Communication:Education/Awareness Building –Environmental Education/Awareness Building–

To realize sustainable environmental management with the full participation of all employees, clear instructions from top management and the active involvement of each division are essential. But also important is to give each of the employees opportunities to learn how to be proactive in pursuit of sustainable environmental management in their own operations. While sustainable environmental management is indeed a corporate act, it is also an act that can be realized only by the actions of individual employees. The outcome of sustainable environmental management activities of the Ricoh Group, therefore, greatly depends on the awareness and recognition of our 100,000 plus employees around the world. Through training and awareness-raising sessions, Ricoh employees learn to become good global citizens, good Ricoh Group employees, and specialists in sustainable environmental management, and proactively encourage as many people as possible to join them in pursuit of sustainable environmental management.

In fiscal 2006, an elementary e-learning course, “First Steps to Sustainable Environmental Management,” was conducted over the inhouse LAN for Ricoh employees. The curriculum covered “Companies’ Missions in Global Environment Problems,” “Activity Cases in Respective Divisions,” as well as other subjects, and aimed to enhance understanding and awareness towards sustainable environmental management. In fiscal 2007, the program was expanded to cover employees of other Group companies in Japan. In fiscal 2008, a digested version of the elementary environmental e-learning was published in compact disc form with English subtitles and distributed outside Japan. In addition, intermediate e-learning materials were developed to include information such as how to effectively incorporate environmental perspectives into daily business operations and how to evaluate the outcome of sustainable environmental management. The new e-learning material has been used to train the managers and those in charge of environmental promotion in each division. In fiscal 2009, these e-learning programs were continued outside Japan, with the same content localized to meet the specific conditions of each region or site.

To develop personnel who can manufacture environmentally friendly products or manage chemical substances properly at their workplaces as sustainable environmental management specialists, environmentrelated specialized training courses, such as LCA and recyclable design, are organized for employees. In May 2009, training programs were organized for 246 new employees assigned to technology departments to learn about the Group’s sustainable environmental management and environmental technology strategy, as well as environment-friendly design and the LCA method.

Environment-related specialized training courses

In efforts to expand the network for sustainable environmental management, our sales personnel, as the customer’s primary contact for business, should be able to provide our customers with accurate explanations on global environment issues and the Ricoh Group’s activities in sustainable environmental management. With this recognition, in September 2009 the Group launched environmental training programs designed specifically for sales personnel. Using presentation tools on the intranet, these programs provide training on themes ranging from the current status of the global environment and the ideal society pursued by the Group, to our efforts to reduce environmental impact and to conserve biodiversity. The training, currently focusing on sales managers, will be expanded to cover other levels of employees in the sales division.