After becoming the first local IT business to achieve carbon neutrality through Landcare Research’s carboNZero programme, Ricoh is encouraging others to follow suit. Managing director Mike Pollok says that while the world is going through some tough economic times, businesses all need to become more environmentally responsible or there will be serious consequences in the future.
Ricoh's carbon neutral certification took a number of months.
“Landcare Research hadn’t gone through the process with an IT company before. It was breaking new ground for them and they wanted to create a template whereby they could measure other companies in the industry.”
Landcare Research assessed everything from recycling plastics, empty print cartridges and energy costs.
Customers who use Ricoh printers and multi-function devices will also benefit, as Ricoh has chosen to offset the greenhouse gas emissions these products produce.
“That wasn’t mandatory, but we were looking to try and encourage people to take a responsible position in regard to the environment. If you’ve got something to offer people it’s more likely they will pick up on that and look at their own business and environment,” says Pollok.
“We debated that for a reasonable length of time because there is a cost factor in terms of offsetting the credits, but over the last five years Ricoh globally has been very focused on environmental responsibility.”
He adds that Ricoh now plans to encourage its suppliers to go carbon neutral.
“We’re looking at both those who supply Ricoh and our resellers [Cellnet, Morning Star] and spread the net a bit wider. We get asked when applying for tenders what Ricoh’s environmental position is and this may be one of a number of factors that people consider when choosing to do business with us.”