CSR at Ricoh Austria

Ricoh is a global technology enterprise, which is specialized in office communication, production print, document management and IT services. The Ricoh group with their headquarters in Tokyo have been considering the effects of their activities on the world since the foundation of their enterprise. Therefore, the principle of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an integral part of their values, and characterizes their activities. Ricoh strive to achieve the highest worldwide standards as global citizens, internally as well as externally with their partners and suppliers. Due to this fact, Ricoh Austria has entered sustainable cooperation with occupational projects and social enterprises within the framework of the EU project of “Social Production”. This process-oriented cooperation shall be further deepened in the future. It is the aim to find spheres of activity, where social institutions may perform suitable services for Ricoh. In this context, also the possibilities and needs of the respective social enterprises shall be considered, in order to further and support the male and female workers in these institutions, their training and competence. In a pilot project together with the Socius association, currently it is being elaborated, to which extent services and work processes in the field of “greenline” can be assigned to social institutions. In the process of greenline, used devices are completely renewed and processed by Ricoh, and not only recycled, but resources are returned for proper recycling, and thus the environment is conserved. In particular, in this project it is a matter of cleaning work of greenline machines by male and female employees of the Socius social enterprise. Ricoh are completely confident in their partner of cooperation, because they already have experience and great competence in this field. In a further project, Ricoh provides two functional greenline devices in a social used device network in the initial phase. In the future, such devices might be processed again by social enterprises, and given to social enterprises as “3^rd life devices”. In case of positive feedback from the market, Ricoh intends to carry on this project as well and to expand it, and thus to support social institutions.