We believe that the first step towards the effective control of complex situations lies in the application of “management based on facts”. We can only reliably solve environmental problems if we acquire reliable data on the environmental situation as well as quantitative measurements and analysis relating to it. We believe that waste prevention can contribute to protecting the environment and that it provides economic advantages. Accordingly, we are concerned with identifying and eliminating various types of waste - including raw materials, energy, activities, and time - thereby also enhancing our economic effectiveness.

Company

At Office Evolution Ltd we maintain an Environmental Policy which sets out our policy for dealing with the impact that our operations have on the environment.

• We aim to recycle all packaging that arrives in our warehouse, either by repurposing this for outbound deliveries or recycling through our local waste collection.
• We maintain our building to reduce our carbon footprint, this includes energy efficient lighting, insulation and monitoring of water consumption.
• We select company vehicles that are the most efficient in the range, using technology such as Bluetec and BlueMotion.
• We implement the latest technology to reduce our annual mileage and enable us to resolve issues using the internet.
• We encourage our customers to hold off on non-essential orders and order everything in one go to reduce deliveries, this reduces our carbon emissions from delivery vans.

Photocopiers

Konica Minolta (Develop) has been awarded ISO 14001 certification for its swift and efficient handling of environmental issues in each product life phase – from selection of the raw materials and components through to development, production, distribution, use, service, and disposal. Printing functions such as duplex and deletion of blank pages avoid unnecessary paper wastage and can be defaulted to automatically improve environmental impact from printing. Develop products have very low TEC (typical electricity consumption) values: The latest devices switch to energy-saving mode faster and consume considerably less power in sleep mode than previous products, helping to save running costs.

• Recyclable design of all system components
• Implementation of the “zero waste” principle at various production locations
• Evaluation and selection of suppliers and consumables manufacturers taking environmental considerations into account
• World-wide certification according to ISO 14001 and ISO 9000
• All Develop products are Energy Star rated and have been awarded the “Blue Angel” certification

As CO2 emissions are believed to play a key role in global warming, the reduction of these emissions represents a significant goal of world-wide environmental protection. In order to achieve this goal, Konica Minolta is reducing the energy consumption of its products. One example is the new induction heating technology for our fixer units in the latest colour product generation, ineo+. The use of polymerised toner reduces fusing temperatures, as polymerised toner grains are so fine, a smaller amount of toner is needed than with pulverised toner, thus using fewer natural resources. Additionally, Develop polymerised toner requires a lower fusing temperature. Both aspects contribute greatly to reducing the amount of energy used and the related CO2 emission. An important ingredient in Develop toner is biomass (a plant-based material), which is CO2-neutral during recycling.

In many companies, today’s watchword is cutting costs – and it applies just as much to larger-scale investments as it does to consumables, such as toner. Therefore, more and more manufacturers of cheaper alternatives or vendors of original merchandise at lower prices have entered the market. However, cheap does not necessarily mean good. Use of a lower-quality toner cannot just have a negative effect on print quality but also lead to irreparable damage to a printing system. A one-off cheaper purchase then becomes an expensive mistake. And that is why we encourage our customers to buy DEVELOP toners.

Paper Purchases

We have partnered with The Woodland Trust on the environmentally conscious Carbon Capture programme for all paper-based products. From the paper that we purchase, a separate charge is calculated which is given to The Woodland Trust to mitigate the CO2 emissions from production. This is done by planting trees in certified Woodland sites across the UK. 100% of the charge goes to the programme and this is paid by us so that we can keep your prices low. So far, we have managed to capture 27.74 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide and planted over 700 square meters of Native Woodland. We receive a quarterly certificate showing the latest figures, this can be provided on request.

Carbon Neutral Status

In December 2021 we were certified as Carbon Neutral, a huge effort by our team to assess, reduce and offset our own company emissions. This is done by equating our emissions to Carbon Credits, these are then used towards projects that help remove carbon from the atmosphere. We have maintained our Carbon Neutral status and in our second assessment of December 2022 we had reduced our emissions and were again certified Carbon Neutral.