CES 2025 Keynote: Panasonic CEO Yuki Kusumi leads with sustainability

Keynote speaker Yuki Kusumi, Group CEO of Panasonic Holdings Corporation, kicked off the first official day of CES 2025 in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

The Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) annual technology trade show – bringing together industry leaders, breakthrough technologies, and global innovators – is being held in Las Vegas from Tuesday, January 7th through Friday, January 10th.

Panasonic has presented at every CES, dating back to the organization's first event in New York City in June 1967.

Taking to the stage in the Palazzo Ballroom at the Venetian to introduce Kusumi and colleagues were CTA President Kinsey Fabrizio, and CTA CEO and Vice Chair Gary Shapiro.

Backstage with @Panasonic CEO Yuki Kusumi as we get ready to DIVE IN to the opening keynote and kick off opening day for #CES2025! pic.twitter.com/nxfkss6npx

undefined Gary Shapiro (@GaryShapiro) January 7, 2025

Technology changes our individual lives and is here to empower people, not to replace them, Fabrizio told the crowd. The two also spoke of policy issues, such as reducing red tape that can stifle innovation, lowering tariffs on tech product imports, and streamlining immigration visas for international tech workers.

CTA also announced two major investments: $5 million to fund unrepresented entrepreneurs, such as people of color, women, and veterans, and an investment in the new Quantum World Congress in Washington, DC, which includes plans to create a new Quantum conference track.

Panasonic looks to a sustainable future

“Well into the future” is the company’s tagline for this year's CES, highlighting Panasonic’s vision for a sustainable world, including “new solutions to support the well-being of families,” Kusumi said.

The CEO spoke of achieving these aims by shifting Panasonic’s fundamental business model to a more environmentally friendly “circular economy model,” playing up the company’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions through its EV battery program.

The company's innovative EV battery ecosystem repurposes old batteries, scrap production, and critical materials to produce functional battery components that Panasonic can use to manufacture new cells in the US.

“Bringing battery manufacturing into harmony with our need to protect the environment is a complicated challenge, but it is absolutely essential,” Kusumi said, inviting Panasonic’s EV battery recycling partner, Redwood Materials CEO JB Straubel to explain.

Straubel happens to also be a Tesla co-founder, served as the EV-maker's chief technical officer from its inception in 2005 to 2019, and was elected to Tesla’s board of directors in 2023.

"Manufacturing and production produce 1/5th of the world's carbon emissions (C02)," Staubel said to the audience, citing statistics from the World Economic Forum.

“The Panasonic-Redwood recycling ecosystem recovers greater than 98% of materials from old batteries such as cobalt, nickel, lithium, and copper, to then rebuild cathode active material to manufacture new batteries,” Staubel said.

Touting the collaboration as the “highest level of recycling solutions in the industry,” Staubel noted that for “the first time in the world, the cathode is being recreated at this closed-loop ecosystem level.”

Panasonic, currently the largest EV battery provider in North America, also announced it is beginning production on its next-generation high capacity battery, five times higher capacity and lower cost than its current 2070 platform.

100% renewable energy

Panasonic says it has created the world’s first factory to produce 100% renewable energy through "the useful combination of hydrogen, solar panels, and battery storage units."

The original energy management system is called Panasonic HX, and is said to generate only the amount of power needed by balancing supply and demand in response to changes in electricity and weather.

The hydrogen fuel cell technology for net-zero energy will be used at select public and government sites, the first including a manufacturing plant in the UK and office buildings in Munich.

"Panasonic HX offers the world’s first agreement opportunity to achieve net carbon neutrality to make a difference at scale," Kusami said.

Standardization of Avoided emissions

First announced in 2022, the company said it is on its way to realizing its goal of net zero CO2 emissions across all Panasonic operations, including manufacturing, worldwide by 2030.

Part of that plan includes the advancement of standardization of avoided emissions – a power metric to scale low-carbon solutions and products.

Panasonic HD, along with the World Business Council for Sustainability Development (WBCSD), announced the launch of the new initiative to “ensure the metrics will be used by governments, financial institutions, and society at large.”

Other notable initiatives introduced during the event included OASYS, a new sustainable home design using innovative HVAC solutions for cleaner air and lower energy demand, as well as Umi, a holistic digital family wellness platform and coach, and a global partnership with the Google-backed AI start-up Anthropic to develop more sustainable and innovative wellness solutions.

The company also announced Panasonic Go, a new division that will use AI-driven sustainable solutions to create a "smarter and safer global supply chain" and expand products and services to millions of modern households around the globe.

“Panasonic Go builds on our company’s 100-year legacy as a purpose-driven business and our fundamental goal – to develop useful, high-quality solutions that have a positive impact on the world,” said Mr. Kusumi.

“With this new initiative, we will provide our global enterprise with AI tools and processes to serve our customers in fundamentally different ways. From our founding in consumer electronics hardware, we’ve grown into a major innovator of B2B software, services, and platforms, and this path forward will open up new opportunities to innovate, connect, and deliver value,” he added.