The Daikin Group and the Environment

Of the burdens that our business exerts on the environment, the greatest are the energy consumed by air-conditioners and the fluorocarbons emitted during their production-factors that contribute to global warming. Throughout all of our business activities, we strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop and spread the use of products that have minimal burden on the environment. We also recover refrigerants from old air-conditioners that will be thrown away. This prevents both global warming and damage to the ozone layer.

The entire Daikin Group shares an understanding of this serious problem and is implementing measures to deal with it.

Environmental impact of air-conditioners

Air-Conditioner Energy Consumption: A Cause of Global Warming

Air-conditioners consume about one-quarter of the electricity in a typical Japanese household. Some of the electricity is produced at thermal power plants, which give off CO₂, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

The production of air-conditioners and refrigerants also requires energy, whose production of course also gives off CO₂.

Emissions of Refrigerants: A Cause of Global Warming and Ozone Layer Depletion

Air-conditioners use fluorocarbons as a refrigerant to take heat from inside of the room and disperse it outside.

Conventional refrigerants like CFC and HCFC deplete the ozone layer if dispersed into the atmosphere. The HFC used today partly solves this problem since it does not deplete the ozone layer. It is, however, still a greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

Action 1
Reduce CO₂ with Heat Pump Systems

Worldwide, heating is mainly supplied by burning fossil fuels like petroleum and natural gas. Using an energy-efficient heat pump system instead can reduce CO₂ emissions by about half. By encouraging the spread of heat pump heating, we will contribute to the reduction of CO₂ emissions.

Action 2
Reduce CO₂ with Energy-efficient Technology

We will contribute to the reduction of CO₂ emissions by further advancing inverter and other energy efficient technologies and spreading the use of cutting-edge energy-efficient equipment and systems around the world.

Action 3
Reduce Environmental Burden from Business Activities

We will reduce the burden our activities place on the environment by developing technologies in all areas of business, including recovery and destruction of fluorocarbons, natural refrigerants for air-conditioners, and fluorochemicals.

In the Daikin Group, we try to reduce environmental burden by getting an accurate picture of the impact that our business activities and product life cycles have on the environment: starting with design and development, through materials procurement, production, sale, transport, and installation, and finally to product disposal and recycling.

We are putting a special focus on reducing the biggest impacts on the environment: the emission of fluorocarbons during production and the use of electricity (resulting in CO₂ emissions)during product use.

An Overview of the Environmental Problems and Impacts of Business [Closeup]

*Figures are for Daikin Industries in FY2006