Ricoh takes lead in sustainability stakes

Ricoh New Zealand has released its fifth full Sustainability Report, which contains a solid raft of innovations for lowering environmental impact and increasing sustainability.

The company has anticipated the shift from paper to digital, which has paid dividends with Ricoh announcing another year of solid profits. Mike Pollok, managing director for Ricoh New Zealand (pictured), says, “These days, our customers want to talk to us about their back-office functions and how much they can automate and digitise. We are ahead of this curve and have actively moved into business process improvement – enabling organisations to automate workflows, leading to increased productivity and flexibility to meet their own customers’ requirements.”

Key highlights from the 2013 Sustainability Report include:

• Product stewardship and a market for waste plastic – Ricoh New Zealand collected and recycled almost 70,000 used toner cartridges from customers, some of which were turned into stands for scooters that are now in use at schools around the country

• World-class innovation from within – Ricoh’s focus on internal innovation saw three staff members develop a propriety iPad app for updating firmware remotely, saving technicians’ time and, more importantly, ensuring maximum machine up-time for customers

• Quirky ways to save power – Ricoh New Zealand issued mobile staff with portable solar panels that allow them to charge their mobile devices with free solar energy while they are out on the road

• Growth in Ricoh IT Services – this division remains in a strong growth phase and was bolstered by the acquisition of three IT services companies in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, deepening Ricoh’s IT services offering across the country

• Recycling and re-use – Ricoh continued its focus on re-use and recycling with 1967 machines resold and 2326 recycled

The company has broadened its service offering and wants to communicate that to its clients. Pollok adds, “Despite the continued growth of our IT Services and Consulting divisions, Ricoh is continued to be perceived as being primarily about machines. Educating the market about the breadth of our services is critical because we are so much more than copiers.”

Ricoh New Zealand forms part of the Ricoh Group, which consistently ranks as one of the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations.

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