Newsroom Home Newsroom Archive 2003 August 25

News Release

Epson Announces Program to Eliminate RoHS Directive Chemicals

TOKYO, Japan, August 25 - As part of its commitment to protecting the world's environment, Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson") has announced the start of a campaign to eliminate from its electrical and electronic products six chemicals - lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PBBs (polybrominated biphenyls) and PBDEs (polybrominated biphenyl ethers) - targeted by the European Union's RoHS Directive (2002/95/EC)*. Epson plans to reach its targets far in advance of the RoHS Directive deadline, which will ban the sale within the EU of electrical and electronic equipment containing these six chemicals as of July 1, 2006. The company has set the following target dates for the elimination of the substances from its products:

• Devices, exclusive of modules: by the end of March 2004 (date of factory shipment)
• Finished products and modules: by the end of March 2005 (date of factory shipment)

The management of chemical substances has long been one of Epson's key environmental programs, and the company has developed a set of strict internal rules by which it uses and manages such substances. Even before the adoption of the RoHS Directive, Epson had already voluntarily banned PBB and PBDE content in products and achieved lead-free status (with the exception of certain items purchased and some products for which customers have not yet approved an alternative). Additionally, in January of this year Epson established its Green Purchasing Standard for Production Materials and called on its vendors to cooperate in this effort to step up control over chemicals used in production materials going into Epson products. The group is furthermore having 2,500 vendors worldwide provide information on the content of 28 chemical groups agreed upon by the Japan Green Procurement Survey Standardization Initiative (JGPSSI). Besides asking for this information, Epson is encouraging vendor understanding to better enable it to create environmentally conscious products and to comply with increasingly strict environmental regulation.

Vendor and customer cooperation will be indispensable to Epson efforts to eliminate the six RoHS Directive chemicals. Therefore the group is surveying its vendors to confirm their response to the directive and seeking customer approval to switch to alternatives.

Epson will continue to work for the environment on several fronts: by controlling chemical use, working towards zero emissions and conserving energy.

* The RoHS Directive was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on February 13, 2003. The Directive states that its purpose is to approximate the laws of the Member States on the restrictions of the use of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment and to contribute to the protection of human health and the environmentally sound recovery and disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment."
The ten categories of electrical and electronic equipment covered by the Directive are large household appliances, small household appliances, IT and telecommunications equipment, consumer equipment, lighting equipment, electrical and electronic tools (with the exception of large-scale stationary industrial tools), toys, leisure and sports equipment, medical devices (with the exception of all implanted and infected products), monitoring and control instruments and automatic dispensers.

About Epson
The Epson Group increases its corporate value through its innovative and creative culture. Dedicated to providing its customers with digital image innovation, its main product lines comprise information-related equipment such as printers and projectors, electronic devices including displays, semiconductors and quartz devices, and precision products such as watches. Epson products are known throughout the world for their superior quality, functionality, compactness and energy efficiency.
The Epson Group is a network of 73,797 employees in 114 companies around the world, and is proud of its ongoing contributions to the global environment and to the communities in which it is located. Led by the Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., which is listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the Group had consolidated sales of 1,322 billion yen in fiscal 2002.

Contacts
Corporate Communications Dept., Seiko Epson Corporation.
+81-266-58-1705 or +81-3-3340-2637
E-mail
http://www.epson.co.jp/