COP28 has revealed that much more needs to be done if we are to limit global warming to 1.5°C before the end of the decade. Notably, the first ‘global stocktake’ of the world’s efforts to address climate change under the Paris Agreement has shown that progress is too slow across all areas of climate action. Here, some of the sector’s leading vendors discuss strategies and initiatives designed to reduce the environmental impact of printers and MFPs
PrintIT Reseller: What targets have you set for net-zero, and what progress has been made to date?
Steve Pearce, Head of Marketing, Kyocera: We continue to make steps towards our global Kyocera corporate net-zero target of 2050. However, we decided as a UK operation to accelerate change and can proudly boast that we are carbon neutral since 2022, some 28 years ahead of this.
We have used offset. However, our carbon reduction plan shows a clear carbon mitigation strategy to organically reduce carbon emissions through ongoing green initiatives.
This is a marathon not a sprint, so we will continue a laser focus on the bigger corporation goals and continue to openly share the demonstrable strides we make along the journey
Ben Mills, Environment Manager, Konica Minolta: Konica Minolta is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and considers climate action as the most urgent area for action. The company is continuously working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions throughout the product life cycle.
We aim to achieve net-zero in Scope 1, 2 and 3 by 2050 in product development, procurement and manufacturing, sales and services, and product use. Our starting year for this calculation is 2005, when we set up our Eco Vision 2050 environmental policy.
Konica Minolta aims to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy because burning fuel to generate electricity produces significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we have been a member of RE100 since 2019 and are committed to using 100% renewable electricity by 2050, and 30% by 2030. In the UK, we have used renewable energy since 2018.
Where possible, the company is trying to shift transport across Europe from air and road to rail or water. 90% of its goods transport from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to its main warehouse centre in Emmerich, Germany, are carried out on the Rhine River with barges. 40% of transport from Emmerich to Italy is already done by rail.
Specifically for our customers, the energy consumption of Konica Minolta printing devices has continuously decreased over the last few years. The largest energy consumption, over 60%, occurs when the toner is fixed to the paper. With the polymerised Simitri V toner used in the bizhub i-series, the latest MFP generation, Konica Minolta has been able to reduce the fixing temperature by about 15°C compared to previous models. Combined with a new fixing device, this helps to significantly reduce the TEC value. The reduction in power consumption has resulted in the MFPs producing up to 25% less CO2 emissions in operation compared to previous models.
Richard Wells, Head of Office Print, Epson: Epson’s environmental vision is to become carbon negative and underground resource-free by 2050. To help ensure we’re headed on the right path, Epson also set mid-term target in alignment with the Science based Targets Initiative (SBTi) of reducing Scope 1&2 GHG emissions by 34% and Scope 3 emissions by 44% in 2025 compared with 2017, which we are well on track to achieving.
Stuart Miller, Director, Channel Partners, Canon UK&I: Canon is committed to being carbon net-zero by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. This involves consistent action across our entire business – from operations, manufacturing and transportation to product design and packaging. We have set short-term goals for 2030, which were approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative for transparency and verification.
Our target is to reduce our product lifecycle CO2 emissions per product by 3% year on year. If sustained, it will equate to roughly a 50% reduction in emissions from 2008 levels by 2030.
By focusing on four key things when it comes to reducing emissions at every stage of the product lifecycle, Canon is on track to meet this target. These include smart product design to remove waste and use of harmful materials responsibly; keeping products and materials in use for longer; making consumables 100% recyclable or reusable; and eliminating single-use plastic and polystyrene from packaging.
Will Armington, Energy and Climate Change Specialist, Xerox: Xerox has set a net-zero target for 2040 covering Scopes 1, 2, and 3 emissions. As of our most recent inventory in 2022, we have reduced our combined Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 35% from our baseline year in 2016.
Dave Higgott, Technical Director, PCL Direct: We are constantly looking at ways we can improve our processes to further reduce our impact on the environment. One of the aspects that we are looking at this year is how we can further improve the reliability of refurbished or remanufactured OEM components. We already go to great lengths to ensure the cartridges we
use are professionally cleaned before they enter our systems. Everything we receive for remanufacturing is batch checked and quality controlled and this enhances the reliability and life of the remanufactured products we produce.
By the very nature of remanufacturing, we are already preventing used OEM products from being wasted and are looking to increase the amount we can use in the process from the materials we receive. Nothing goes to landfill. If we cannot reuse, recycle or upcycle, we are able to pass the material onto brokers who can use it.
PrintIT Reseller: Does carbon offsetting do more harm than good? Are carbon reduction strategies a more effective means of achieving targets to reduce GHG emissions and what are you doing in this area?
Steve Pearce: As shared earlier, we do use offset and we do plant trees to reforest the paper used to print from our devices. We are proud of that. Would we have preferred for these projects to have started 20 years ago? Would we prefer all of our planted trees to be fully grown? Absolutely we would. But we must look forward, the trees will grow tall alongside the children of the families we actively invest in via our ESG focussed carbon offsetting work with MyClimate.
I think we are clear on this subject; it is better to be acting today for the good of the planet and those who inhabit it.
Carbon reduction strategies are absolutely the best way. If you never create carbon in the first place, you don’t have to offset or reduce it. However, we manufacture printing devices and your readership add value to them and sell them to print. Printers use paper which at some point was pulped from a felled tree. That’s the truth of it. Consciousness of your operation and its impact is of paramount importance to make change.
Let me share some good practice examples Kyocera has already implemented, which can be easily replicated by your readers. We switched our energy suppliers to 100% renewable, implemented a greener car scheme, created an enviable triage helpdesk to remotely fix devices and save commute burden, installed solar panels and proudly achieved a 15% reduction of our own paper usage.
We will continue to drive positive change and I can’t wait to share some of the plans we have in 2024 to move us one step closer to our goals.
Ben Mills: In recent years, the carbon offset business has been increasingly criticised for ‘buying off’ its own responsibility. Instead of setting up measures that focus on reducing or even completely avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, it was quite convenient for companies to carry on as before and simply pay for the emissions produced. It was also a way to advertise and give the impression of being a climate-friendly company. This was increasingly criticised under the suspicion of greenwashing.
Konica Minolta has cancelled offsetting completely from its European strategy and has set itself the following targets: avoiding and reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and substituting GHG emitting power sources with renewable energy.
Richard Wells: Carbon offsetting seems to have offered a great disguise for businesses desperate to claim carbon neutrality but unwilling to make long-term commitments to reduce emissions throughout their supply chain. The green claims initiative tackles the reliance of businesses on carbon offsetting, and we’re seeing an increasing familiarity from amongst our channel partners, end-users, and stakeholders in distinguishing between carbon offsetting and carbon reduction strategies.
Our 2025 mid-term targets fell under our renewed Vision 2025, where Epson set aside JP¥ 100 billion (around £530m) over a 10-year spending period to tackle decarbonisation, resource recycling, and environmental technologies. Epson is making significant developments in pursuit of these, including the transition to 100% renewable energy across its sites worldwide, construction plans for a new biomass power plant, a new UK distribution centre that optimises shipping routes from Asia, continued reductions in waste and energy across our product ranges, and much more. For more information, we welcome readers to check out our European Sustainability Report, which provides transparency on all our ESG goals and progress in meeting them.
Will Armington: GHG emission reduction initiatives are crucial to meeting the Paris 1.5C targets and should be the focus of any robust reduction program. At some point, however, there will be unavoidable residual emissions, and carbon offsetting is necessary to help achieve GHG reduction goals.
Both carbon removal and avoidance credits have a part to play in achieving net-zero emissions, and investing in these mechanisms is a better choice than taking no action. The primary consideration is to perform due diligence on the offsets being procured to ensure the projects will credibly remove or avoid emissions. Xerox is prioritising GHG reduction projects and initiatives before procuring offsets to support corporate targets. We have already reduced our emissions considerably and realise that we have much more progress to make.
Ian McIntyre, Sales Director, PCL Direct: I’m not sure if there is any way of measuring whether carbon offsetting does more harm than good as there are a few concerns about its authenticity. Are carbon offset projects viable for the long-term, would these measures happen without the specific investment anyway, and are businesses simply wanting to be ‘seen’ to be spending a lot of money on offsetting when, actually, it’s hard to prove it works?
Carbon reduction strategies may be more effective because the amount of CO2 emissions can physically be measured and, therefore, goals to reduce these may be more achievable in the long-term.
We are reducing our use of plastics in our packaging, and we recycle and upcycle parts and materials where we can. We don’t send any materials to landfill, and the toner cartridges we receive for use in remanufacturing process have been professionally cleaned, leaving no trace of toner power behind. In addition, the toner we refill the OEM cartridges with is of the highest quality, so it is not harmful to the environment.
