To fulfill
its mission as a global citizen, the
Ricoh Group has taken it upon itself
to contribute to the development of
a sustainable society by promoting
global environmental conservation.
Our
mission is to conserve the global
environment
The rich resources of our planet Earth
have given birth to many forms of
life and have supported the wide-ranging
and ambitious activities of mankind.
Nevertheless, recent activities have
exceeded this life-sustaining ability
of the Earth. This poses a threat
not only to our coexistence with other
forms of life on this planet, but
also to the future of the human race
itself. Global environmental conservation
is the most important issue that all
of mankind must face. We must recover
the past capacity of the Earth and
pass it on to future generations.
To achieve this, we need to be more
aware of the importance of the Earth
in our personal lives, not just in
our businesses, and strive to continuously
change our corporate activities and
lifestyles in order to reduce the
impact society as a whole has on the
global environment to a level that
the self-recovery capability of the
Earth can deal with. In recent years,
people have been showing more interest
in the environment. The Ricoh Group
has long been working toward better
environmental management by adopting
environmental conservation as its
mission and the idea that environmental
conservation activities can be effectively
carried out for the sake of the Earth
if done on a continuous basis with
the participation of more people.
Continuous
global environmental conservation
activities
Based on this idea, the Ricoh Group
takes it upon itself as a global citizen
to conduct environmental conservation
activities on a continuous basis.
Companies can continue an activity
only if they themselves survive, grow,
and develop. We therefore need to
gain new economic benefits through
environmental conservation activities.
We define sustainable management as
the management of a company that contributes
to environmental conservation and
generates income for that company.
All Ricoh Group employees are engaged
in environmental conservation activities
while pursuing profitability based
on the concept of the Ricoh Group's
definition of sustainable management.
Commitment
to sustainable management
To improve sustainable management,
we have incorporated "environmental
viewpoints" into all aspects
of management. Also, to limit the
environmental impact of our corporate
activities to a level that the self-recovery
capability of the Earth can deal with,
we are conducting environmental management
and improvement activities on a daily
basis. We aggressively market environment-friendly
products to the public based on the
development of environment-related
technologies and, thus, potentially
reduce our environmental impact indirectly
through our customers. Moreover, we
quantify any reduction in environmental
impact and increase in economic benefits
to develop our own environmental accounting
system to improve the profitability
and efficiency of our environmental
activities. Through these measures,
the Ricoh Group is committed to continuous
environmental conservation to improve
its sustainable management.
Activities
conducted by all employees
Environmental conservation activities
should not be conducted by employees
in development and manufacturing departments
only. Everyone, including those in
business planning and sales, has some
impact on the natural environment
as a result of their work. Therefore,
the Ricoh Group encourages all employees
to participate in environmental conservation
activities. Specifically, employees
are encouraged to develop and provide
environment-friendly products and
services and set up their workplaces
to have less impact on the environment.
These activities are expected to spread
to business partners, customers, and
the employees' families. With this
in mind, the Ricoh Group is strongly
supporting employees' environmental
conservation activities.
Commitment
to forest conservation
To recover and maintain the life-sustaining
ability of the planet, it is of course
not enough to simply reduce the environmental
impact of our business activities.
The Earth's life-sustaining ability
is said to depend mainly on environmental
ecosystems. In recent years, due to
the destruction of forests where many
creatures live, the planet's vital
link to ecosystems has been damaged.
To help solve this, the Ricoh Group
is doing its best to conserve forest
ecosystems in cooperation with NPOs
and local communities all over the
world.
Towards
a sustainable society
Global environmental conservation
activities should, of course, be conducted
on a global scale, and all global
citizens, including national and local
administrations, companies, civil
societies, and individuals, need to
be aware of their own environmental
impact and try to cooperate with each
other to reduce it. The Ricoh Group
lends its weight to the development
of a sustainable society by being
proof that a company can conduct environmental
conservation activities continuously
through sustainable management and
encouraging more people around the
world to participate in developing
a sustainable society that limits
its environmental impact to a level
that the Earth can tolerate.
Masamitsu Sakurai
President, Chief Executive Officer
and Chief Operating Officer,
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
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