Environmentally Conscious Management
Communications
Internal Environmental Communication
Environmental Awards and Environmental Exhibition
Canon holds an internal environmental awards ceremony and related exhibition to increase staff awareness and promote successful initiatives in the environmental field. This approach enables management to identify outstanding examples of good environmental practice and promote their company-wide implementation, while also serving as a valuable opportunity to raise environmental awareness among employees. The best examples are exhibited online using the Group intranet, to which many Group employees have access. This has helped accelerate the implementation of good practices across the entire organization. In 2023, one project was selected for the Grand Prize, with three entrants getting a Merit Award and another three a selection committee commendation. In addition, staff events and other activities held in Environment Month in June to help raise in-house sustainability awareness included a photography contest on the theme of sustainability and a workshop to create accessories using discarded lenses. The staff canteen also undertook several steps, including an initiative to cut food waste and offering low-CO2 emission menus featuring meat alternatives, while outside experts were featured on in-house channel programs.
External Environmental Communication
Alongside the publication of this report, we use a range of media and platforms to keep stakeholders informed about Canon’s environmental activities. These include a dedicated environmental website, quarterly presentations and investor dialogues, and various events. We are striving to undertake more and better activities based on suggestions and opinions received from stakeholders. Canon also promotes environmental education and awareness activities for the benefit of people in regional communities, providing environmental outreach classes for elementary school students and environmental programs run in cooperation with regional organizations. Canon began holding environmental outreach classes on toner cartridges in 2011. Extended to Canon Bretagne in 2022, this program has provided more than 270 classes to over 13,000 participants.
Initiatives at Canon Eco Technology Park
The Canon Eco Technology Park, which opened in February 2018, is not only a cutting-edge recycling plant but also serves as a focal point of the environmental activities of the Canon Group. The facility offers tours of Canon’s automated toner and ink cartridge recycling systems as well as a showroom introducing Canon’s wide variety of environmental activities, such as the Canon Bird Branch Project, through information panels, videos, and hands-on content. In 2022, the park reopened fully to the general public for tours and environmental classes. In 2023, we installed remotely controlled cameras inside the factory to make the tour easier to understand and help make the viewing experience more realistic. In addition, the online tour that we began offering during the COVID pandemic was also conducted for a Japanese school located overseas for the first time.
Online Environmental Education
We are using online media to enhance the environmental education curriculum offered by the Canon Eco Technology Park. Based on the environmental education we have previously offered in face-to-face settings, we are now presenting online demonstrations of the waste sorting methods practiced at the facility. This interactive communication-style program enables children to enjoy learning and thinking about the importance of resource recycling as well as the SDGs and other environmental issues. In 2023, the program was offered to three elementary schools in s in Japan and overseas, giving 134 children the opportunity to learn about Canon initiatives and the importance of resource recycling.
Introducing Canon Resource Recycling on National Radio
Canon España appeared on a national Spanish radio program to explain Canon’s commitment and policy in the circular economy sector. Specifically, the Sustainability Manager explained the concept of remanufacturing and how the EQ80 imageRUNNER ADVANCE series of remanufacturing machines contributes to the SDGs by saving raw materials and reducing CO2 emissions compared to new products. The radio program covered economic and environmental news and was broadcast in primetime, so the audience was extremely large.
Awareness-raising in Partnership with Local Communities
Working jointly with the cafeteria that serves the office building where its Beijing headquarters is located, Canon (China) organized an event designed to promote interest in global warming prevention by offering dishes made with meat substitutes, whose production generates lower levels of CO2 emissions than meat from livestock. A panel display in the cafeteria compared the CO2 emissions of 18 dishes made using meat substitutes with those of the livestock meat production process, encouraging diners to learn about global warming prevention while enjoying tasty meals. The participants, many of whom did not know that the meat production process generates large amounts of CO2, were heard to comment that the event had been a valuable learning experience. The cafeteria is used by employees and customers from outside Canon too, who were also able to benefit from the opportunity to think about global warming prevention.
