Conservation of Biodiversity -Concept-
Recognizing that our businesses depend on the ecosystem and that biodiversity plays an indispensable role in the health of the ecosystem, we have been striving to conserve biodiversity.
As indicated in Ricoh's Environmental Principles, introduced in 1992, the Ricoh Group does not see environmental conservation activities and business management as two incompatible issues. Instead, we see conservation of the global environment as a natural responsibility as a global citizen. Conservation of the global environment requires measures not only to reduce impact of our business operations and products on the environment but also to maintain and improve the self-recovery capabilities of the global environment. Recognizing that our businesses depend on the global ecosystem and that biodiversity plays an indispensable role in the health of the ecosystem, the Ricoh Group laid down the Ricoh Group Biodiversity Policy. This is to further develop the various conservation measures we have been taking, such as ecosystem conservation activities, promotion of voluntary activities by employees, and "social contribution in environmental conservation" (e.g., awareness-raising programs to encourage other community members), and ecosystem preservation through CDM projects. To these measures, we have added measures to reduce the impact of our business activities on biodiversity by using the new policy as our basic guideline on biodiversity preservation.
Ricoh Group's global environmental conservation–Keep environmental impact within the self-recovery capabilities of the Earth–
Ricoh Group Biodiversity Policy
Human society largely depends on the ecosystem. But human society has had a tremendous impact on the ecosystem, placing a wide-scale burden upon it. In the past 50 years, the global biodiversity has been badly degraded due to human activities. If we do not act now to start conserving the biodiversity and change our way of using natural resources to a more sustainable approach, the survival of human society may even be at risk. To articulate this idea in a concrete form, the Ricoh group laid down the Ricoh Group Biodiversity Policy in March 2009. The Policy combine the existing measures of the Group toward global environmental conservation and new measures for biodiversity conservation to help develop and promote specific activities. With this Policy, the Ricoh Group will continue our efforts to realize an affluent society built on a sustainable global environment.
