Konica Minolta’s Environmental Activities
Cooperation with Domestic Companies to Solve Environmental Issues
(Environmental Digital Platform)
Background and Issues
With growing public demands to address environmental problems such as climate change and resource depletion, corporations are expected to carry out environmental activities that not only minimize risks but also promote business growth. To do this, companies need to reach beyond their own organizations and share value with customers, local communities, and other stakeholders. By promoting activities together, companies and their stakeholders can raise their level of contribution to global environment preservation throughout the value chain.
Vision
Global environmental problems are pressing challenges facing the whole world and cannot be solved by the isolated efforts of individual companies. Recognizing this, Konica Minolta has already opened up its reservoir of expertise in environmental management for business growth and cost reduction, has been sharing it with many other companies through digitization of our expertise.
Konica Minolta is in the process of digitally sharing its environmental expertise with a base of more than 1,000 companies that it has built through its sustainable marketing activities. By allowing these companies to share their environmental knowledge with each other and by providing a place to collaborate and create new value, Konica Minolta believes it can dramatically increase its contribution to environment. Konica Minolta launches the Environmental Digital Platform, aiming to help reduce the environmental impact of industry and society as a whole. The platform will enable companies to share and utilize their outstanding environmental technologies and expertise that Japanese companies have amassed.
Pilot run Trial operation of the Environmental Digital Platform began in June 2020 with 16 companies participating. The platform was expanded to full-scale operations in December 2020, with 68 companies participating as of April 2022. Konica Minolta aims to drive innovation with a co-creation approach in which companies share and utilize the knowledge and expertise they have acquired through practice and efficiently resolve environmental issues in mutual cooperation. The expertise on environmental strategies and renewable energy held by the participating companies, consulting and software for energy conservation diagnosis, and solutions that can be put into use immediately such as environmental products, are shared. Konica Minolta also helps match companies who can help each other solve their respective issues. Konica Minolta hopes that the broad use of this service by companies other than the participating companies can help solve environmental issues on an even bigger scale.
Key Measures and KPIs
Target: Create new contributions to CO2 reductions by fiscal 2022
Overview of the Activities
The Environmental Digital Platform, which not only shares expertise but offers its results to a broad section of society, consists of the Environmental Solution Co-Creation Service, which brings together the knowledge of participating companies on issues that are difficult for a single company to solve on its own so that new solutions can be created, and the Environmental Solution Provision Service, in which participating companies share and utilize the environmental expertise they put into practice. The information that is shared is then made visible with the Environmental Management Navigation MAP (Guideposts for Solutions). Wide use of the Environmental Management Navigation makes it possible for companies to solve their own environmental issues. Konica Minolta has also launched talk room and troubleshooting support where users can seek advice and have their concerns addressed, thereby actively facilitating communication among the participating companies. Going forward, Konica Minolta will help to resolve environmental issues on a global scale by promoting digitalization, increasing the number of participating companies, building up data, and expanding the Platform as a DX business.
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Environmental Digital Platform
Activities
Example of Environmental Digital Platform Content
biz-Library : Environmental management Support Solution
Konica Minolta believes that digitizing and sharing the environmental management expertise it has accumulated with even more companies will dramatically increase its contribution to the environment. It has provided an online content service, biz-Library (environmental management), since fiscal 2016. This service provides videos and documents featuring practical case studies from Konica Minolta. The content targets seven challenges faced by many companies: (1) formulating environmental strategy, (2) responding to revised environmental ISO standards, (3) energy saving and cost reduction in factories, (4) management of chemical substances, (5) efficient use of resources and cost reductions in factories, (6) methods of calculating Scope3 CO2 emissions, and (7) waste management by companies. Customers can use the manuals and tools actually implemented in Konica Minolta, allowing them to promote effective and efficient environmental impact reduction activities in their companies.
Efficient use of resources and cost reductions in factories
Methods of calculating Scope 3 CO2 emissions
Waste management by companies
Voice of a Customer | Fujitsu General Limited
The Fujitsu General Group seeks to achieve virtually zero CO2 emissions from its business activities by 2025. In April 2022, the Group plans to convert 100% of its electricity consumption to renewable energy, while also converting all other energy sources to non-fossil fuels, to achieve carbon neutrality.
The Fujitsu General Group has participated in the Environmental Digital Platform provided by Konica Minolta since December 2020, enjoying in-depth discussions with various companies across industries. By reviewing case studies shared by leading companies, we were able to adopt the optimal solution for introducing renewable energy at our factories outside Japan, which had been an urgent task. Furthermore, the joint purchase of renewable energy certificates is allowing us to lower costs and efficiently solve problems through co-creation and collaboration, in a way that is only possible through this kind of platform. The Environmental Digital Platform allows us to identify problems that need to be addressed next by increasing the number of people on teams and facilitating sharing of their wisdom. This further improves our problem-solving efficiency and increases the value of co-creation.
We hope that this initiative will accelerate our efforts to achieve carbon neutrality not only at Fujitsu General but also for Japanese industry as a whole.
Toshiya Ihara
Sustainability Promotion Division
Environmental Management Department
Fujitsu General Limited
