Sponsored by: ImpactAISummit
Andrea Murphy, the Director of the Office of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at Panasonic North America, joins the show to walk us through how a global company like Panasonic aims to boost the role it plays in the circular economy. Panasonic is aware of the amount of emissions generated by the manufacture and use of its products … and to the company’s credit, they’ve even put an actual number on it. Andrea is here to outline what Panasonic is doing to reduce the environmental impact the company creates not just up and down its supply chain, but also once it's products are sold to consumers.
Sponsored by: ImpactAISummit
Andrea Murphy, the Director of the Office of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at Panasonic North America, joins the show to walk us through how a global company like Panasonic aims to boost the role it plays in the circular economy. Panasonic is aware of the amount of emissions generated by the manufacture and use of its products … and to the company’s credit, they’ve even put an actual number on it. Andrea is here to outline what Panasonic is doing to reduce the environmental impact the company creates not just up and down its supply chain, but also once it's products are sold to consumers.
(Note: This transcript was created using artificial intelligence. It has not been edited verbatim.)
Sean McMahon 00:00
This episode is brought to you by AI Impact. AI Impact is a new virtual event that will separate hype from reality and deliver insights into how industries and business functions will be enhanced and tested in the age of AI. Featuring thought provoking keynote speeches, and exclusive discussions with world renowned AI experts. This event will provide the knowledge, context and inspiration you need to navigate the complexities of AI. Participants will learn how to identify opportunities, address issues, and make informed decisions that will leverage AI to its fullest potential. AI Impact, which is brought to you by SmartBrief, is taking place September 27, and 28th. To learn more about AI Impact, or to register to attend the event, go to ImpactAISummit.com. That's ImpactAISummit.com or click on the link in the show notes.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Sustainability SmartPod. I'm your host Sean McMahon. And in a few minutes, I'm going to be joined by Andrea Murphy. Andrea is the Director of the Office of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at Panasonic North America. She's going to walk us through how a global company like Panasonic is working to boost the role it plays in the circular economy. You see Panasonic is aware of the amount of emissions generated by the manufacturing and use of its products. And to the company's credit, they've even put an actual number on it. So Andrea is here to outline what Panasonic is doing up and down its supply chain to bring that number down.
Looking ahead, climate Week is coming up soon. And we've got a couple of episodes on the schedule to mark the occasion. Vincent Stanley is the Director of Patagonia Philosophy. He and Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard, have updated a book they co authored about corporate responsibility. So Vincent is going to stop by to reveal some things you might not know about the history of Patagonia's journey, and how organizations across all industries should be thinking about the future.
We're also working on an episode to hear from Mars, not the planet, the company. Mars' sustainability plan is chock full of initiatives that strive for net zero. And while we haven't locked down the details of the episode quite yet, you can expect to hear a great conversation with some of their leadership team in a few weeks. So lots of great stuff coming up on his podcast, and lots of insights we hope that you can put to use in your own work and life. But right now, let's get things started with Andrea Murphy from Panasonic North America.
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. My guest is Andrea Murphy from Panasonic North America. Andrea, how are you doing today?
Andrea Murphy 02:54
I'm doing great. Sean, thank you so much for having me on the show.
Sean McMahon 02:57
So I'm excited to talk to you because obviously, Panasonic huge global company, to many products to list very unlike other guests we have where it's very niche. Your team has to tackle a lot of sustainability challenges. So what does Circular Economy mean to you and everyone else at Panasonic?
Andrea Murphy 03:15
That's really a great question. When I think about circular economy, to me, it's just a rebranding of something that Panasonic has been working on for years. The concept is not new. If I go back to my early days, doing baseline environmental science classes at college, you had the three R's, you reuse, you reduce and recycle. In essence, that's what circular economy is. And that has been embedded in what Panasonic does and how we approach the philosophy for our business since its founding over 100 years ago. So one of the main drivers that Panasonic has always had for its mission is to produce technology solutions that make the world a better place for all. And that's not changed in these past 100 years. As crisis's are determined by United Nations, the current climate crisis, or different challenges affect us. Panasonic is moving what they do and adapting to face those challenges. So currently, climate crisis I think is top of everyone's mind, right? You got severe weather, huge storms, we've had droughts and then flooding. And what do you know the what to do about that is to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. So Panasonic has took a look at their own cells and what we're doing and how many carbon dioxide emission, we admit from the manufacturing of our products and from the consumption, the use of our products. And we found that roughly 1% of all carbon dioxide emissions from electricity consumption come from that use that you use that you're responsible for. So I totally commend our company for putting that number out there. And we're addressing that issue by taking the responsibility for what we're doing. And we're creating what we call a clean impact plan. And we are reducing those carbon dioxide emission. So one of the ways we're reaching our green impact is through circular economy. And what we're doing is visualizing how we can change our products, and in what ways we can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from those products. So for instance, we are extending the lifecycle that the product is in use for, we're reducing its weight, and we're increasing the use of recycled materials. And what our headquarters in Japan did is they created an internal tool that helps all of the businesses create a baseline scenario of the energy that their products use now, and then calculations for if we make the product last for a longer amount of time, or if we make it weighing less, which will then have less shipping costs and trucking emissions are going to go down what the overall carbon emissions will be with those changes. And that way, we can really make solutions that are measured and impactful.
Sean McMahon 06:15
Well, yeah, I mean, you mentioned the the more percent of global carbon emissions or electricity consumption from the use or manufacturing your products. I commend you for that kind of self awareness. So what areas of your business do you and your team find hardest to bring into the circular economy to try and bring that number down?
Andrea Murphy 06:31
Wow, yeah. So you know, I am impressed with our company for making those calculations. I think that was a bold step on our part, a product lines. I mean, they're so varied. We range from small switches and motors, to like huge refrigeration cases. It's a whole bunch of personal electronics in the middle. I think it's much easier for a business to business products, because the customers have goals of their own. And they're aware of what resources they're purchasing. They're also aware of their waste at the end. I think it's much harder for consumer businesses, because the styles and norms play a very important role in circular economy. I listened actually Sean to one of your previous podcasts that you discussed buying a product. And I think the example was toothpaste. And would you buy it if it didn't come in a protective box? It really stopped me in my tracks. Because as much as I consider myself an environmentalist, I shop and look for the undamaged box. And if that look and feel, or even just the perception, because if you're right is talking about toothpaste, there's nothing wrong with that to being squished or damaged. But that perception then right, it's important to customers. So how are we going to overcome this to reach circular economy?
Sean McMahon 07:51
Yeah, I mean, we did have that conversation about excessive packaging for things like toothpaste. Thanks for listening to that. You know, one of the things as we talk to experts like you who work in sustainability, 24/7 is a key component of their mission is to get stakeholders across various business lines, you know, especially at a company as big as Panasonic, you know, you got to get buy in. So what do you do to go to folks who are your colleagues, and get them to get on board with the sustainability mission, you and your team are trying to push through across so many different verticals at Panasonic,
Andrea Murphy 08:22
You're absolutely right. Buy in is so important. And if your stakeholders are not in agreement, it's not going to work out. That's especially challenging for us. As you said, we're a big company. Diversification sounds excellent. If you're speaking to a financial analyst, but not so much when you're considering economies of scale. We have 39 distinct business units. So one of the biggest challenges that I face is that we don't have buying power across all of those 39 product lines. We do have so a strong commitment and strong policies. Panasonic first had their environmental statement, which said what we're going to do as a company related to the environment back in 1991. And we pledged to contribute to the conservation of global environment, and establishment of a sustainable society. And then in 1999, we added on to that, we issued our first green procurement policy guidelines. And we give out these guidelines to our suppliers. We request from them to establish their own environmental management system. And we request that they ensure comprehensive substance management as well as find a way to preserve resources, find a way to increase recycling, and also find a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I think what you said was really important that you you have to work with the stakeholders. And that goes back to our principles of how we manage the company and how that concept of sustainability is really embedded within that. I don't know if you're familiar with SDGs sustainable development goals that were adopted by Yeah. Adopted by the nation Summit, right in 2015. Well, we've adopted them also. Right. So we've kind of put all of our planning, we tie it to what SDG doesn't create, too. And we ask our suppliers to do the same thing.
Sean McMahon 10:25
And what kind of response do you get from other suppliers? I mean, obviously, within Panasonic, you have some some leverage. But you know, up and down your supply chain, we hear so much about supply chains these days, what kind of response you're getting from all those different entities,
Andrea Murphy 10:37
the responses, positive businesses, overall, they want to do the right thing, and they want guidance on how to do it. So putting it in writing, putting it in our green procurement guidelines, gives companies the basis for why they have to make their changes themselves. So it starts at the top, and it flows right down.
Sean McMahon 10:56
And then what about customers and consumers? I mean, you and I were talking earlier about the toothpaste example. But that's obviously not Panasonic. So within your own products, which are too many to list, what ways do you interact or nudge your customers and consumers to embrace sustainability initiatives?
Andrea Murphy 11:12
Yeah, you're right, I think nudging with customers, we've got to make it easy for them. It's got to be something that they have a benefit of doing that they're easily going to do. So during CES this past year, we've announced the takeback for Tomorrow program. And that promotes recycling of certain consumer electronic devices, such as our electronic shavers, and trimmers, or grooming personal items. So we had found that over 88 million Americans use an electronic shaver or trimmer. However, what do they do with these at the end, most likely, they throw them out, and they ended up in a landfill, and that waste an opportunity to recycle, and then reuse the rare earth metals and other materials that are trapped in these devices. Right before we launched a new product, we call it the bullseye shape, the sales team came to me. And they had concerns about what this product is going to do. At the end of its life. If people buy this product, they're going to be replacing something that's already, you know, in their cabinet. So what's going to happen to those, and they were really concerned with the fact that they would end up in landfills. There are a few states that require end of life recycling of these products, but it's not nationwide. So they came back with what we now call take back for tomorrow. And it's how we help customers recycle their unused products. And what this does is they buy a product from us, we send them a prepaid shipping label, so they can mail it back. And we work with our partners, we work with a company called ESRI. And the product gets disassembled and the parts then get sold off and made into other parts. And this is really a vision that we have for advancing the circular supply chain here in the United States, where the components from our use devices go into something else. So in this case, we send these materials to a company called red wood materials. They are a materials manufacturing company for batteries, and they take the battery parts, old batteries. And they then bring out they have I call it their black box because they won't tell us how it does it but they take these parts. And they bring out the copper and the lithium and all these rare metals that are so important for electronics today. And they make them into brand new batteries. So for us, we are making this easier for consumers and then making a product that we're going to then make more Evie batteries with kind of full circle there.
Sean McMahon 13:55
So that sounds like a great partnership with redwood. Tell me a little bit more about that. How did that get started?
Andrea Murphy 13:59
Yes, of course. I think it's no secret that we're leading Evie manufacturer here in the North America. However over 70% of global EVs, they're manufactured in Asia, and here at Panasonic are moving fast to change that. What we want to do is drive toward a domestic supply chain for Evie batteries. And the partnership with Redwood materials is key to that. They recycle a full catalog of lithium ion batteries. They use batteries such as what's in your laptop computer in your phone, battery cells from our production, and then either nickel metal hydride batteries. And they take this as a battery materials company and use it for feedstock for the battery materials they produce. So if the product is in slow, it's coming from us from our US batteries in the batteries that we sell or the products that we make. And then it's going through redwood and coming back to us as a supplier are of the battery materials that we use in our new Evie batteries. So that to me is a perfect circular economy story. And we have a contract now with redwood, where we purchase the cathode material for them. The cathode material is the main component of the battery parts. And it's the most expensive part of the battery. We also have contracts with them for the copper foil, which is the anode materials.
Sean McMahon 15:24
I want to talk about messaging for a second. So you mentioned your sales team came to you and was like, Hey, we have concerns about what consumers do this product what was done with it, which is commendable. I mean, I'm not sure how many sales teams actually come to the sustainability team. They usually have other priorities, if you know what I'm saying. But yeah, that's wonderful. They did that. How did you convey that to consumers? Is this something you're putting right on the box? You know, or is it in advertising? Or how does that work with the various products that you have on the shelves?
Andrea Murphy 15:51
Yeah, first one, do you agree with you, I am super proud of myself teams, right? I probably keep saying it is. I'm not like a record player here. But this principle of sustainability, it's embedded in all the work that we do in all departments. And that makes my job so much easier that everyone in the company seems to care about it. And they know that that they have a role in playing to reach that goal. As far as consumers, I think knowledge is power. And consumers need to be educated in the full lifecycle of the products they are purchasing. Right now, there's no accepted standard to compare products against one another. For me, personally, I find it really hard to be consumer, which eco labels are legitimate, and which can be used as a guide to make purchases. I think industry, including my company and government, that we need to do a better job illustrating the impacts of the things that we purchased and the things that we use, you know, and what impact that's gonna have down the line. So would you buy a product that's made with recycled materials? If you're going to pay more for it? Oh, no, right? It's especially I don't know, let's say we we make digital cameras, high end digital cameras, right? Are you going to buy one that's more expensive? Because it has recycled materials? Or are you going to buy one for the best value? For the best features that it has? I think consumers are not ready to spend a significant amount of more money, unless we educate them at the effects of that product is going to have 10 years from now 20 years from now, or for our future.
Sean McMahon 17:27
I gotcha. Do you have any specific examples, besides a camera that have messaging that either work really well or quite frankly, I like to get people to share mistakes so that other people can learn from those? Any any examples of messaging that kind of fell flat with consumers?
Andrea Murphy 17:40
Actually, we have a really good example, I don't know if you've ever wondered why Panasonic doesn't sell TVs in the United States anymore. We were a huge leader of TVs. And as you know, it's the TVs especially, you know, let's let's go back a few years, they weren't as sleek as they are. Now. They have a lot of plastic around them. We started putting recycled materials using you know, we're using those plastic and making our new TVS turns out at that cost more cost about $300 more per TV. So our price went up. I don't think we did a good job to educate the consumers on why this TV is $300 more than the TV next to it. And of course, the TV business here in the United States. really goes back to education. Well,
Sean McMahon 18:27
I wasn't ready for that good of an example. Sorry, worked out that way.
Andrea Murphy 18:32
It's a really good example. Yeah, we've got to do better
Sean McMahon 18:37
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, rarely do we get negative examples. I appreciate that. I want to circle back to what you mentioned at the top, you talked about green impact and what that program is for Panasonic. You've laid out some goals, and I can see them on your website. But can you walk us through what those goals are? Because that's some of the high level stuff. And then whether you're on track to meeting those goals.
Andrea Murphy 18:55
Yeah, definitely thank you for the opportunity to talk about our goals. I'm actually really proud to work for Panasonic who's made these public goals and they put it out there. Because right once you put it there, you got to follow through. And we're certainly on track to do that. As I mentioned, we consider the fight against global warming to be our main priority. And there are a lot of small steps that we're taking when added together are really impactful. And we're starting with a review of our carbon dioxide emission for our own value chain, and then how that impacts society. And you can really not make any improvements until you first know what needs to be improved. Right data is so important, the math behind it. And we're pretty lucky because we've been collecting admissions data for many years. So it's not like we're just starting now to get a baseline. We've had a long baseline of what emissions our factories are producing. We also have a baseline because we've always been an energy efficient company when it comes to our products. So we've had a baseline of how much energy our products use throughout their lifecycle. And I think every product that we have could be ENERGY STAR certified. So we've always been reducing. But we've taken that now and looked at it and saw, okay, the use of our products, that's where the real significant portion that we can make a reduction, and that's where it is. So we have three components, we are reducing our own impact. And that's emissions from our own value chain. From the making and using of our products and services, we have what we call our contribution impact. And that's avoiding co2 emissions from society through existing products and services. So for instance, our A batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, and then our future impacts. And we're hoping to avoid co2 emissions through new and planned technologies. We are in essence, a technology company, right. So we've got to leverage what we know and be innovative. And also want to say that under green impact, there are several key dates that we're tracking two. First one is coming up pretty soon, it's 2024. And by 2024, we hope to increase the number of net zero factories we have recycle nearly all of our factory wastes that we've had a goal of doing that for many years. And we want to more than double the use of recycled resin, and nearly triple the number of products that fit into a circular economy model, like we talked about with the multi shape. Then by 2030, we hope to reduce co2 emissions from our own value chain, in addition to net zero in house emission that we hope to reduce by 110 million tonnes. And by 2050, the whole Panasonic group aims to create an impact that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by more than 300 million tonnes, which is 1% of total global emissions. Going back to that our impact.
Sean McMahon 22:03
Yeah, like I was talking to self awareness piece at the top, you might as well get rid of that 1% if it's if you can link it back to your products and operations. You mentioned next year 2020. For some of those goals are coming up, you're on track to hit those with regard to more netzero factories recycling, all factory waste doubling of recycled resin. And things like that,
Andrea Murphy 22:22
We sure are to achieve the school. We're developing new clean technologies and products and solutions. We have solar products, pure hydrogen fuel cells, air to water, heat pumps, vacuum insulated glass, Evie batteries, and I know a whole slew of other solutions that we've not yet announced, doing a lot of r&d in this area. And to further support the increased use of clean energy. We're working towards a circular economy as we talked about, and we want our supply chains to be more flexible through recycling partnerships, like the one that we have with Redwood materials. And our partnership with Redwood materials has recycled I think more than one gigawatt hours worth of battery scrap materials. And that's enough to generate power. Yeah. Wow, for over 10,000 EVs. I mean, that's huge. And that's just the beginning of that. We've been driving innovation in the solar industry for 45 years. And the company is committed to helping our homeowners making switch to reliable clean energy that we can then store with our ever volt home battery systems.
Sean McMahon 23:29
You mentioned solar and obviously one gigawatt of recycled battery. What other efforts does Panasonic undertake when it comes to clean power, you know, power your own operations? What does that portfolio look like?
Andrea Murphy 23:40
That's our net zero factory initiative. So we have a three step process for all of our factories to get down to net zero. And the first is reduction. I mean, it seems so basic, right? You can't buy an incandescent light bulb anymore, right? So you went through your house, and you're placed all your light bulbs. You saw a few dollars on your energy bill, but nothing significant. When you think about the size of our factories and our warehouses. We went through and we changed out the lighting. We've put in updated HVAC equipment. And this turned out to be a huge cost savings probably over 10% in savings of energy consumption at the factories. So we went through we looked for leaks, they have our automotive factory, I love the story. They actually like had a multi discipline group of employees from all different departments and they went through the factory like looking for things that would leak listening, you know for little air sounds in tubing and pumps and replaced everything. And it turns out that it made us more efficient. It saves us money and we've reduced less carbon dioxide emissions. So first, we're going through all the factories and reducing what we can. Then we're adding on site renewable energy where possible. Not all of our factories have the right roof to put solar panels. So We can we put solar panels if we have to add like solar to a carport, whatever the configuration is we tend to not have factories with a lot of land outside them to put a whole solar field. But where we can we're adding that. And then we're supplementing the remainder with purchased renewable energy.
Sean McMahon 25:19
I gotcha. Well, sounds like you're definitely tackling that on multiple fronts. So one of my favorite questions to ask someone like you is, what sustainability related thing occupies the most time in your brain? You know, as a as a cool kid, say lives rent free in your brain? You know, obviously, there's 100 million things on your plate, but what's kind of the one thing that really has stuck in your craw?
Andrea Murphy 25:41
Wow, it sounds like I mean, I just met you. And I feel like you already know me. Because a whole lot goes on in my head that keeps me up at night. What really worries me is that my team handle such a wide variety of compliance and sustainability issues. I'm really worried that as we focus on one piece of the puzzle, we're going to put them all together, and they're not going to fit together. So how do we balance, sustainability? And profitability? You know, what do we do with that extra $300? It costs us to make a TV. You know, what's more important? Is it biodiversity or is it water consumption? Plastics, I think like plastics is one of the biggest problem we have that we've just generated so much plastic waste? And what do we do with that if we put that plastic into our products, we are risking having harmful chemicals or unknown things, because we didn't purchase that product, you know, from a residence supplier that knows what's in there. Right? So so how do we use it? And how do we ensure its safety? I'm just so worried that we're not looking at the full lifecycle of everything, and making sure that our choices are going to be the best benefit for society, not just solving one problem?
Sean McMahon 26:55
I gotcha. My last question, it kind of dovetails a little bit with, you know, the one big thing is bold predictions, I try to ask all our guests what their bold predictions are for where we'll be, in this case with a circular economy in five to 10 years. So when you kind of look over that horizon, what do you see?
Andrea Murphy 27:13
Okay, five to 10 years in circular economy, it needs to start with standardization. We're currently tracking, I think, 10 different standards, each created by various governments or standardization bodies. And we're working really hard to align all these standards and get to one globally accepted standards that like a company like us can use. I think, you know, the vision is there for circular economy. And once the standards are released, which I think it's going to take five years to get there. So once we have that globally accepted standard that we could all learn from, I think that's when we're really going to start to make leaps and bounds. And the path is just going to, it's going to open up for the opportunities to create these circular economy advancements for products.
Sean McMahon 28:02
Okay, well, hey, Andrea, I'm fascinated by the global challenges that you and the team at Panasonic are trying to tackle when it comes to sustainability and the circular economy. So I appreciate you sharing your insights today. Thank you.
Andrea Murphy 28:14
Thank you so much for having me, Sean. enjoyed being here.
Sean McMahon 28:22
All right, everyone. Well, that's our show for today. Thank you all for listening. And if you haven't already, please subscribe or follow this show on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And as always, please be sure to share it with your friends and colleagues. Have a great day.