By Mark Davison at Ricoh’s Manufacturing Tour, Telford, UK – When it comes to the environment and being a green company, Ricoh says that it doesn’t just pay lip service and has put its money where its mouth is with ISO certification for its carbon calculator.
There are literally hundreds of carbon calculators available, but Ricoh became the first printer manufacturer to officially certify theirs when they gained ISO16759 certification in September this year.
“We were the first in our market to achieve this certification,” says Craig Lewis, corporate printing business development manager at Ricoh Europe. “And, as far as I know, we are still the only manufacturers who have done so.”
Lewis says that the company has made it as simple as possible for customers to join their environmental programme and secure carbon credits which are more and more becoming a prerequisite to doing business in markets such as the public sector.
“All customers have to do is go online and commit to join the programme which will enable a carbon calculation per print job,” explains Lewis. “Our certified carbon calculator can be used by them for their clients and can also be used to calculate other savings such as those from using recycled paper, for example.
“The calculator also generates a PDF certificate report which can be sent out with every print job,” he says.
Lewis says that the company has a strong policy of encouraging its customers to adopt environmentally-friendly measures wherever they can and that services such as the carbon calculator can be particularly beneficial for customers looking to target local or central government – and even some large corporates nowadays.
“Government, in particular, is getting more and more rigorous when it comes to the environment, carbon emissions, carbon taxes and so forth, and in many instances won’t work with companies that can’t show their environmental credentials,” Lewis says. “Our carbon calculator is a simple and effective tool which enables our customers to take a step in the right direction.”