Devices accounted for 96% (Note 4) of new product development, and approximately 60% of total sales (Note 5), including affiliated products.

Note 4: Percentage of Renesas Green Devices among the number of former Renesas products developed in FY2023.
Note 5: Percentage of Renesas Green Devices (former Renesas products developed and mass-produced in FY2023 and their affiliated products) to sales of former Renesas products in FY2023.

Lead-free products within Renesas Green Devices

Renesas’ semiconductor products are used in many products that are marketed around the world. To comply with environmental laws and regulations related to our products, we research the laws and regulations of major countries, apply the information in our group products, and communicate with our customers on the chemical substance content in a timely manner. In addition, Renesas is actively working to reduce the use of lead-free products, as the demand for semiconductor products and electronic devices continues to grow.

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Renesas Super Green Devices

Among Renesas Green Devices, products with superior performance are certified as "super green devices."

Examples of Renesas Green Devices and Super Green Devices

Products certified as “Renesas Green Devices” and “Renesas Super Green Devices” for having superior environmental performance among hundreds of products developed annually at Renesas are registered in a database. Some of the products that can be publicly disclosed are uploaded onto the Renesas website. Going forward, Renesas will continue to promote the creation of environmentally-conscious products by recognizing green device certified products in award systems and more.

Introduction of Renesas Green Devices and Super Green Devices (Products developed in 2023)
Excerpt from products that can be publicly disclosed

Environmental contribution of Renesas Green Devices

Renesas aims to make people's lives easier through our products and solutions, and contribute to building a future that creates a better world. In a world where everything around us is intelligent and interconnected, advanced computing performance is a must. At the same time, the demand for energy efficiency and robust safety and security will continue to increase. By providing our customers Renesas Green Devices that meet these growing demands, we can foster a greener and more sustainable society.

Renesas Green Devices not only reduce the use of resources, energy, and prohibited chemical substances in the product itself, but also contribute to improving the energy efficiency of customers' systems by incorporating our solutions into their products. We also play a role in increasing energy efficiency of society, as our customers' products are used across many applications.

Renesas' core business is to foster a sustainable society by providing products and solutions in mission-critical business fields that form the basis of our society, such as automobiles, factory automation (FA), communication infrastructure, and medical and healthcare. Specifically, we will focus on developing low-power products with minimum environmental impact and products and solutions that make people's lives safer and more secure, and advancing research and development for innovation that supports them.

Renesas Green Device solutions (Note 6) that contribute to a sustainable society

Sales ratio of Renesas Green Devices by solution (Note 7)

In FY2023, 67% of Renesas' green device sales was for mission-critical business areas (green bond eligible solutions), of which 38% was for smart vehicle solutions and electric vehicles, and 29% for social infrastructure such as data centers and cellular.

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Note 6: Solutions are classified according to the green eligibility category of the green bond framework effective in November 2021.
Note 7: Renesas' green devices (former Renesas products and related products that were developed and began mass production in FY2023) are classified as green bond eligible solutions, and the ratio for each solution is calculated using the sales of green device products as the denominator. The proportion of products that could not be classified was approximately 33%.

library_books Read more about Renesas’ products and solutions that contribute to a sustainable society through customers’ systems here.

Product Environmental Quality in Supply Chain

We believe that it is necessary for the entire supply chain to manage chemical substances contained in products throughout the process, from the selection of materials during development and design, to the prevention of pollution in the manufacturing process. For this reason, we ask suppliers to submit certificates and analysis data to confirm that prohibited substances are not used, and they adhere to such practices in supplier audits. Distributors are requested to manage the chemical substances contained in the packaging materials they use. On the other hand, we also provide our customers with information on chemical substances contained in products and analysis data on prohibited substances according to the RoHS Directive to ensure that our products can be used safely. In addition, we share with customers our systems for managing chemical substances and the progress of our environmental activities.

library_books Click here to learn about our environmentally-conscious supply chain initiatives.
library_books Click here to learn about our green procurement.
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Contributing to SDGs

Renesas’ efforts in Eco-Product Initiatives contributes to these Sustainable Development Goals targets:

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12.4 By 2020, achieve the environmentally-sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in accordance with agreed international frameworks, and significantly reduce their release to air, water and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment