Pollution
Cutting air pollution in the office and in the outside world
Air pollution affects both the external environment and the internal working environment. We're committed to avoiding and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to help improve air quality, reduce pollution and create more sustainable workplaces.
We aim to cut pollution and reduce particle emissions as far as possible during:
- Printing device operation, by installing filter devices to reduce particle emissions
- Transportation, by favouring logistics and transport that have a lower environmental impact
We're striving to reduce particle emissions
Indoor air quality (IAQ) is an important factor linked to better health and wellbeing. There's growing awareness of:
- The environmental risks arising from chemicals, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by construction materials, cleaning products and office equipment
- The health impacts of fine particulates, which can present challenges to people with allergies or other health conditions that increase sensitivity to dust and particulates
As part of our commitment to improving our customers’ individual work environments, Konica Minolta has developed effective solutions to help our customers optimise IAQ and create a workplace that's better for everyone's health, comfort and productivity.
Although laser printers may be only one of many sources of odours and emissions in the office environment, we aim to minimise their impact. We've developed dedicated, high-performance filter devices (or air cleaning units) for our office systems that simultaneously:
- Ensure high particle emission reduction
- Optimise airflow so that devices work efficiently and reliably
Our air cleaning units last the device lifetime and never need replacing. There are three options:
- Standard air cleaning unit, fitted as standard to the latest Konica Minolta devices, reducing emissions by at least 90%
- Optional air cleaning unit, attached to the outside of an office device, reducing emissions by 82%–97%
- External filter devices (if an air cleaning unit can't be attached to a device), reducing emissions by up to 98%
Find out more about Indoor air quality and our air cleaning units.
Blue Angel validation and ecolabel
Our office systems carry the Blue Angel ecolabel, a voluntary certificate that confirms a product meets additional environmental criteria relating to energy efficiency and low emissions, as defined by the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt).
Indoor Air Quality
The air we breathe is closely linked to our health and wellbeing – and the air at our place of work is likely to affect our comfort and productivity. Konica Minolta is committed to improving people’s working environments in whichever way possible, for instance by offering sustainable and effective solutions that help our customers improve the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) of their working space by reducing emissions.
We're cutting pollution in logistics and transport
In our efforts to cut pollution from logistics and transport, we favour shorter distances and transport options that help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Where possible, we're trying to shift transport across Europe from air and road to rail and water. Already:
- 90% of our goods transported from Rotterdam, Netherlands, to our main warehouse/distribution centre in Emmerich, Germany, travel by barge along the Rhine
- 40% of transport from Emmerich to Italy is by rail
Consolidating European distribution at Emmerich allows us to optimise our logistics facilities and ensure efficient distribution from the factory to the customers. We're also reducing the number of containers we use through improved loading.
Find out more about our Environmental approach
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Find out more about our ESG services:
Our ESG blog articles
Digital Accessibility: A Key to Inclusion and Equal Opportunity in the Workplace
Where is the best place to work: in the office or at home and how to reach a compromise between employee and employer wishes?
The EU CSDDD: Responsibility along the supply chain
CSRD reporting for SMEs – in just a few steps with AI
Six ways to reduce the environmental impact of your print infrastructure
