Page 22 - PIR_winter11_Flip

22 Print.IT Reseller 0870 903 9500
carbon neutral printing
2011 Ricoh Women’s British Open held
at Carnoustie Golf Links and last month’s
Barclays ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Positive thinking
An interesting footnote to the question of
carbon offsetting is Sharp’s Eco Positive
strategy, with which Sharp seeks to make
capital out of the fact that it has been
manufacturing solar panels for 50 years.
As Sharp points out: “In 2009, Sharp
energy-creating and energy-saving
products contributed to emissions
reductions of 2.41 million tonnes of CO2 –
1.6 times the CO 2 emissions from Sharp’s
business activities.”
This is purely an in-house calculation
and has little validity if carbon reductions
from solar panels are counted in
customers’ own carbon calculations, but
for Sharp resellers it is an interesting
statistic to bring up if quizzed about the
eco credentials of Sharp and its MFPs and
one that may appeal to customers who
have problems with the concept of carbon
offsets.
Kyocera Mita’s survey suggests that
such people are in a minority and that
businesses remain open to their appeal,
potentially giving resellers with qualifying
products a competitive edge.
used in printing, but not the whole printing
process because it’s so complex: there’s
CO 2 in paper, shipping consumables,
collecting consumables. Instead, we
attempt to encourage users to do more
responsible printing – do they have the
right product, are they using duplex, are
they thinking before they print.”
Document processes
A more complex offering because it is
based on the carbon footprint of individual
customers’ print and document processes
is Ricoh’s Sustainability Optimisation
Programme.
Introduced two years ago as part of
Ricoh’s Managed Document Services, the
Sustainability Optimisation Programme
helps organisations measure, reduce and
offset print-related carbon emissions by
purchasing carbon credits from clean
energy projects in which Ricoh has
invested.
As well as implementing the
programme at customer sites, Ricoh has
been using it to provide carbon neutral
printing at sponsored events like July’s
Toshiba’s new eight-strong PRO MFP series
combines high quality colour output, speeds
of up to 75ppm, EFI controllers, genuine
Adobe PostScript 3 and Carbon Zero printing
Océ started carbon offsetting its VarioPrint
6000 series in October 2007
...continued
no doubt that the CarbonPositivePlus+
scheme has given Océ an edge.
“Carbon offsetting is a ’nice-to-
have’. Unlike an ISO 14001 EMS, which
has become the norm for business, it is
over and above what consumers require
an organisation to do. Over the last 12
months such activities have generated
more interest and I have no doubt it is an
infuential factor in the decision-making
process.”
Carbon zero manufacturing
A less comprehensive offering is available
from Oki, which offsets carbon emissions
at the company’s printer manufacturing
facilities at the Fukushima Plant, OKI Data
Manufacturing (Thailand) and OKI Electric
Industry (Shenzhen) in China. Printers and
consumables made at these facilities carry
a ‘Manufactured at a Carbon Zero Facility’
sticker.
In the frst half of 2011, Oki Data offset
all 5,477 tons of CO2 emitted by these
factories by buying offsets in wind power
in India, a rice husk-fred power plant in
Thailand and a biomass project in Brazil.
According to senior product marketing
manager Alan McLeish, Oki currently has
no plans to extend the scheme to cover
emissions during printer use.
“The manufacturing plants have
budgets to reduce CO2 emissions
according to Kyoto and over the next
fve years they will go down. What we
don’t reduce, we offset, so in a sense
our products are CO2 neutral from a
manufacturing point of view. We think that
is something customers in local and central
Government appreciate. But we don’t offer
whole carbon neutral printing.”
He added: “We have had discussions
with CO2 balance to offset the energy
Oki printers are manufactured
at Carbon Zero facilities