Hosted by the UTS Corporate Sustainability Project
McKinsey & Company, and the Ecos Corporation
April 26 2001

This report was taken from the Environmental Manager Newsletter Issue 340. For enquiries regarding Environmental Manager please contact: Janelle Torr
Phone: 02 9977 7043
Email janelle.torr@thomson.com.au

Sydney facility gives Fuji Xerox plants around the world something to copy

The remanufacturing operations of Fuji Xerox work on the principle that remanufactured parts 'should be better than new, not cheaper and inferior', according to the company's Graham Cavanagh-Downs.

An impressive 70% of Fuji Xerox spare parts and consumables bought in Australia are now sourced from its Zetland (Syd) remanufacturing facility, and its 120 staff process 22,000 items a month. Instead of solvents, CO₂ is used for cleaning at the plant, with high pressure bicarbonate used to strip some items. All used toner goes to BHP's Port Kembla steelworks. The Zetland facility has done so well it is now the benchmark for Fuji Xerox recycling operations around the world. It also generates a significant amount of revenue.

'We made $25m out of it last year', Cavanagh-Downs said, speaking at a sustainability seminar organised by the UTS Corporate Sustainability Project, McKinsey & Company and Ecos Corporation.

14001 provides crucial framework. Fuji Xerox is 14001 accredited, and Cavanagh-Downs described 14001 as 'a very good way' to get started on the path to sustainability.

Do environmental credentials count with customers?

Definitely, says Cavanagh-Downs. Which is why 'our sales people are the most committed people in the whole organisation', he said. After Fuji Xerox Australia was elected to the UN Environment Programme's Global 500 honour roll, the company equipped its sales staff with brochures about the achievement. The company also distributes a quarterly environmental newsletter to its customers.

Mission accomplished?

A story told to the seminar by another speaker, Professor Dexter Dunphy, suggests Fuji Xerox has achieved its goal of being out in front‚ on sustainability issues. Dunphy told of a recent visit to the operations of a Fuji Xerox competitor. 'Do you recycle?', he asked the company representatives. Sheepishly they replied that they did overseas but not in Australia. When Dunphy asked why not, they replied that 'the government hasn't shown any interest'.

Many hurdles to better performance

Asked to nominate potential barriers to improving corporate environmental performance, Cavanagh-Downs nominated a depressingly long list of factors. Top of his list was 'the knowledge gap'. Companies are afraid of what we don't know and have no idea of what to do to improve, he said. Business is often also afraid of environment groups. Most companies are 'terrified' of Greenpeace, 'but we work very well with them', he said. Other barriers include not having sustainability as a business priority, or seeing the sustainability issues as a risk to profit. Even 'aware' companies face difficulties finding solutions to their problems, he said. 'There are pockets of knowledge around but it is very hard to get them together.'

From Exxon to BP and beyond: the corporate sustainability ladder

Professor Dexter Dunphy of Sydney's University of Technology set out to the seminar what he described as the pathway to corporate sustainability. At the bottom of the ladder are companies that reject or are engaged in 'active opposition' to sustainability issues. He nominated Exxon as a member of this category. The second level - non-responsiveness and indifference - contains the 'vast mass' of corporations in Australia, he said. However, Dunphy said there was 'a great flurry of activity' as many companies start to move to the next level. Companies operating at the next level are interested in compliance, risk reduction and avoiding problems and scrutiny by governments or environment groups.

The fourth level consists of those companies interested in efficiency, companies which aim to be better at what they do. The fifth level - described by Dunphy as 'strategic sustainability' - consists of those companies keen to make sustainability profitable. Dunphy nominated BP as operating at this level. Top of the ladder are those firms with an 'ideological commitment to sustainability that goes'.

Get ready for a green-influenced Labor government

Dunphy told the audience there was a possibility that the end of the year would deliver a Federal Labour government strongly influenced by the greens. 'We need to be ready to seize the opportunity,' he said.

RMIT takes the sustainability plunge

Former ACF and Plan International Australia head Tricia Caswell now heads up the Centre for Global Sustainability, which operates out of Melbourne's RMIT university. The first client is RMIT itself making RMIT a working model of sustainability, taking a lead among tertiary institutions and offering practical ways of helping companies and other organisations do the same.

'This is a big ask' for an organisation operating in around nine countries, Caswell acknowledged. 'After all, tertiary institutions have huge [ecological] footprints.' While there were risks in taking on this challenge, RMIT also knew there were risks if it didn't, such as failing to meet staff and student expectations. The centre aims to help RMIT get to the point where it can say 'everyone who graduates from here knows about global sustainability', Caswell said. Details can be provided by the Centre for Global Sustainability, phone: 03 9925 2775.