President’s Message

It is essential for the international economic community to strive to achieve growth and development while addressing major global issues because expectations for companies to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society are growing.In 2010, Ricoh Company, Ltd. founded the Ricoh Institute of Sustainability and Business to promote not only the financial success of the company (“business”) but also the development of a rich and sustainable society (“sustainability”) through its “corporate activities”. It has now become critical for business success to be compatible with the resolution of social issues. Therefore we will reflect a new growth model in Ricoh medium to long-term business strategies, searching for new ways to address issues such as global warming and defining the roles of the corporation in today’s global marketplace.Cycles of research and corporate activities will enhance our competitiveness and result in greater trust from the international community. Furthermore, crucial issues and findings from our research and corporate initiatives will be passed on to society and corporate management for broad application, not simply for our own benefit. We believe that such initiatives will result in the realization of an affluent and sustainable society.

The global economy today is very complex. On the one hand, emerging economies are growing and developing stronger global links; on the other, there are signs of increasing protectionism in some parts of the world. Nevertheless, despite the great uncertainty, businesses are required to make decisions that foresee the trends in the global economy.At the same time, it is increasingly important for us today to propose concrete countermeasures to address not only various global issues like poverty and global warming but also the issues that Japan is experiencing such as an aging society. Business enterprises are increasingly expected to take the lead by applying their diversified resources and latest technologies to the resolution of the issues noted above. This is truly an era when opportunities and risks are mixed and therefore rational business decisions are ever more important.The Ricoh Institute of Sustainability and Business was established to carry out research to support corporate management under such circumstances by analyzing relevant information and thereby extracting crucial issues based on the findings for the top management of Ricoh.Our output is to be applied to actual corporate activities and these activities are in turn expected to deepen our research. This feedback enables the Institute to contribute even more widely to corporate management. We aspire to be a visionary institute that acts as a bridge between research and business in a progressive way.