Efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and tackle global issues are gaining momentum everywhere. Individuals and businesses alike must strive for sustainability.

The Ricoh Group began engaging in corporate activities that align management and environmental issues well before the world became interested in sustainability. This article highlights Ricoh’s achievements in this respect.

Growing sustainably

In 1998, Ricoh was one of the world’s first company to advocate environmental management. We have since endeavored to safeguard the environment profitably by shrinking our environmental footprint and conserving biodiversity for more than 20 years.

Ricoh has broadened the focus to encompass an entire range of social issues. Since 2017, we have defined material issues that align our business strategies with SDGs in driving toward a sustainable economy. We are reinforcing our sustainability efforts based on the belief that we can contribute to global progress and corporate growth by resolving social issues.

Resolving social issues through business

Ricoh’s vision for a sustainable society is to balance the economy (Prosperity), society (People), and the environment (Planet). To that end, we prioritize creativity from work, community and social development, and zero-carbon society and circular economy. Below are some of our efforts to resolve such social issues.

Initiative 1
Eco-friendly color multifunctional printers (MFPs) that help materialize a zero-carbon society and circular economy

RICOH IM C6010, C5510, C4510, C3510, C3010, C2510, and C2010 series color MFPs that we launched in February 2023 help our customers to streamline operations and incorporate environmental technologies and manufacturing ideas to help create a sustainable economy.

The prime benefit of these MFPs is their advanced environmental performance, resulting from the combined strengths of the Ricoh Group. Their carbon footprint is 27% smaller than predecessor models. This benchmark quantifies environmental impacts across product life cycles, from raw material procurement, production, transportation, and usage and maintenance through disposal and recycling.

Around 50% of these MFPs are made from recycled plastics. We switched from Styrofoam to recycled paper for packaging materials. We additionally lowered the toner melting point by 12°C and slashed power consumption to half that of predecessor models.

Initiative 2
RICOH360 Projects, a digital service that helps enhance construction industry productivity

Japan’s construction industry faces severe labor shortages. Overtime caps that start in April 2024 make it an industrywide challenge to enhance productivity and work practices.

With RICOH360 Projects, companies can overcome those challenges by leveraging 360° image data. Businesses can reduce site visits and work hours by using it to conduct remote inspections, artificial intelligence-based process analysis, and annotate down suggestions and other information. This platform has greatly enhanced productivity for large construction firms and earned top marks for the user friendliness of the THETA camera and applications.

Initiative 3
New initiatives to expand the use of renewable energy that is vital for carbon neutrality

The use of renewable energy to prevent global warming has accelerated in recent years. Renewables have become essential to doing business. Ricoh developed a blockchain technology-enabled platform to track electricity generation and consumption in real time and help hasten renewables deployments across the economy. We teamed with NGK Insulators, Ltd., to conduct a range of proving tests. In 2023, we together established and started operations at NR-Power Lab Co., Ltd., an electric power business joint venture.

NR-Power Lab combines NGK’s control technologies for storage batteries, including its large-capacity NAS® batteries, with our renewable energy distribution record platform, which employs our digital technologies, to provide services to foster broad renewables uptakes that are essential to achieve carbon neutrality.

Embedding sustainability groupwide

All Ricoh Group operations address social issues through business by leveraging their strong commitments to sustainability. These activities underpin a sense of ownership for sustainability that permeates the entire Group.

A groupwide survey found that 92% of Ricoh Group employees in Japan and abroad pursue Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

That poll also revealed that 90% of employees concur that they get job satisfaction and pride from Ricoh Group initiatives to help realize SDGs.

A great groupwide awareness of and satisfaction with SDG efforts is attributable directly to our practical and very fruitful sustainability endeavors.

Helping create a sustainable economy in which people find fulfillment through work

Ricoh’s concept Driving Sustainability for Our Future, Materializing Sustainability through Business underscores our robust commitment to helping realize a sustainable economy by delivering new value that resolves social issues.

We will continue to connect resolving those issues through business to our own growth in striving to become one of the world’s leading ESG companies.

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Resolving social issues through business