Canon supports 'green' procurement

Canon Australia announced a raft of 'green' solutions at last week's Australian Greening Procurement Forum in Melbourne, a forum created to discuss the procurement of environmentally friendly products and services.

 

With concern for the environment growing at all levels in Australian society, Canon has, for example, recently introduced the world's first IT product to comply with the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive - broadly considered the most stringent environmental directive in the world.

 

"At Canon, we believe that corporations have a clear responsibility to develop technologies that will halt the destruction of nature," said Mr David McCulloch, head of Canon Australia's Environment Committee and General Manager, Procurement and Facilities. "We are guided in this by Canon's corporate philosophy of kyosei, or living and working for the common good."

 

The industry's first IT product to comply with the European Union's RoHS Directive is a colour multifunction device for the office, the Canon imageRUNNER iR C6800. Other Canon products that are RoHS-compliant include digital cameras from Canon's popular IXUS range as well as the EOS-1D Mark II professional SLR camera.

 

Implemented by the European Union in 2003, the RoHS Directive requires the elimination of six hazardous chemical substances, including lead, hexavalent chromium, mercury and cadmium, from the manufacturing process of products by 2006.   Canon aims to have all its products RoHS-compliant by the end of 2004, 18 months earlier than the enforcement of the directive.

 

Canon has also made advances in the area of energy efficiency.  New products, from consumer cameras to enterprise network printing devices, are designed to use less energy than the models they replace. To illustrate the progress made, the new PIXMA iP4000 Bubble Jet printer uses 71% less power than the S600 Bubble Jet released four years ago.   

 

Canon's new products reflect a broader environmental strategy that aims to protect and conserve the environment as well as minimise the company's impact on the use of natural resources.

 

One of the boldest initiatives it has previously announced is "Factor 2", an environmental vision for 2010 that creates a benchmark indicator that emphasises halving Canon's environmental burden within 10 years.  Factor 2 requires that Canon increase by at least a factor of 2.0 the ratio of net sales to life cycle CO2 emissions, using 2000 as the reference year.

 

"Canon is being deliberately bold in its environmental policies. When we apply the kyosei philosophy to the environmental situation facing Australian businesses, we see that much needs to be done by companies across the spectrum to allow local businesses to be greener," said Mr McCulloch.

 

"We always strive to take the lead in developing practices and policies that improve the environment. As a whole, corporate Australia has a responsibility to engage in the preservation of the environment. The community at large does not have sufficient choice of 'green' solutions in the office environment, and we're delighted to be able to provide tangible commitment to this," Mr McCulloch said.