Brother International (NZ) Limited has achieved licensing for 3 laser printers and 2 multifunctional office devices. The company’s environmental policy, practiced at Gracefield (Lower Hutt), Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch, places concern for the environment as “the cornerstone of all operations”. Their commitment is manifested as “Brother Earth”.
Not only have they gained the prestigious ISO14001 Environmental Management System certification, they also have a comprehensive hardware and consumables recycling programme. This programme not only seeks to recover and recycle Brother consumables and hardware from the corporate sector, but also from the mass consumer market. Brother recycling boxes are located at businesses and electronic retail stores nationwide also the company offers free recycling envelope to any Brother users who wish to recycle their used cartridges.
The Brother Group’s President Toshikazu “Terry” Koike told UN-Habitat Goodwill Ambassador Mari Christine last year, “We work proactively to protect the global environment in every aspect of our corporate activities in order to build a society where sustainable development can be achieved. We are committed to developing products of excellent environmental performance, and to curbing CO2 emissions from production activities by, for example, introducing photovoltaic power generation systems at our factories. We also work on waste reduction based on the concept of the “5Rs” – the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) plus “refuse” and “reform”.”
He explained that Refuse is to decline the purchase of environmentally burdensome materials whenever possible, and Reform motivates the company to reuse materials for different purposes in different forms. “We also invest resources into activities to make social contributions through environmental activities. For example, we count points every time an employee takes an environmentally conscious action. The collected points are used for afforestation activities, for example. We are also engaged in activities to meet the needs of local communities around the globe. For instance, we have donated sewing machines to a vocational school in China to support women in rural areas.”
The group has a goal of acquiring ISO Type 1 Ecolabels (in New Zealand that is Eco Choice) for all products launched from 1 April 2008.
