Life Cycle Engineering at "FUJI XEROX"
-- A Closed Loop System for Zero Emission--
Hiroaki Koshibu
Director, Ecology & Safety Center, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd., Japan
It is the basis of our Environmental activities to recognize the fact that
"With resources that we receive from the Earth, we engage in commercial and
industrial activities to produce what we need but we also produce waste". Fuji Xerox
has been working extensively on reducing Environmental Impact through Life Cycle of our
Products by our Vision to "Achieve Zero Landfill through Development of the Closed
Loop System".
They are typically, "Green Technology/Product Development", "Waste Free
Factory " and "Product Recycle System by Parts Reuse".
-Green Technology/Product Development-
"Fuji Xerox Green Product Concept" issued in
March 1994 confirms that the "Quality Management" and the "Environment
Management" are to go closely tied together for a successful development of
Environmental Management System and that it is our ultimate goal of our Green Product to
preserve natural resources from the Earth for Sustainable Development, not to mention
Hazardous Waste Free. Based on it, Researchers did a LCA analysis on Copiers to identify
critical technologies to be researched for the Environment and Design Engineers specify
Environmental requirements into their product specifications. The "Recycle Design
Guidelines", such as "DFD" or Hazardous Materials Directions, was also
issued in Jan. 1995.
-Zero Emission at Production Sites-
Our supplies factory has been working for years on reducing its waste out
of their site to achieve the "Waste Free Factory" through 100% Recycling of
wastes, i.e. Zero Landfill/Zero Emission in March 1997. Our copier factory has its own
"Recycle Center" where they have several recycling equipment such as compactors
for cans, aiming at 98% recycling for 1998. All 4 of our production sites in Japan, which
are also all ISO14001 certified, plan to achieve "100% Recycling of Wastes" to
become "Waste Free Factories " by the year 2000.
-Reuse of Parts from Post-consumed Product-
It is our strategy to pursue desperately so called "Reuse of
Parts from Post-consumed Products" in order to economically justify our
recycling operations, which have much higher added value than raw materials, so that it is
practically easy to balance the "Ecology & Economy", essential for the
Industry for "Sustainable Development".
Those machines for parts reuse are sent back to the Factory, disassembled and cleaned,
from which parts that meet the very stringent Fuji Xerox Quality Standards are selected,
put into Assembly Lines, assembled and shipped with 100% Quality Guarantee.
Those which are not proper for parts reuse are sent to our venders to be thoroughly
disassembled, and categorized by materials for "Material Recycling".
Fuji Xerox as a corporate citizen and a citizen of this planet, tackles
environmental preservation issues, identifying environmental concerns as key issues in its
business activities. We are in the process of designing product recycling systems that
cover the entire life cycle of our products, from the research, development, production,
and marketing stages to recover after use and waste disposal, aiming at "100%
Recycling", thereby "Zero Emission/Zero Landfill".
