How to achieve a green office? Be a champion of the 5Rs
Although environmental sustainability affects us as consumers daily, have you considered the extent to which your organization is committed to practicing green operations and activities? Does your organization present itself as environmentally conscious and, if so, how can you improve it?
Julio Urrutia, Director of Consulting, Ricoh Latin America
Although environmental sustainability affects us as consumers daily, have you considered to what extent your organization is committed to practicing green operations and activities? Does your organization present itself as environmentally conscious and, if so, how can you improve it?
Making sustainability a goal (and delivering on it)
All organizations can, to varying degrees, easily practice sustainability activities. However, these actions can only have a real impact if care for the environment becomes a central objective among employees and customers. If these are only sporadic activities, there is a risk that the organization could be seen as just another company jumping on the 'green' bandwagon.
According to a report entitled 'What a Waste 2.0', the World Bank estimates that global waste generation will increase to 3.4 billion tonnes by 2050. It is estimated that only 13.5% of current waste is recycled and 5.5% is composted. That's not much, is it?
Most people are familiar with the three R's of recycling: reduce, reuse, and recycle, but did you know that there are 5 R's? As citizens, we are becoming increasingly aware of the waste that is generated around us and are continually looking for additional ways to minimize our environmental impact. Therefore, Refuse and Repair are the new R's, in this order: Refuse, Reduce, Repair, Reuse and Recycle.
Rejecting means being thoughtful when buying.
By reducing we mean creating an inventory of what an office can save on the purchase of materials made of plastic or non-degradable products.
Repair: There are a lot of objects in our office that are discarded because we have opted to buy something new before repairing the old; textiles, electronics, furniture, computer equipment, telephony...
Reuse is taking something that is no longer in use and modifying it to give it another more practical use.
Recycling
Only when the first four R's have been tried, it is time to practice the last R, "Recycle". As an organization, think about all processes and activities that have an environmental impact. Anything made from metal, wood, most plastics, paper and cardboard, and electronic waste has a recycling option.
For example, at Ricoh, our products are designed with the environment in mind. We have reduced the types of plastics and metals used in the manufacture of our equipment, making them more easily converted into base materials that are reused to make new parts. Some of our new multifunction printing devices (MFPs) are more resource-efficient in design than ever before, using alternative raw materials such as scrap steel for the mainframes of MFPs and plant-based bioplastics in some exterior parts of our office and production printing devices.
For more information, please visit: https://www.ricoh-americalatina.com/es
