Environmental results

Environmental data: Our contribution to a more sustainable society

Amidst escalating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we’re currently seeing a global trend toward minimizing environmental impact.

In January 2022, the California Senate passed a law requiring all companies with annual revenue of more than $1 billion US dollars (approximately 115 billion Japanese yen) to disclose all emissions each year. These new disclosure requirements apply to direct emissions (Scope 1), emissions from purchase and use of electricity (Scope 2), and indirect emissions, including emissions from the company supply chain (Scope 3).^*1 In Japan, the government revised the Corporate Governance Code, making it mandatory for companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Prime Market, the top tier newly established in April 2022, to disclose information in accordance with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).^*2 At Elephantech, we believe that it’s one of our responsibilities as a company to actively disclose our environmental data and we created the following infographic to visualize how we are reducing our environmental impact from the perspectives of resource usage, carbon dioxide emissions, and water consumption.
At Elephantech, we have made it our mission to “make the world sustainable with new manufacturing technologies” and will continue to work to reduce our own environmental footprint so as to contribute to a more sustainable electronics industry.

• *1California senate passes Bill for first Law in US requiring companies to disclose all GHG Emissions
• *2IFRS Foundation announces International Sustainability Standards Board, consolidation with CDSB and VRF, and publication of prototype disclosure requirements

Our environmental data

Extraordinary savings in resources and energy

Using metal inkjet printing technology to dramatically reduce environmental impact while retaining exceptional product quality.

Conventional PCB production process (subtractive manufacturing)

• Subtractive manufacturing is the mainstream method for producing electronic components and has been in use for more than a hundred years.
• However, a major drawback of this method is its significant environmental footprint—covering the entire substrate in copper foil and then etching away the unnecessary metal not only wastes resources, it produces a large amount of toxic waste water.

Elephantech Pure Additive™ production process

• Metal is nanoized into ink and printed directly on the substrate only where required.
• The production process ensures minimal environmental impact: Less wastewater, less water consumption, and less carbon dioxide emissions.
• Although an extremely difficult technology to develop, we are proud to say we are the first and only company in history^*1 to have successfully mass produced and commercialized products using metal inkjet printing.

• *1Statement based on publicly available information as of January 2022

Climate change: Our CO2 emissions results

• We used life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare the lifetime carbon dioxide emissions of printed circuit boards made using our Pure Additive™ method with those made using conventional production processes.^*1 The following results are based on in-house analysis and calculations that have been verified by a third party.
• Numbers shown for conventional printed circuit boards were taken from research published by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.^*2 Their study, “Carbon Footprint Analysis of printed Circuit Boards,” .presents detailed life cycle assessment based on actual data from Shenzhen Sunshine Circuit Technology, Co., Ltd., and our calculations are based on the same results disclosed in this study.

• *1Assumptions: Copper film thickness 6.6um
• *2Winco K.C. Yung, Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Karpagam Subramanian, Chapter 13 - Carbon Footprint Analysis of Printed Circuit Board, Editor(s): Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu, Environmental Carbon Footprints, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2018, Pages 365-431, ISBN 9780128128497, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812849-7.00013-1.

Carbon dioxide emission results for production

Unit: kg-CO2eq/m2

Water Consumption Reduction Benefits

Our contribution to the Sustainable Development goals (SDGs)

Our proprietary Pure Additive™ production technology has enabled us to produce printed circuit boards with less water consumption, hazardous byproducts, and carbon dioxide emissions than conventional production methods.
These achievements equate to a significant contribution to targets 6.3 and 6.4 of SDG 6, targets 12.2 and 12.5 of SDG 12, and SDG 13.