Philips to double sales of green products

London, 27 September: Sales of Philips’ ‘green’ products such as energy efficient lighting and LCD televisions are set to double in the next five years, the company announced on Tuesday.

In 2006, the Dutch electronics giant derived 15% of its €27 billion ($38 billion) revenues from green products. But, with a €1 billion investment in green innovations, it plans to double this percentage to 30% by 2012.

President and CEO Gerard Kleisterlee said: “We are convinced that those companies that combine the principles of economic growth and environmental stewardship will be the winners of the future and offer long-term rewards to our employees, and to our customers, partners and shareholders.”

Philips judges the greenness of a product by benchmarking it against its closest competitor on six criteria: energy consumption, packaging, the hazardous substances it contains, weight, recycling and lifetime reliability. “If they perform well on these criteria they are labelled ‘green’,” a spokesman said.

He gave as examples Philips’ street lighting system CosmoPolis, which uses less than half the energy of mercury-vapour lamps and contains industry-leading low levels of mercury, and its LCD televisions which consume 35% less energy than competitors’ models.

This is the fourth EcoVision programme set forth by the company. Part of the initiative will be to increase the energy efficiency of its own operations by 25%.

“By the end of 2008 all the company’s offices will be outfitted with energy efficient lighting systems and further reductions in greenhouse gas emissions will be realised in production and distribution,” the company said.