Toshiba Corporation and Toshiba Lighting and Technology Corporation, a Toshiba group company, on March 19 marked the end of production of general-use incandescent bulbs, a product which Toshiba was first to manufacture in Japan and that it has produced for 120 years. Toshiba decided to focus on environmentally friendly lighting in 2008, and since then has been advancing a transition to new lighting products, particularly LED lighting. The end of incandescent bulb production comes a year ahead of the original plan, and will lead to total of 430,000 tons of carbon dioxide reduction.
In 1890, Ichisuke Fujioka, one of the leading engineers at the time, established Hakunetsu-sha & Company Ltd., one of the companies that eventually merged in Toshiba, as Japan's first manufacturer of incandescent lamp bulbs. From an initial production of only 10 bulbs a day, production climbed to a peak of 78 million a year, and cumulative shipments to date add up to 4.07 billion bulbs.
Toshiba has a long history of innovation in lightings. In the wake of the oil shocks of the 1980s, Toshiba developed the world's first ball type fluorescent lamp in 1980. The company has subsequently developed smaller, more power efficient products with longer life, with the result that the production volume of general incandescent lamp has been declining since around 2000. In 2007, Toshiba created much more efficient and environmentally friendly LED lamps for general use, and is now promoting replacement of incandescent lamps.
The end of production of general-use incandescent bulbs marks the end for a total of 103 products, and it is expected to bring down CO2 emissions by 430,000 tons a year against the benchmark year of 2008, when Toshiba manufactured some 20 million units a year. Though it will continue to produce specialty incandescent bulbs, Toshiba will now direct its attention to further promoting LED lighting.
