West Caldwell, N.J., July 15, 2009 – Ricoh Americas Corporation, a leading provider of digital office equipment and global leader in sustainability, is making significant environmental contributions on a global scale through its Total Green Office Solution, which helps businesses eliminate inefficiencies, reduce carbon footprint and adopt more sustainable business practices.
Recently launched, The Total Green Office Solution takes a holistic approach to document management, combining green consultative services, energy-saving imaging equipment and software solutions to help customers meet their sustainability goals such as saving energy, reducing waste and minimizing pollution. In addition, it ensures that Ricoh imaging equipment meets green procurement mandates and is designed to minimize environmental impact at every lifecycle stage.
IT departments are often at the heart of a company’s power drain, while small to mid-size businesses have identified utilities as the largest cost increase over the past two years, according to a recent survey from IBM. With an increasing number of businesses pledging to reduce carbon emissions and overall environmental footprint – as well as seeking methods to measure and manage these efforts – Ricoh’s Total Green Office Solution helps customers visualize the potential. It takes total workflow needs into account and customizes environmentally-friendly solutions to not only maximize productivity and save energy, but cut costs as well.
The Total Green Office Solution includes assessing customers’ workflow to identify ways to optimize fleet for maximum energy efficiency and incorporating hardware and software solutions that reduce paper waste. This can also include consolidating excess stand alone imaging equipment (copiers, printers, faxes, scanners) into fewer, energy efficient multifunctional-based product workgroups and implementing scan-to-distribute solutions to reduce the amount of hard-copy output.
“Long before ‘green was the new black,’ Ricoh invested time, money and other resources into examining our business operations and lessening our impact globally,” said Ron Potesky, senior vice president, Corporate Communications, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “We’re aggressively working toward offering Total Green Office Solutions to workgroups, businesses and non-profits of all sizes to collectively reduce waste, minimize energy use, maintain air quality, recycle the maximum amount of materials as possible – saving energy, and ultimately money as well.”
Highlights of the Total Green Office Solutions include:
Green Product Design and Manufacturing
Cradle-to-Cradle by design, Ricoh products are designed for maximum recyclability. Parts and plastics are standardized in order to recover the maximum amount of material when the product reaches end of life. These materials are put back into the general supply chain via the demanufacturing process. Ricoh products are also designed to restrict and prohibit the use of environmentally-sensitive substances that would have the potential of harming the environment at end-of-life, and maintain air quality in the office environment with low emissions of VOC, in compliance with standards set by green certification programs, such as Germany’s Blue Angel. Additionally, all of Ricoh’s products are manufactured in zero-waste-to-landfill facilities that are ISO 14001 certified for environmental management.
Energy Efficiency
All of Ricoh’s multifunction products (MFPs) and most printers and faxes are qualified for the newly launched ENERGY STAR version 1.1 label, which touts qualifying machines as 14 percent more energy efficient than the previous version. Ricoh machines have a quick warm-up time from low power mode, which makes power management features (that put machines into a sleep mode when not being used) virtually invisible to users. In fact, a fleet of 100 35ppm Ricoh machines can save approximately 11.2 tons of CO2 per year utilizing the Energy Savings Mode. In particular, Ricoh’s Quick Start-up Technology is a green feature in B/W MFPs that allows the machine to power up from a low power mode to full operation mode within 10-15 seconds.
Fleet Consolidation and Software Solutions
Ricoh advocates for fleet consolidation of older scanners, faxes, printers and copiers into fewer MFPs to reduce energy. As an example, six black & white laser printers consolidated into one Ricoh color MFP can cut energy consumption significantly and save hundreds of dollars on annual utility bills. Ricoh also provides customers with software solutions to minimize the environmental impact of paper as well as monitor output use and eliminate inefficiencies.
Toner Efficiency & Recycling
Ricoh’s PxP toner, a polymerized toner made from polyester resin, is designed to fuse at a temperature of 68 degrees F (20 degrees C) lower than that of its predecessor while achieving higher picture quality with fine and uniform particles. This lower fusing temperature means the copier/printer consumes less energy when in use. It also uses 35 percent less CO2 in the manufacturing process than conventional toners.
Ricoh’s B/W MFPs feature internal toner re-circulating mechanisms, extending the lifetime of a cartridge and minimizing toner going to waste.
End-of-Life Solutions
Ricoh offers a toner collection and recycling program, which keeps empty supplies out of landfills. Through its equipment demanufacturing program, 98 percent of Ricoh end-of-life equipment can be broken down and reconstituted into commodity streams of copper, steel and plastic, and returned to the supply chain with the remaining percentage being used as waste to energy. Since 2000, Ricoh has diverted over 30 million pounds of equipment from landfills as part of its end-of-life recycling programs.
Ricoh is committed to reducing its own CO2 emissions by 10 percent by the end of fiscal year 2010, and its overall environmental impact by 20 percent in 2010 and 25 percent in 2015. From an internal and external perspective, Ricoh is saving energy, reducing waste and minimizing the overall environmental impact on our world.
Additional accomplishments include:
ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (EMS) Certification
In 2009, five Ricoh sales, service and training facilities achieved ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems (EMS) Certification. ISO 14001 outlines the steps for an organization to develop its own EMS, with special focus placed on energy consumption, use of natural resources, paper handling and treatment of waste. Ricoh has achieved ISO 14001 certification at every manufacturing plant worldwide and is now in the process of certifying its non-manufacturing facilities. The Ricoh Americas Corporation headquarters building in West Caldwell, N.J., also meets the certification.
Zero Waste-to-Landfill
Ricoh is assertive in its efforts to maximize resource productivity while minimizing the production of waste. In 2001, Ricoh’s U.S. manufacturing facilities were the first in the country to achieve zero waste-to-landfill status.
For more information about Ricoh’s Total Green Office Solution, visit http://ricoh.com/environment/.
About Ricoh Americas Corporation
Ricoh Americas Corporation, headquartered in West Caldwell, N.J., is a subsidiary of Ricoh Company Ltd., the 73-year-old leading supplier of office automation equipment and electronics, with fiscal year 2008 sales in excess of $20 billion.
Ricoh Americas Corporation is a leading provider of document solutions. Ricoh’s fully integrated hardware and software products help businesses share information efficiently and effectively by enabling customers to control the input, management and output of documents.
Ricoh Americas Corporation directly or through its network of authorized dealers markets and distributes products in North, Central and South America.
Information about Ricoh's complete range of products and services can be accessed on the World Wide Web at www.ricoh-usa.com.
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CONTACT: Linda Montefusco Alyson Buck
Ricoh Americas Corporation Peppercom
(973) 882-2172 (212) 931-6122
linda.montefusco@ricoh-usa.com abuck@peppercom.com
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