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With soil contamination a critical environmental issue especially since the 1990s, Ricoh Co., Ltd. has been carrying out global surveys of and countermeasures against soil contamination at the Group's production plants, from the viewpoint of corporate social responsibility and environmental risk management. Recently, the company also completed such surveys at the Group's non-production offices around the world. Now the state of soil contamination risk at all of the Group's owned and leased sites is known.
These surveys were begun in 2004 and covered all 1,022 owned and leased sites* of the Group's non-production offices (sales, logistics, services, and technology development) in Japan and overseas. While some sites were those of plants and gas stations, it was still concluded that the surveyed sites won't pose a contamination problem in the future.
The surveys were implemented in this order by narrowing at the time: the listing of sites and their history surveys, history surveys of any chemicals being used before at the sites, and topsoil surveys. In particular, any uncertainty in the record of a site prompted a chemical analysis of its soil to check for any contamination. As a result, no topsoil at any of the sites registered a contamination level in excess of the regulated level or one that would cause a problem in the future.
Now that the surveys have been completed, the company has a database of soil contamination risk information concerning all 1,047 of the Group's business sites, including those of production offices, to enable risk control. Another benefit of the surveys is that it has been clarified that the company will not face costs in the future arising from ground remediation due to soil contamination at the group's non-production offices.
* In cases where rooms or floors are leased that are within a building, those unlikely to be the source of soil contamination were excluded.
For inquires from news media about this matter, please contact the PR Department, Ricoh Company, Ltd.
Tel: +81-3-6278-5228
E-mail: koho@ricoh.co.jp
December 15, 2006
Ricoh Company, Ltd.
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