Kyocera Mita South Africa has an ongoing involvement with national greening and food gardening organisation Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA), with 2 500 trees already donated as part of this partnership.
Arbour Week (1 to 7 September) will see 675 trees distributed by the Honourable Mayor to schools and homes in Mogale City, where Kyocera Mita also planted during last year's Arbour Week celebrations.
The company's goal is to plant enough trees to become carbon neutral in its local operations - and this has already been achieved. Beyond that, Kyocera Mita has agreed to plant one tree for every printer or MFP sold, and customers have the option to sponsor an additional tree when they buy a machine.
This initiative has been running since April 2008 and has seen great success and solid support from Kyocera customers. Trees have been planted in Gauteng and also in developing communities in the Western Cape, through FTFAs National Tree Distribution and Trees for Homes programmes. The disadvantaged communities who benefit from these trees receive information and educational material for awareness on the need for trees and the many ways in which they benefit our lives, including offsetting carbon emissions, which contribute to global warming.
Green initiatives of this type are nothing unusual for Kyocera Mita South Africa, or the multinational parent company of Kyocera itself.
Since its inception, Kyocera has had a core commitment to good environmental practices in its business vision. As early as 1985 - well before green issues were "on the radar" for most companies - Kyocera had mapped out practical ways to reduce the environmental impacts of its own operations and the use of its products.
The company was one of the first to establish internal green audit processes and has aggressively and successfully invested in hi-tech green products like solar power systems.
Kyocera's printer and office equipment business is better known to the general public than the hi-tech side of the business. In this area as well, the company has tackled environmental issues, with an innovative and multifaceted approach. For many years, the company has been using recycled palettes made of paper, rather than wood, for its product shipments.
Kyocera Mita's toner system is based on cartridges that are not refilled (reducing transport and packaging pollution) and which can be almost 100% recycled into other plastic products.
Following on the company's core vision of low environmental impact, the technology in product designs is aimed at low power usage, minimal pollution and longevity of components. Even the manufacturing process of those components has been optimised to reduce power usage and pollution.
All the company's products meet the highest international standards for power consumption, elimination of hazardous substances and environmental impact - not least of which is the pollution impact within the actual workplace.
Kyocera Mita was one of the first equipment manufacturers to raise awareness of the pollution involved in paper production and recommend the use of paper produced without using harmful chemicals.
The company has shown and end-to-end and top-to-bottom commitment to all the facets of being an environmentally responsible organisation, ready to face the challenges of business in the 21st century and all Kyocera subsidiaries are ISO14001 certified.
Like many industries, however, there is always an environmental overhead - and this is why the commitments to being carbon-neutral and planting trees play a key role in making the company a successfully green operation.
The local involvement with Food & Trees for Africa is an excellent example of a green initiative that puts back into the environment, making a real contribution that improves and supports developing communities while balancing out the negative environmental impacts of modern business.
The Arbour Week event is taking place at Munsiebille Community Hall, Krugersdorp, Mogale City at 10h00 on 2 September 2008. Please contact Lucky Xaba on (011) 803 9750 or 083 7102544 to attend the event or for more information. For more information on Arbour Week see www.tree.co.za.
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