Overall Picture of Sustainable Environmental Management
- Overall Picture of Sustainable Environmental Management
- Identification of Risks and Opportunities
The Ricoh Group's environmental conservation efforts have evolved through three stages that we define as the "passive stage," "proactive stage" and "responsible stage." In the passive stage, our efforts generally aimed at addressing social pressures by dealing with laws and regulations and competing with other companies. In the next proactive stage, we began to take voluntary actions with a sense of mission as a global citizen. In the current responsible stage, we have enhanced out efforts to an advanced level, namely, from the stage of simply operating its business in an environmentally friendly manner to pursuing both environmental conservation and profit generation simultaneously. Based on this concept of sustainable environmental management, we are continuing environmental conservation efforts in an integrated part of out business activities. Specific initiatives implemented range a broad areas from developing energy-saving products, curtailing costs by promoting resource/energy conservation, to developing materials that can replace natural resources at a high risk of depletion, and offering efficient and environmental work style-related solutions by providing products and services designed to achieve increased operational efficiency and reduced environmental impact.
In order to effectively protect the global environment and build sustainable societies, it is imperative to reduce impact of human activities on the environment to a level that the Earth's self-recovery capabilities can manage. With this recognition, the Group organizes and participates in a variety of forest ecosystem conservation projects, in addition to efforts to reduce environmental impact stemming from its operations, aiming to improve the self-recovery capabilities of the global environment.
| Passive Stage | Proactive Stage | Responsible Stage | |
| Purpose | Coping with social pressures ・Laws and regulations ・Competition ・Customers |
Carrying out its mission as a global citizen ・Self-imposed responsibility ・Voluntary planning ・Voluntary activities |
Simultaneously achieving environmental conservation and profits |
| Activities | Passive measures to meet laws and regulations, competing with other companies, and satisfying customer needs | 1. High-aiming, aggressive activities to reduce environmental impact ・Energy conservation ・Resource conservation and recycling ・Pollution prevention 2. Improved awareness of all employees |
1. Environmental conservation activities= QCD activities* Ex.: Reduced number of parts, reduced number of process steps, improved yield and operation rate 2. Development of environmental technologies |
- *Activities to improve quality, control costs, and manage delivery times
Achieving environmental conservation and profits simultaneously
The Ricoh Group promotes sustainable environmental management, in which continuous environmental conservation efforts are an integral part of its business activities. We aim to achieve both environmental conservation and profits simultaneously.
At the Ricoh Group, sustainable environmental management does not mean striking a balance between environmental conservation activities and profit generation activities. We recognize that very limited benefits will come from our environmental conservation efforts if we only conduct them actively during prosperous, financially strong times and then neglect them to place more importance on profits in difficult times. We must make solid, continuous efforts towards the long-term objective of making our environmental conservation activities effective enough to make a difference.
Four pillars of the Ricoh Group's sustainable environmental management
To achieve a sustainable society, it is necessary to limit environmental impact to a level that fits within the Earth's self-recovery capabilities. Therefore, the Ricoh Group's sustainable environmental management focuses on four pillars: energy conservation and prevention of global warming, resource conservation and recycling, pollution prevention, and biodiversity conservation. The first three pillars aim to reduce environmental impact from our business activities, while the fourth pillar aims to improve the Earth’s self-recovery capabilities.
- Overall Picture of Sustainable Environmental Management |
- Identification of Risks and Opportunities
