How Green is your Printer Company?

Canon

Canon has a program called ‘Generation Green’ which began back in 2008; the main aim of this program is to ensure that as many of their products are as green as possible throughout their lifecycle. This includes all of their printers, copiers, scanner and the toner they use. Canon also wants to use the program as a way to educate companies and consumers about how to be more energy efficient.

Epson

Epson has been concerned with sustainability for almost 60 years now. Work began back in the 1950’s and continues to this day with work in four major areas: “Energy Savings and Efficiency”, “Preservation of Resources”, “Elimination of Harmful Substances” and “Recyclability”. To maintain and advances these four practices, Epson set forth each year to create increasingly more energy efficient products which are easy to recycle. Epson also practises what they preach by maintaining the same standards for themselves in their own offices and manufacturing facilities. They work hard to eliminate hazardous materials from their own wastewater and also hold their vendors and suppliers to the same level of accountability through their “Environmental Vision 2050” project.

HP

HP is one of the greenest companies in the world, independent of their industries; HP also has long standing concern for the environment. They also started way back in the 1950’s; HP began its efforts with their “Global Citizenship Objective”. HP ranked number 1 as the greenest company back in 2009 and as recently as March 2010, they were recognised by the “Cooperate Responsibility Magazine” as the top ranking company amongst their top “Cooperate Citizens” list. In addition to their own manufacturing practises HP has also created programs such as “Design for the Environment” and “HP planet partners”, as means to recycle as close as possible to the loop.

Lexmark

On of Lexmark’s top environmental concerns is reducing their own carbon footprint along with the help of their customers. Lexmark attests that if each customer will send back their empty ink cartridge, the carbon footprint can be reduced up to 60%. In support of this claim, Lexmark released a ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ that is reported to prove the number.

Lexmark also have their own cartridge collection program which is totally free to Lexmark customers. They take it a step further and provide a discount to people using Lexmark’s return program cartridges. In addition, Lexmark practices what they preach internally, allowing employees to do community service and get paid for it.

Xerox

Xerox, relies on consumer education for its green contribution. The initiative is called the “Xerox Green World Alliance” and it works to create public awareness of their low-melt toner, their energy star devices and their free recycling program as part of a partnership with UPS. Xerox is the only manufacturer of their ‘solid ink’ which resembles a thick giant crayon and requires no plastic casing. Xerox says that “Every day is Earth day”.