|
Toshiba Medical Systems is endeavouring to provide Earth-friendly, patient-friendly medical systems. This fits with our corporate ‘made for life’ goal and we promote activities to improve the environment. The company is now working towards its ‘Fourth Voluntary Environmental Plan’, having set out the ‘First Voluntary Environmental Plan’ as early as 1993. The organisation is accredited with achieving ISO14001, the international standard for an Environmental Management System (EMS). Toshiba Medical System’s ‘Fourth Voluntary Environmental Plan’ sets out short-term and long-term environmental milestones. Key activities in achieving these include: - Expanding resource recovery by creating a cycle of ‘making, using, returning and reusing’
- Reducing the use of hazardous substances
- Developing products that are both Earth-friendly and patient friendly (see below)
- Monitoring energy invested and discharged over the entire lifecycle of the product
- Actively reducing waste in manufacturing sites
- Making efforts to preserve water through extensive water quality control
- Reduction of CO2 emissions and other exhaust gas
All of this is under the guidance of the Environmental Protection Promotion System. This sets out three grades of strict audits, continual improvement to environmental policies, and training regimes for staff. For more information, see the 2009 review TOSHIBA MEDICAL SYSTEMS IN THE UK Toshiba Medical Systems Ltd have also implemented ISO14001:2004, the international standard for an Environmental Management System (EMS). The company has regular internal auditing ensuring compliance and has been externally audited and accredited by SGS Accreditation Services. As part of this EMS, there are ongoing initiatives to significantly reduce the company's impact on the environment. Major improvements are underway at the office site to reduce energy consumption, including reducing emissions and paper usage. A new incentive scheme in place to encourage employees to drive cars with low CO2 emission levels. The company carries out employee awareness and training sessions and these initiatives are governed under an Environmental policy and monitored at regular intervals to ensure their efficacy. TOSHIBA MEDICAL SYSTEMS’ EARTH-FRIENDLY PRODUCTS How do we assess environmental impact? Toshiba Medical Systems strives to develop Earth Friendly products by improving the environmental impact – the ‘eco-efficiency’ – of products during development. The company considers both the value of the product, so that it has a worthwhile function for the energy used in its provision, and the environmental impact of the product. Eco-efficiency is defined as: Eco-efficiency = Value of the product
Environmental impact of the product In order to ensure that improvements are being made, the Eco-efficiency of a product is optimised during development against a relevant benchmark product. This is then converted into Toshiba’s environmental assessment, Factor T, for the product: Factor T = Eco-efficiency of new product
Eco-efficiency of benchmark product Some Examples of Improvements in Factor T for Medical Products 
| Aquilion ONE 640-slice CT System
Operating time 1/10
Exposure dose reduced by 80%
* 2007 compared to 2006 | 
| Zexira Digital X-Ray
Power consumption 20% cut
Resources 10% cut
* 2007 compared to 1999 | 
| Aplio MX Premium Ultrasound System
Power consumption 30% cut
Main body volume reduced 50%
* 2007 compared to 2000 |
| | |
Relevant links to further informationToshiba Corporation has had a clear environmental mandate for many years. Nevertheless, its objectives have been recently revised and reissued in a vision for 2050. This is available here: - Please click here to view TMSUK's environmental policy.
- To view the latest reports on Toshiba's global efforts please visit our Corporate web site on CSR.
|
|
