Honda Worldwide | Honda Environmental Annual Report 2001

Honda established the "LCA Investigation Committee" in 1997. This Committee has been busy examining the introduction of LCA as a tool for conducting objective and quantitative analyses of the environmental loads of Honda's products throughout their life cycle (from the mining of the raw materials to the disposal and recycling).
The LCA project was launched in June 2000 and we are making efforts in the quantitative assessment of our products' environmental loads throughout their life cycle to achieve greater environmental improvement and to give further impetus to our commitment in reducing the environmental loads of our products.

*Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): The technique of determining the total environmental loads of a product throughout its life cycle (mining of raw materials

manufacturing

distribution

use (consumption) ¨ disposal) by taking into account the amount of resources and energy consumed and the amount of wastes disposed. Due to the wide acceptance of this concept, various segments of industry are taking active steps to reduce environmental impacts in all the stages of life cycles.

1. The Concept of LCA

In fiscal 2000, we have established a database by developing a system of defining our main management categories at all stages of our products' life cycle and calculating the inventory data* based on this categorization. In this context, we have deployed our Honda LCA technique at all stages of the manufacture of the parts used in our products.

These commitments also include the collection of inventory data in coordination with our principal suppliers.
*The inventory data refer to the data concerning the environmental loads of our products at all stages of their life cycle. Examples of the inventory data include energy amount used in the manufacture of products and parts and the waste quantities.

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