Ricoh Gearing Up to Support Biodiversity Conservation

Ricoh Co., a major Japanese manufacturer of electronic products and office equipment, established the "Biodiversity Conservation Policies - Ricoh Group" on March 31, 2009.

The policies are based on the corporation's belief that, while businesses fully enjoy the benefits of biodiversity, their impact is undeniable, and thus part of its mission is to conserve and restore biological diversity while minimizing impacts.

The policy shows Ricoh's concrete measures for biological diversity, and the company aims to continuously work on them.

The policies are set out under eight headings. The first four sections deal with business challenges, evaluation of impacts and mitigation, implementation, and technological development. Each section outlines specific actions to take, including (1) evaluating, understanding, and analyzing the impacts of business activities on biodiversity such as raw material procurement, along with mitigation measures with numerical targets; (2) technological innovation that takes advantage of ecosystem functions and the ecology of life forms.

The remaining four sections focus on collaboration with local communities, social responsibility programs with the participation of all employees, expansion of cooperation, and communication strategies. These sections highlight Ricoh's efforts to create employees' voluntary initiatives encouraged by the management leadership and company-wide educational programs and to increase social awareness of biodiversity conservation, through further cooperation with various stakeholders to share information, knowledge and experiences.

In May 2008 Ricoh signed the Leadership Declaration for the Business and Biodiversity Initiative, which was led by the German government.

Japanese Companies Sign Business and Biodiversity Initiative at COP9 (Related JFS article)
http://www.japanfs.org/en/pages/027164.html
Ricoh Co. official website
http://www.ricoh.com/

Posted: 2009/08/06 06:00:15 AM