Canon reduces emissions by 23% with help from Carbon Planet
IT news service IT Brief is reporting that “Canon leads by example with green initiative“, having reduced its emissions in New Zealand by a massive 23% in the last year.
The result comes mostly from reductions in staff travel, utilities and third-party services. Of particular note, Canon reduced its air travel by 35% between 2007 and 2008, lowering the associated greenhouse gas emissions by 602 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.
“We are encouraging our staff and customers to utilise the company’s video conferencing capabilities wherever practical,” said Mike Johnston, Country Manager, Canon New Zealand. “After all, we sell managed video conferencing services so it makes sense both commercially and in terms of social responsibility to utilise this as much as we can.”
The company has also upgraded its entire road-vehicle fleet to higher-efficiency, lower-emitting vehicles in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint. “Reducing emissions means a shift in attitude from everyone at Canon,” said Johnston. “We are encouraging everyone to make environmentally conscious decisions in all aspects of their work, from more judicious print management decisions to turning off equipment when it is not in use. Small behavioural changes make a big difference. We reduced our electricity use by 2.1% from 2007 – 2008 simply by making people aware of their behaviour.”
Carbon Planet has been working with Canon NZ for a couple of years now, providing the GHG Assessment services they need to track their emissions, and the recommendations of the most cost-effective changes they can make to act on those assessments. Their hard work is paying off and that’s awesome to see.
A PDF of the GHG report summary is available for download from Canon’s site. — DS