Environmental efforts on our products

We understand the impacts our business activities have on the planet’s environment and we carry out activities to reduce our environmental impact. This page introduces our initiatives for environmental conservation.

Contributing to the sustainable development of society and conducting environmentally friendly business operations are essential issues that need to be addressed in modern business management. The Advantest Group works to develop products from the perspective of environmental conservation while prioritizing high precision and high quality, and certifies as green products those products that are environmentally friendly in terms of the three key aspects of energy and resource saving, improving recyclability, and elimination of hazardous substances. There is demand in society for the supply of green products because they provide both a reduction in the environmental footprint and an improvement in economic value. The Advantest Group has been promoting business activities based on the belief that providing green products will be in response to these demands and beneficial for its customers since 2005.

At the Advantest Group, all products undergo a product environmental assessment.
During the product environmental assessment, products are assessed from various aspects, including energy-saving, reduction of the number of components, size reduction, recyclable design, and elimination of hazardous substances.
New products that meet the Voluntary Standards for Green Products defined by Advantest are certified as green products and are awarded with an Eco Label (type II), in addition to the product environmental assessment. We design new products to be 100% green products.

The Advantest Group Eco Label features an original three-color design representing energy and resource saving, recyclable design, and elimination of hazardous substances through green procurement.

We aim to reduce the environmental impact of our products through product designs that save energy, reduce components, and reduce size.
The reduction rate of energy against conventional products has been set to a standard of at least 20% for semiconductor test systems and measurement instruments, and at least 10% for other products such as handlers and nanotech products.
We have also set a reduction rate of at least 10% in the same way for components and the miniaturization for all of our products.

Note: The above reduction ratios are values based on performance computation.

In recyclable design, we release information on parts that will require special attention during disposal, and plastic parts designed in-house use 90% or more recyclable materials. Moreover, we make sure that products are easy to dismantle with standard tools, and we use rechargeable batteries displaying a recycle symbol.

To eliminate hazardous substances from our products, we have established Group standards on banned substances based on the IEC62474 standard, and we conduct surveys of hazardous substances contained in parts and materials used in our products. Advantest is building a response system for some of its products and eliminating relevant chemical substances using the results of this survey because these chemical substances are regulated by the RoHS directive as of July 2017.
Our main products are semiconductor examining devices, which are not manufactured products. Therefore, our main products do not cause emissions of gases such as PFASs.

In fiscal 2023, a total of five products related to semiconductor test systems, test handlers, and electronic measurement and medical equipment were certified as green products.

Advantest has been recycling products through Advantest Pre-Owned Solutions Co., Ltd. (APO), our affiliate. We work with the Field Service Group to respond to a variety of customer requests, with the support for products that have been shipped to the market at the core, until the shipped products are no longer in use.
Recycling is one solution that we provide for customer inquiries for products they no longer need. Currently, recycling is a domestic Japan-only solution, but we will continue consider its global applications and expand our activities.

It is the Advantest Group's basic policy to take active steps to ensure that the products we sell are reused and recycled after they are retired, and to buy back products that are not expected to be reused so that the resources can be recycled.

For more than 15 years, Advantest Gunma Factory has used reinforced cardboard packaging to transport our products, such as test systems, contributing to the elimination of plastics and the reduction of waste. In addition, reinforced cardboards are also used for the pallets on which the products are mounted, thus achieving a reduction in plastics.

The cardboard boxes are manufactured in appropriate sizes with the cooperation of our cardboard suppliers, which serve vital roles in providing safe and efficient deliveries. Moreover, the cardboard boxes are about half the weight of the wooden boxes used in the past, not only contributing to reducing CO₂ emissions during product delivery but also reducing the burden on employees since they are not just easy to pack, but are also easy to unpack at the shipping destination. A single cardboard packaging material is used only once for transporting a single product, and is recycled based on the rules of the customer.

The following products are disassembled by hand and recycled, as shown in the product recycling flow in the below table. For details of our 3R activities, please refer to "Customers' Contribution to 3R".

Efforts by individual companies alone to address climate change will have only a limited effect, which prompts us to engage in initiatives involving the entire supply chain and industry associations. The Advantest Group will proactively work to reduce our environmental footprint over the medium to long term through our supply chain in order to achieve our CO₂ emissions reduction targets.

In our entire supply chain, Scope 3 "Category 1: Purchased goods/services" and "Category 11: Usage of products" account for a large portion of our total CO₂ emissions. In addition to the reduction of CO₂ emissions in Scope 1+2, we have identified the reduction of CO₂ emissions in Category 1 and 11 as priority items in our ESG Action Plan 2021-2023. To achieve the SBTi certification targets for Scope 1+2 and 3, we are accelerating CO₂ reduction activities throughout our supply chain. As a priority measure, we have established task forces to promote these CO₂ reduction activities from FY2021, and are accelerating such activities throughout the supply chain to achieve the SBTi certification targets for Scope 1+2 and 3.

Task Force 1 will promote the reduction of CO₂ emissions through the development of next-generation products with low power consumption and high efficiency in collaboration with our global R&D departments worldwide. Specifically, we aim to reduce CO₂ emissions per test (basic unit) in the use phase of our main products by 50% by FY2030. Our Scope 3 "Category 11: Usage of products" has the largest amount of CO₂ emissions, accounting for 65% of the entire value chain. Lowering this CO₂ emission is crucial in reducing CO₂ emissions throughout our value chain. CO₂ emissions from the use of products sold are significantly affected by market fluctuations such as product sales. For this reason, we will set targets for reducing emissions per unit of production in conjunction with our mid- to long-term business plan, and review them annually so as to contribute to CO₂ emissions reduction through our products.

Task Force 2 will work with the procurement department to support the reduction of CO₂ emissions by promoting the use of renewable energy among our suppliers. Specifically, we aim to increase the number of our suppliers who have adopted renewable energy to 40 by FY2023. We conduct an annual "Supply Chain CSR Survey" among our major suppliers, to which we have added questions on the implementation status of renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions since FY2021, thereby enhancing the questionnaire on our suppliers' climate change initiatives. Through this questionnaire, we have ascertained the status of our suppliers' implementation of renewable energy, provided individual feedback based on analysis and evaluation of the questionnaire results, and offered basic seminars on climate change. By means of these activities, we will promote suppliers' use of renewable energy and contribute to the reduction of CO₂ emissions throughout the supply chain by gaining an understanding of the necessity and importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Task Force 3 will work together with the sales department to promote the reduction of CO₂ emissions through collaboration with our customers. We conducted a survey of our major customers to explain our desires and expectations to suppliers, as well as their policies and goals regarding climate change. While considering our desires and expectations for their suppliers, we will distill and incorporate them into the roles we ought to play and the issues we ought to tackle through our strategies, and will reflect them in our ESG activities. We will also aim to understand our customers' climate change policies and targets, and contribute to CO₂ reduction through collaboration with our customers as a member of the supply chain.

Task Force 4 aims to reduce CO₂ emissions from the Advantest Group's business activities by 60% by FY2030 (compared to FY2018) through the introduction of energy-saving equipment and renewable energy, and to achieve a renewable energy ratio of 70% by FY2030. In FY2022, we newly installed renewable energy at our sites in China and Taiwan, as well as at our headquarters, Sendai Laboratories (ATL), and Advantest Components in Japan. We will continue to contribute to the reduction of CO₂ emissions generated by our operations by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from our business activities and promoting the introduction of renewable energy.

The Advantest Group pursues operations encompassing the "3Rs" (reduce, reuse, and recycle) with the aim of realizing a recycling society.

The Advantest Group is committed to converting waste into valuables by reinforcing the initiative we launched in FY2009 to separate components. We ensure strict compliance in these activities.

In disposing of waste (including packaging materials) generated in our business activities, we clearly indicate to our outsourcing contractors the disposal method for each classification as per the relevant laws (including local laws and regulations) to ensure proper disposal and recycling by material type.

Advantest has installed a recycled paper manufacturing machine from 2020, which can produce new paper from used paper such as rejected documents. With this machine, most of the confidential documents to be disposed, which were hitherto collected and sent to a contractor for disposal, will be processed in-house, and given "new life" by being recycled into paper and made use for various purposes, such as business cards.

We also made notebooks using recycled paper and gave them as gifts to local elementary school students who visited our biotope for nature observation events, as well as to special-needs school students and teachers who paid a visit during our company tours. These help in view of our social contributions by providing teaching materials for learning applications.

The equipment is operated by our employees with disabilities. It will also create more opportunities for people with disabilities to play an active role in the company. Once they embark upon their careers and showcasing their active roles as members of the Advantest Group will prove to be a way to repay their alma mater. With the introduction of the new paper manufacturing machines, Advantest has realized a new circulation cycle through various aspects such as environmental commitment, employment of people with disabilities, and educational support.

For more information on employment of the disabled, please refer to "Efforts to Promote Diversity".

Advantest owned three capacitors, fluorescent lights, and stabilizers that contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), but all pieces of the equipment that contained PCBs were properly disposed of during FY2017.

Advantest's main usage applications of its water resources are the operation of air conditioners, kitchen use, toilet cleaning, and drinking. At our main bases, we use water for industrial use efficiently. In addition to using this water for cleaning the toilets, we also use it with roof-mounted sprinklers to improve cooling in the summer. Advantest is also filtering drinking water and using ultra-pure water at some business establishments. It should be noted that approximately 90% of the discharged water produced by Advantest Group is classed as domestic sewage. Currently, domestic sewage and rain water cannot be recycled.

Of course, every member of our staff takes care not to waste water, and strives to make effective use of our water resources.