Initiatives on Environmental Risk Management

This page introduces our various initiatives for ensuring legal compliance in all our business activities, reducing their environmental impact, and so forth.

The Advantest Group sets voluntary standards more stringent than prevailing environmental laws and regulations, and implements such standards in the course of operating equipment that could potentially impact the environment, and in monitoring and assessing those operations.

Furthermore, to ensure that we can respond without hesitation should an environment-related incident occur, we have established rules for addressing such risks, stipulated in documented operating procedures and chemical substance emergency-response procedures and other such guidelines, and have put management systems in place related to those rules.

Moreover, our employees and contractors handling particularly high-risk operations regularly take part in specialized training and emergency drills, which are conducted to ensure that they are able to act swiftly in the event of an emergency.

In fiscal 2023, there were two cases which exceeded our voluntary standards for water quality. The two cases were restored to within the standard values as a result of immediate corrective measures. There were no cases which exceed our voluntary standards for air quality.

We are working to ensure safety management and compliance with laws and regulations in the use and storage of chemical substances used at Advantest Group business locations.

To this end, we have adopted a chemical substance management system. This system facilitates chemical substance registration, safety reviews, input/output control, and the calculation of data required by relevant laws and regulations, as well as making the safety data sheets (SDS) that are necessary for the safe handling of chemical substances available at any time.

In addition, in order to realize strengthened risk management and chemicals substance management, we are constructing a safety training system, and are conducting audits and providing guidance through the corporate chemical management division to ensure the safety of stored chemical substances, so as to further enhance our safety control system.

In line with this management approach, proper after-use treatment will be followed, such as making a request to a waste treatment company.

Advantest has set the "development of products that are free from polluting substances" as one of the goals of the ESG Action Plan. We upheld the total abolition of PFAS coolant by fiscal 2030 as our KPI, and instead adopt water as the coolant to be used in next-generation testers. In fiscal 2022, we confirmed the cooling performance and durability of the indirect cooling technology using water. New products incorporating this technology are scheduled to be shipped from fiscal 2024.

While we aim to eliminate PFAS cooling fluid, we are tasked to address the challenges of supplying PFAS cooling fluid for our current models.
To this end, the following measures continue to be taken by working cross-sectionally throughout the organization.

VOC substances are considered as substances that produce photochemical oxidants and suspended particulates. Facilities using a large amount of VOC are obligated by Article 17-13 of the Air Pollution Control Act to monitor VOC emissions into the atmosphere that are attributable to their business activities and take the measures that are necessary to reduce the emissions.

VOC is not used much in the electrical and electronic industry. However, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has requested companies to take voluntary measures to reduce VOC emissions, as we also cooperated in the survey from 2005 to 2020 representing the four electrical and electronic industry groups (JEMA, CIAJ, JEITA, and JBMIA).

These surveys cover 20 substances that are often used in the electrical and electronic industry. Advantest does not use them in large quantities, but has been conducting surveys on the consumption of these substances and report it as required.

According to the Law Concerning Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, Advantest has been submitting reports to the government under the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) system.

At Advantest we are striving to eliminate hazardous substances across our manufacturing activities including suppliers of components and assembly and processing partner companies, and wish to connect this to the development of 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 components and materials that are used for our products. Changes to the guidelines, if any, are notified to our suppliers via the electronic transaction and technical information exchange system (portal site) seeking for their cooperation.

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 has also concluded the General Specification for the Environment(GSE)* with our suppliers as a contract for the same measures even at overseas bases to eliminate the chemical substances contained in products.

Regarding component registration, we are conducting environmental surveys for procured components using our environmental survey questionnaire with cooperation from our suppliers, based on the operation standard for chemical substances used in Advantest products. 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.

We have established the aforementioned operation standard for chemical substances used in Advantest products based on IEC62474* and use it in surveys on the use of hazardous substances in components used and to determine whether or not to adopt the components.

Starting with the RoHS Directive, there have recently been additions and revisions of electrical and electronic regulations. On February 6, 2023, Advantest, in line with the revised IEC62474, revised its questionnaire on hazardous substances and informed our business partners.

In complying with environmental laws and regulations, the Advantest Group is working towards eliminating the use of hazardous materials while also pursuing environmental conservation efforts that involve reducing the consumption of energy and resources. More specifically, we have been working with our suppliers since the autumn 2003 on initiatives to investigate and eliminate the use of restricted hazardous materials. We are in compliance with the European RoHS Directive^*.

Advantest has organized a global team among those overseas bases that have R&D departments (Japan, Germany, USA) since the middle of 2020, and has built a system to work on compliance with laws and regulations related to environment, quality, and safety of our products.
Currently, we hold regular global meetings to agree to and unify our recognition as an Advantest Group. Based on this understanding, each subsidiaries promotes the drafting and implementation of environmental law education materials for local engineers according to the product groups.

Advantest's semiconductor Test system, Test handler are classified as Large-Scale Stationary Industrial Tools (LSSIT) under the EU-RoHS directive, and as such are exempt from the directive's provisions. Nevertheless, on the basis of our commitment to environmental conservation, we will continue to work towards continuing elimination of hazardous substances from these product lines.

The China RoHS directive outlines the following items for selling products, which contain the same 6 substances set out in the first EU RoHS directive, within China: (1) identification marks (on the product) of whether or not it contains specified hazardous substances; (2) indication of environment-friendly use period (on the product); (3) description of the type, region, and amount of hazardous substances contained (in the product manual); (4) labeling of packaging materials (on the packaging materials themselves); and (5) year and month of production.
Advantest has established a system to assure that these labels are reliably displayed in products to be shipped for China.

REACH is a regulation of the European Union, which stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. REACH places the burden of proof on companies, where they are obliged to register, submit documents, and report on the linked to the substances they manufacture or import in the EU with a total amount of 1 ton or more per year to the European Chemicals Agency. Advantest's products or "molded articles" are exempt from REACH's provisions as said; however, hazardous substances contained, its doses, and candidates for substances of very high concern (SVHC) must be reported upon request.

Advantest products may contain the following SVHC:

Businesses who manufacture, distribute, sell, use, dispose of perchlorate materials (containing 6 ppb perchlorate or more) for resale or use in California, and when exporting to California need to ensure that these perchlorate materials are properly labeled on their individual packaging boxes and carrier boxes (for shipping packaging). The majority of perchlorate materials are lithium-ion batteries, which are already labeled on our products.

The following label or mark is necessary
Perchlorate Material - special handling may apply, See www.dtsc.ca.gov/hazardouswaste/perchlorate.

The following Advantest products may also contain perchlorate.

Proposition 65 is a law that protects the citizens of California from serious exposure to chemical substances that are known to trigger cancer, congenital anomalies or reproductive disorders.
The law requires companies and people conducting business in California to provide clear and reasonable warnings before knowingly and purposely exposing California's citizens to chemical substances on the Proposition 65 list.

Although Advantest products may contain chemical substances that are included in the Proposition 65 list, there is no risk of human exposure through skin contact, ingestion or inhalation if the products are used according to Advantest recommendations.
For this reason, Advantest has deemed that a warning label stating that a product contains chemical substances listed in Proposition 65 is unnecessary.

Based on customer requests, we can offer information on chemical substances included in Advantest products that are listed in Proposition 65.

Furthermore, as there is a risk of exposure to the chemical substances listed in Proposition 65 when handling Advantest products in a way that is not recommended by us, such as destroying or shattering the products, we recommend taking measures such as wearing dust masks, protective gloves, and ventilating to alleviate and reduce any risk of exposure.