South African businesses are increasingly seeking to reduce their energy consumption and CO2 emissions, and to operate more sustainably. At Canon, we are seeing a growing number of customers concerned about power consumption and CO2 emissions when they consider their fleets. Locally, Canon South Africa is focused on helping customers align with their sustainability goals through a national waste management programme for e-waste and consumables.
In line with our corporate philosophy of Kyosei (living and working together for the common good) and our advanced environmental and social sustainability programmes, we are well positioned to help customers reduce their carbon footprints. We are ahead of the curve in terms of compliance with Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Regulations, and we keep upping the ante – driven by our global sustainability targets.
Canon is proud to have been globally recognised with an EcoVadis gold rating for six consecutive years, which places us in the top 3% of companies globally. This EcoVadis sustainability assessment gives customers and partners the assurance that they can trust the company’s sustainability credentials.
In fact, not only are our products and packaging designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible, our sales teams and channel partners are aiming to optimise the Canon offering to customers, where possible, to help them right-size their fleets and reduce their carbon footprint, while also becoming more efficient.
R&D supports environmental goals
Our ongoing R&D is making products lighter and more compact to reduce CO2 consumption in the supply chain; we are committed to using no harmful or hazardous substances in the manufacturing process and we are also focusing our energies on designing products for a circular economy. In their lifetime, our solutions are designed to reduce the amount of energy and chemicals used and waste generated. Increasingly, we are seeing customers expecting this level of sustainability from manufacturers.
Supporting the circular economy
To support the move to a circular economy, there are five Canon Group recycling sites around the world – in Japan, the US, Germany, France and China. As of the end of 2021, these facilities had collected a total of around 444 000 tons of toner cartridges and 2 600 tons of inkjet cartridges for post-use recycling. In addition, there are programmes in place in every region to responsibly re-use, recycle and dispose of waste. In South Africa, Canon is setting a good example for other local businesses with their responsible management of electronic waste. And at certain larger customer sites, Canon has even undertaken the personal collection and disposal of the waste, to ensure responsible disposal of Canon products and e-waste. While it can be challenging to include consumers in such programmes because they are dispersed across the country, Canon has partnered with organisations like PartServe, a Canon Warranty Centre that has a countrywide footprint to support this, as well as recyclers such as GreenAble, Remade and DESCO.
E-waste innovation
Once the e-waste has been brought back into our recycling programmes, we take innovative approaches to refurbish, recycle and re-use the components and materials in line with our no-waste-to-landfill policy. For example, used ink cartridges have been recycled and used to produce laptop stands and spent toner bottles used to produce plastic garden furniture.
Canon has been a sustainability pioneer for decades, with formalised programmes to work towards net-zero CO2 by 2050. We’re pleased to see that organisations across the world prioritise social and environmental sustainability as we have and will continue to do so.
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