Mazda is engaged in a range of initiatives to eliminate or reduce chemical substances that damage the environment.
Mazda is working across its entire supply chain to reduce the use of environmentally hazardous materials such as lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium and cadmium. Using the standardized IMDS*1, international system, the Company gathers information on the materials from suppliers.
- *1International Material Data System
- To ensure that suppliers enter IMDS data appropriately, the Company publishes and distributes guidelines each year.
- The data gathered through IMDS is used to calculate the Company’s vehicle recycling rate and to comply with various regulatory regimes for chemical materials, such as REACH in Europe.
To maintain a comfortable cabin environment, Mazda is committed to reducing VOCs*2 such as formaldehyde, toluene and xylene, which have been implicated as possible causes of sick building syndrome.
- In 1999 Mazda developed a deodorizing filter with the capacity to remove aldehydes (adopted as either standard or optional in core vehicle models).
- In new models, starting with the Mazda Demio/Mazda2 launched in 2007, Mazda reduced VOCs in the main materials used in the cabin, such as plastics, paints, and adhesives, thereby conforming with the indoor aerial concentration guidelines established by Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
- *2Volatile Organic Compounds
In FY March 2012, Mazda continued to make steady progress toward achieving the target of reducing VOC emissions from vehicle body paint in body-painting lines to 29 g/m² or less.
Mazda completed the introduction of the Three Layer Wet Paint System in all plants by the end of FY March 2006. Building on this, in FY March 2012 Mazda reached its goal of reducing VOC emissions in body-painting lines to 27.1 g/m² of vehicle body paint through the full-fledged introduction of the Aqua-Tech Paint System, which achieves a reduction of both VOC and CO2 emissions.
Mazda is working to reduce the amount of CFC alternatives, which constitute greenhouse gases, used as car air-conditioner refrigerants. The Company is also proceeding with development and adoption of air conditioners that use novel refrigerants in place of CFC alternatives.
