Ricoh Joins Eco-Patents Commons

Posted on 24. Mar, 2009 by Ross in Manufacturing

Ricoh, the international office products manufacturer, became the latest member of the Eco-Patents Commons yesterday.

The Eco-Patents Commons is a non-profit organisation with the aim of encouraging companies to make environmental-orientated patents which do not represent an essential business advantage royalty-free. By doing so the patents have the potential to become fertile ground for further innovation and collaboration, based on the open-source model so successful in software development. Launched in January 2008, the Commons project now includes 93 patents from IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Sony, Bosch, DuPont, Xerox, Taisei and Ricoh. The patent supplied by Ricoh revolves around a technology to reduce waste from printing cartridges.

Ricoh’s sharing of the patent is but a part of their wider commitment to the environment and sustainability. Through an extensive list of technological and manufacturing advances, from minimising production energy consumption and waste to plant-based toners, the company claims to have reduced the environmental impact of their products across their whole life cycle by 15% in just the last four years. For example: the installation of 7 Somar Integra intelligent energy-saving motor controllers to plastic injection moulding machines led to energy savings of 24%. Consequently, the project’s carbon footprint savings were equivalent to planting over 48,000 trees! The installation also made financial sense too: the Return on Investment period was less than two years, hence the company has also reaped the reward of defending their bottom line ever since.

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