Promotion of Energy and Resources Conservation Activities at Offices and Establishments

Tohoku EPCo's offices and establishments are actively making environment-friendly efforts to promote the reduction in copy paper usage and selective collection of waste paper, aiming at promoting energy conservation and effective use of resources in offices as well as enhancing the awareness of employees about the environment issues.

Reduction in Electricity Consumption

Lighting is turned off during lunchtime, OA machines are turned off when they are not used, and air-conditioners in offices are set at energy-saving temperatures (28ºC in summer and 20ºC in winter).

The electricity consumption in FY2006 remained almost unchanged from the previous fiscal year level at 93.7 million kWh as a result of the continued efforts.

Changes in Electricity Consumption in Offices

Reduction of Paper Purchase

In the Company, paper documents are converted to electronic formats as much as possible through the use of e-mail, electronic bulletin board system, electronic register, etc. Documents and printed matters are printed on both sides as much as possible to reduce the quantity of paper to be purchased.

Changes in Use of Purchased Paper and Collected Waste Paper

Sorted Collection of Waste Paper

Paper recycling has been continued through the sorted collection of OA paper, newspaper, brochures, etc.

Waste paper collected in FY2006 amounted to 925 tons (down 0.85% from the previous fiscal year).

Reduction in Non-Industrial Wastes

Garbage disposers are introduced in our corporate cafeteria of some offices and establishments. Each office or establishment also has made efforts to reduce its non-industrial wastes including office-wide efforts for sorting and recycling of mixed paper, etc.

Trial Introduction of Erasable Toner “e-blue”

An erasable toner named “e-blue” has been introduced mainly by the Environmental Affairs Department of the Head Office on a trial basis. To reduce OA paper usage, the backside and both sides of paper and reduced prints are used. If the erasable toner “e-blue” is used, characters and images once printed on paper can be erased, and paper can be repeatedly reused.

Reuse of OA paper with “e-blue” will be continued and expanded to other departments.

Development of Raw Garbage Disposer

In response to a growing move to recycle food wastes, Tohoku EPCo has developed a raw garbage disposer for business use, which decomposes and ferments (composts) raw garbage at low cost.

To realize low running cost, a conventional disposer is modified and improved. For energy conservation, its thermal insulation is reinforced, and the disposer is designed to agitate raw garbage intermittently.

Efforts to Reform Office Work

To quickly and flexibly cope with changes in competitive environment as an organization, Tohoku EPCo is promoting “Office Work Reforms” to improve productivity and speed up decision-making.

Under the Office Work Reforms, daily working styles are changed to effectively utilize IT tools for documentation and meeting operation by increasing the space for meetings and changing desktop PCs to easy-to-carry notebook computers on the assumption that wireless LAN is used in consideration of characteristics and realities of operations at each workplace.

Through such activities, Tohoku EPCo creates a workplace culture to realize speedy and flexible performance of operations in a competitive environment and aggressively react to changes in business conditions, and reforms the sense of employees. As a secondary effect, the number of copies is reduced, contributing to resource conservation, too.

Head Office's 3R.e Action Activities

The Head Office newly started “Head Office's 3R.e Action Activities” in the Head Office building to reinforce energy and resource conservation activities. These activities are aimed at achieving zero emission and thoroughly promoting environmental activities in offices, focusing on reduction in the quantity of paper to be purchased and consumptions of electricity and water.