The 2003 World Environment Center (WEC) Gold Medal award for International Corporate Achievement in Sustainable Development goes to Ricoh Company, Ltd., a leading office equipment company.
Masamitsu Sakurai, president and COO, will accept the award on behalf of the company’s 74,000 employees around the world at a formal gala on May 15 at the National Building Museum in Washington DC. Only one company receives the Gold Medal each year; Ricoh is the first Asian company to be so honored. The award was established in 1985, and is awarded by an independent jury of international environmental experts to a corporation that demonstrates pre-eminent leadership in sustainable development and contributes to worldwide environmental quality.
The signature contribution on which the jury based its decision is Ricoh’s outstanding performance combined with world class energy efficiency technology, reduction of emissions, zero-waste to landfill in production, green suppliers pipeline, and a cutting edge environmental management system globally implemented.
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, the U.S. investment research company that correlates company performance with environmental initiatives, gives Ricoh the highest “eco-rating,” AAA. Oekom, a German corporate responsibility ratings agency also gives Ricoh the highest rating.
Among its activities, Ricoh:
* established a system to work with suppliers and recyclers to reduce the life cycle impact of its products;
* uses environmental conservation as a criteria in evaluating employee and division performance;
* developed a “quick start-up” technology, a cutting-edge energy-saving feature, for its products;
* promotes efforts to collect used copiers and market them
Mr. Sakurai commented: “Our environmental management has now reached the stage where profitability and sustainability have equal weight and are closely intertwined, something we impress upon the mind of every single employee. This enables us to give our customers added value through cutting edge technology as well as passing on our environmental knowledge.”
A list of jury members and past recipients are at: www.wec.org/wecgm.htm
Ricoh manufactures office equipment and camera products. The company employs 75,000 people with total sales of $15 billion. www.ricoh.com
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