Panasonic aims to be number one green company by 2018

Green IT is one really hot meme.

At a press conference held by Panasonic yesterday at Marina Sands in Singapore, Panasonic declared their ambition to be the top number one green innovation company in consumer electronics by 2018.

This means continually innovating and developing consumer products that “save energy, save water, and are long-lasting”, said Ikuo Miyamoto-san, managing director of Panasonic Asia. Panasonic makes consumer products like plasma and LCD TVs, washing machines, and air conditioning systems.

How does Panasonic benchmark their products to be environmentally friendly? The company will work with authorities in countries to ensure that these products pass or exceed local green standards. For example, in Singapore, the National Environmental Agency (NEA) runs a mandatory energy labelling scheme for electronic products.

Besides this, Panasonic will run both outreach and social media programs to preach their green roots. For example, in 2009, they organised 76 eco-related educational activities and corporate social responsibility programmes — in conjunction with business partners, governments and other stakeholders — to raise public awareness in Asia Pacific.

Fellow freelance writer and Mcee extraordinaire Billy Teo asked one really insightful question — given that Panasonic was a publicly listed company always on the search for continual growth, does this conflict with their stance that products should be long lasting? After all, if consumers have long lasting products, they buy less stuff.

The answer from Panasonic was that people buy because the products have new innovative features and not because they need to replace their old machines. To me, this doesn’t really answer the question. Part of the problem is that we consumers accumulate so much stuff.

But still, as I’ve said before, I’m a pragmatist. Even though I believe that non-profits and government agencies have the best levers to effect environmental change, if tech companies come on the bandwagon, it’s a good thing. Nothing wrong with buying electronic products that help save energy and water too.