Eco Action Day post event and award ceremony 2014

Singapore’s largest business-led environmental awareness campaign, Eco Action Day, recognized six commendable organizations for their sustainability efforts in making a difference for the environment this year.

The organizer, Ricoh Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, together with the supporting partners and supporters, participating organizations and the Eco Action Award winners, celebrated the achievements of the campaign at the Park Royal on Pickering today.

During the campaign review, Ms. Wong Yee Thing, Assistant Manager of Regional Environmental Management Group of Ricoh Asia Pacific announced the achievements of this year’s campaign.

Eco Action Day Awards took center stage at the post event ceremony. The award winners, each in its unique area, walked away with their well-deserved recognitions.

The list of the Award Winners is as follows:

• Most Creative Eco Award – BuildVision Consulting
• Most Inspiring Eco Award – Global India International School Queenstown
• Most Fun Eco Award – CHIJ Our Lady Queen of Peace
• Most Effort Eco Award – Orchid Park Secondary School
• Best Eco Practices Award – Keppel Land Limited
• Best Eco Practices Award (Merit) – Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS)

The Most Creative Eco Award winner, BuildVision Consulting, came out with its green movement in March, targeting at companies in the construction industry to perform four simple activities at their construction sites and offices. Justin Chew, Director of BuildVision Consulting said this, “Through “Saving our Planet is as easy as 0-1-2-3” green campaign, we hope to encourage more construction companies to be green leaders in sustainability, set good examples for others to follow suit and play a part in leading the Singapore’s construction industry into an even greener pasture”.

Global India International School Queenstown, who has walked away with the Most Inspiring Eco Award, has been playing an active role in environmental sustainability since 2009. The school has been engaging its students and promoting environmental awareness by organizing environmental carnival and competitions, launching e-learning waste management for the students and even incorporating environmental projects into the students’ academic performance review.

The school also initiated many outreach programmes to promote energy and resources conservation at community centres and residential areas. “Our team works very hard all year-round to take the green initiatives to a new level and to find innovative means to support environmental concerns. Being honoured with this prestigious award, our team is spurred to work harder,” said Mr Rajiv Vasudeva, Country Director (Singapore), GIIS.

The environmental club of CHIJ Our Lady Queen of Peace helped the school receive the Most Fun Eco Award this year by organizing the “Eco Puppets” event in conjunction with the Eco Action Day. Students were given toe socks to write their eco pledges and turn them into eco puppets. This activity encouraged students to recycle and reuse things that they use in their daily lives.

This event instilled the environmental values in the students and boosted the team-work spirit and knowledge transfer between the lower and higher primary school students. Tan-Lim Kim Gek, Principal of the school said, “We truly believe in providing opportunities for our pupils to lead and champion environmental conservation. Besides promoting sustainable development through our Science and Environment Education @ CHIJ – Our Lady Queen of Peace (SEE@OLQP), we have also collaborated with strategic partners and stakeholders so that our pupils are engaged in fun and meaningful green activities”.

The Most Effort Eco Award goes to Orchid Park Secondary School who has played a significant and active role in engaging their school mates and general public in promoting environmental awareness. A series of environmental activities took place throughout the year. From organizing green talks for the school students and handicraft workshops at library and old-folks home, to school-wide newspaper collection drive, each serves its unique objective to improve the environmental awareness.

Tree planting activities, eco garden learning tours and searshore ecology were also organized for the students to learn about biodiversity conservation. Shawal Bin Hussin, Principal of the school said, “The school emphasizes the message of being responsibility to the society and the environment through school–wide projects. This includes communicating the importance of caring for the environment and implementing good practices in environmental conservation. As part of its efforts, the school has put in place conservation measures, based on the key message of “Nurturing the Present, Sustaining the Future””.

Being recognized for its corporate direction towards sustainability, the Best Eco Practices Award winner, Keppel Land Limited, shared their views about environmental sustainability. “As environmental issues dominate global agendas, we recognized that going green is no longer an option but a necessity. Beyond responsibility, resource efficiency makes good business sense for companies and has a positive impact on our eco-system. For sustainability to work, we need to actively engage and involve all our stakeholders from our employees to contractors, homeowners and office tenants. Through our ongoing ‘Go Green with Keppel Land’ outreach efforts, we hope to influence and change mindsets, and ultimately, achieve sustainable outcomes for all our stakeholders.” said Mr. Ang Wee Gee, Chief Executive Officer of Keppel Land Limited.

The merit winner of the Best Eco Practices Award, Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS) first started its “green MDIS” initiatives in its on-campus hostel at Stirling in 2009, making it the first private educational institution in Singapore to do so.

Mr Chua Chen How, Assistant Secretary-General & Chairman of the Property Sub-Committee for MDIS said, “Not only has MDIS developed its buildings with all the eco-friendly hardware (such as solar panel roofs, etc), we have also taken pro-active steps to reduce use of energy and water in the campus. We have put our Green MDIS philosophy into practice on a daily basis and we reaped tremendous financial and social benefits from our sustainability efforts.

Towards the end of this year’s Eco Action Day Campaign, Mr. Nobuaki Majima, Managing Director of Ricoh Asia Pacific, applauded the record participation in the campaign, saying, “We are really delighted with the achievement, as it shows that more organizations are taking the green walk seriously and becoming more conscious that what they are doing will eventually impact the environment. Eco Action Day is not just about one organization or one person’s effort, and it is definitely not just about Ricoh. It is everyone’s effort and support that make this happen. Let us not just stop here. Let’s continue to sustain this move and spread the message across to more organizations and more people.”

For media enquiries, please contact Wong Yee Thing or Quah Geok Lan from the Eco Action Team at (65) 6830-5878 or info@ecoaction.sg.

| About Eco Action Day|

Every year, Ricoh, along with various supporting partners, engages its employees, customers, corporate neighbours and government organizations to rethink their action in the workplace, and take steps to reduce their impact on the environment.

Eco Action Day focuses on ways to conserve energy and resources within the office and beyond.

To date, more than 300 organisations, including multinational corporations, government agencies, private companies and tertiary institutions have participated in Eco Action Day. For further information, please visit www.ecoaction.sg

|About Ricoh|

Ricoh is a global technology company specializing in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services. Headquartered in Tokyo, Ricoh Group operates in about 200 countries and regions. In the financial year ending March 2014, Ricoh Group had worldwide sales of 2,236 billion yen (approx. 21.7 billion USD).

The majority of the company’s revenue comes from products, solutions and services that improve the interaction between people and information. Ricoh also produces award-winning digital cameras and specialized industrial products. It is known for the quality of its technology, the exceptional standard of its customer service and sustainability initiatives.

Under its corporate tagline, imagine. change. Ricoh helps companies transform the way they work and harness the collective imagination of their employees. For further information, please visit www.ricoh.com/about/