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Green procurement/Initiatives related to regulations for chemical substances contained in products

At the Advantest Group, our intention is to reduce environmental impact at all stages of production, including those caused by suppliers and assembly and processing companies, in our quest to develop green products. We engage in communication with our business partners, and formulated the Advantest Green Procurement Guidelines in fiscal 2002 to facilitate this process. We operate according to these guidelines in order to give consideration to the environmental aspects in addition to quality, cost, and delivery throughout the whole process of production, including the purchasing of the components and materials that are used for our products.

We have created a database from the environmental information we received from our suppliers, and are utilizing it to promote eco-friendly product manufacturing, along with the implementation of product environmental assessments.

• Advantest Green Procurement Guidelines (PDF:169KB)

The Basic Principles of Green Procurement

Component Registration in Green Procurement

Regarding component registration, we are conducting environmental studies of the procured components, with the cooperation of our suppliers. We investigate the components to find out if they contain chemical substances that can burden the environment, and promote green procurement initiatives to reduce environmental impact.

Banned and Restricted Substances

The Advantest Group specifies and manages chemical substances that are prohibited from inclusion in our products or otherwise subject to restricted use. Banned and restricted substances are stipulated on the basis of the IEC 62474 standard.

Hazardous substance survey support for suppliers

Accompanying the revision in the RoHS Directive in July 2011 and the addition of electrical and electronic products-related regulations, the Advantest Group has revised its hazardous substance questionnaire. In order to help our suppliers submit accurate and quick responses to our hazardous substance questionnaire, we have held meetings to explain the details of the questionnaire, attracting 100 participants in total. Thanks to these efforts, as well as to suppliers' cooperation, we were able to reduce the time taken to complete a parts environmental assessment by more than 20%. In addition to favorable feedback from suppliers, such as "the meeting helped me to understand the hazardous substance questionnaire" and "the examples of how to fill in the questionnaire were easy to understand", we also received some suggestion for improvements regarding the submission method. Based on this feedback, we will continue to reinforce systems for suppliers to encourage cooperation with such questionnaires.