One way to dismiss sustainability and any smidgen of corporate social responsibility is to shout the antiquated argument that we only have a choice between the economy and the environment. Xerox has shown that is not the case. Last year the company announced it was working on carbon neutrality; to that end, in the push to make the company more “green,” Xerox is encouraging its employees to share ideas on how the organization can become more efficient while saving resources. Green can be lean, and the environment can lend itself to economy, to tweak the word a tad.
The results from employees’ rethinking: Xerox has saved US$10.2 million this year while it eliminated 2.6 million pounds of waste. Employees at facilities around the world were engaged in a corporate wide “Earth Awards” program that challenged them to leverage innovation as a means to saving the company resources. Some may sniff that $10 million is small potatoes for a $15 billion dollar company, but a cursory look through Xerox’s financials reveals that net income after tax was $475 million last year. Hence the documents systems and services icon has taken an impressive step.
Xerox’s company-wide
competition narrowed down to 30 nominations, and from there, 13 winners were announced.
Winners, scattered across North America and Europe, included:
In Wilsonville, OR, a research team designed the smallest package possible for one of its colored ink lines. The internal packaging, reduced in content, is now made from 100% post-consumer recycled material, and the box in which the ink is contained is of 43% recycled material.
Water savings resulted as well. For example, a team in its Webster, NY toner plant created a more efficient process for handling wastewater. In addition to a savings of $80,000 annually, 60% less wastewater went offsite for disposal; the plant’s waste generation was halved; and the amount of water required for mixing raw toner materials was slashed by one-third.
Another crew in Ireland developed a process to revamp the rate at which ink from toners was imprinted on papers. By stretching out the rate for each part, the DPI kit, the number of new kits needed was reduced. The net result was 70,000 less pounds of waste sent to landfills while saving the division $132,000.
The largest savings were at a facility in Grovepoint, Ohio, where a group of employees made huge strides in waste reduction. A process for efficient return of wooden pallets, recycling programs for cardboard boxes, and streamlined use and reuse of packaging materials from paper to polystyrene all netted a savings of $738,000 a year.
When individuals and companies take steps to save energy, reduce waste, and conserve water, all those efforts, no matter how small, add up. Xerox may meet its carbon neutrality
goals fairly quickly at the rate at which its employees have progressed.
Syndicated on
Guardian Sustainable Business November 15, 2011.
About The Author
Leon Kaye
Leon Kaye is the founder and editor of GreenGoPost.com and its advisory division,
GGP Media.
Contact him to discuss how he can work with your organization or event.
His focus is making the business case for sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
He writes for San Francisco-based
Triple Pundit,
Inhabitat and now
The Guardian, for which he writes about corporate responsibility, water, and green building. He has also written for AIA's
Architect Magazine.
Leon works out of Fresno and Silicon Valley, California, and when he has free time, he enjoys hiking, gardening, cooking, weightlifting, and planning his next trip to one of the 60 countries he has visited. He has an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business and is also a proud graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and Cal State-Fresno.
One way to dismiss sustainability and any smidgen of corporate social responsibility is to shout the antiquated argument that we only have a choice between the economy and the environment. Xerox has shown that is not the case. Last year the company announced it was working on carbon neutrality; to that end, in the push to make the company more “green,” Xerox is encouraging its employees to share ideas on how the organization can become more efficient while saving resources. Green can be lean, and the environment can lend itself to economy, to tweak the word a tad.
The results from employees’ rethinking: Xerox has saved US$10.2 million this year while it eliminated 2.6 million pounds of waste. Employees at facilities around the world were engaged in a corporate wide “Earth Awards” program that challenged them to leverage innovation as a means to saving the company resources. Some may sniff that $10 million is small potatoes for a $15 billion dollar company, but a cursory look through Xerox’s financials reveals that net income after tax was $475 million last year. Hence the documents systems and services icon has taken an impressive step.
Xerox’s company-wide competition narrowed down to 30 nominations, and from there, 13 winners were announced. Winners, scattered across North America and Europe, included:
In Wilsonville, OR, a research team designed the smallest package possible for one of its colored ink lines. The internal packaging, reduced in content, is now made from 100% post-consumer recycled material, and the box in which the ink is contained is of 43% recycled material.
Water savings resulted as well. For example, a team in its Webster, NY toner plant created a more efficient process for handling wastewater. In addition to a savings of $80,000 annually, 60% less wastewater went offsite for disposal; the plant’s waste generation was halved; and the amount of water required for mixing raw toner materials was slashed by one-third.
Another crew in Ireland developed a process to revamp the rate at which ink from toners was imprinted on papers. By stretching out the rate for each part, the DPI kit, the number of new kits needed was reduced. The net result was 70,000 less pounds of waste sent to landfills while saving the division $132,000.
The largest savings were at a facility in Grovepoint, Ohio, where a group of employees made huge strides in waste reduction. A process for efficient return of wooden pallets, recycling programs for cardboard boxes, and streamlined use and reuse of packaging materials from paper to polystyrene all netted a savings of $738,000 a year.
When individuals and companies take steps to save energy, reduce waste, and conserve water, all those efforts, no matter how small, add up. Xerox may meet its carbon neutrality goals fairly quickly at the rate at which its employees have progressed.
Syndicated on Guardian Sustainable Business November 15, 2011.
