Kumani

The Kawasaki-based firm is on the leading edge of information technology (IT) companies using bioplastics, and is actively doing research with bioplastic material makers like Japan’s Toray Industries Inc. and France’s Arkema Group. It started using polylactic acid (PLA) in its notebook computers six years ago, and today some of its laptops have 30 to 50 percent of their housing made from bioplastics.

That’s helping the company pursue its environmental goals, but so far, at least, it’s not helping the bottom line.

Because bioplastics are much more expensive than traditional plastics, and consumers will not pay more for bioproducts, Fujitsu said it winds up making less money on each bioplastic computer. It’s a dilemma faced by many early adapters.

The company remains committed to bioplastics, however, because understanding the material group is an important part of Fujitsu’s long-term goal of building a more sustainable manufacturing platform, said Michinori Kutami, general manager of Fujitsu’s sustainable development planning division.

“We would like to expand this technology to many kinds of IT equipment, but we cannot because of the cost,” he said, describing it as a “significant” problem.

It does not have specific targets for future uses of bioplastics, but it does want what it calls “super green products” like the Biblo laptop to make up 20 percent of its product mix in 2009, said Kutami, who spoke with Plastics News during a November 13 interview at the company’s Kawasaki headquarters.

Bioplastics are a key technology to realize that goal, Kutami said.

They can, for example, cut the carbon footprint of a computer part by half compared with conventional petro-based plastics, over the life cycle of the component, Kutami said.

To make it more practical, though, he said the plastics industry must do more to reduce the cost of bioplastics.

He also said governments need to step up efforts to encourage companies to use bioplastics, such as stronger green procurement systems and lower taxes on products with smaller carbon footprints, to nudge consumers to buy more environmentally friendly products.

“In the future, [consumers’] motivation will be higher than now, I think,” Kutami said. “We expect and we hope that the customers’ level [of interest] will be higher and they would like to buy green products.”

Right now, the company uses bioplastics in one model of notebook computer each product season, and it has three product seasons each year.

He said PLA is used in rigid parts like the housing, while it uses a castor-oil based polyamide it developed with Akrema in 2006 in the hinges and other flexible parts, including in mobile phone connectors.

Fujitsu also uses bioplastics in small parts in document scanners, thumb print authentication systems and supermarket point of sale systems.

For now, bioplastics are limited to smaller parts because the material is not strong enough for larger parts, so the company is researching how to strengthen it, he said.

Bioplastics are not its only attempt at developing greener materials. The firm earlier this year came out with its WoodShell concept computer, made mostly from forest-thinned cedar and bioplastics, as part of a traveling exhibition of Japanese product design.

Kutami said the company is also researching how to make biopolymers from the nonedible parts of corn and other materials. As bioplastic demand and world population both grow, societies will need to be able to secure biopolymers without using any potential food supply, he said.

Kutami said that while bioplastics are important for reducing environmental impact, in some cases the material choice can play a relatively small role.

In computer servers that run 24 hours a day, for example, by far the biggest environmental impact is from electricity use, so the company is focusing its efforts to reduce energy consumption, Kutami said.

In products that aren’t such energy hogs, such as laptops, materials choice can have a greater role in reducing a product’s overall environmental impact, he said.

An even larger issue for the firm, he said, is how Fujitsu’s products can reduce carbon dioxide emissions in society, he said. IT products account for two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but better use of IT equipment has the potential to cut emissions by half for the industries and activities that emit the other 98 percent, Fujitsu said.

Introducing equipment that enables better teleconferencing, e-learning or intelligent traffic control, for example, can change behavior that reduces the need to travel or makes car travel more efficient.

While some have questioned whether the economic downturn and recent slide in oil prices will hurt the developing biopolymers industry, Kutami said in a December 22 e-mail that the dramatic price drops for oil-based plastics in the last few months has not lessened the company’s interest in bioplastics.

“Our company’s plans for bioplastics have not changed,” he said. “We are developing this bioplastics technology to realize a low-carbon society.”